Buying new computer (This time for real)

[MrH2o]

Ok ok I've been talking about a new computer since the beginning of the summer but since playing TF2 and seen HL: EP2 screens and vids (and Crysis too) I realise that I want to play it "the way its meant to be played".

The last two computers I've bought was from smaller companys and I've having a hard time with overheating and noise.

I'm thinking of order a built one from a company who knows what they doing since I'm tired of all problem I prolly would encounter otherwise.

I know that Dell might not be the cheapest of them all but thier rigs are built for gamers and looks like it could settles my needs.

This is the computer I've been looking at so far

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/3x_dt_cat3?c=se&cs=sedhs1&l=sv&s=dhs&redirect=1 (The site´s in Swedish but its the one to the far right).

I dont know how to compare price on a fair way but if you just convert the amount to US dollars it ends on 2,862.69 USD. Is this a fair price? (Note that it exlude the 22 inch screen)

Many of you have told me "Build it yourself" but then you have to know exactly what you want + you have to know about fans and electricity + you have to install everything yourself. So I rather pay some extra to get the work done (not to much tho).

So what do you guys suggests? It looks like a solid rig to me.

Thanks for the help.

[JamesL]

Take the time to learn how to build a PC yourself mate. It's really not very hard and you will save a truckload of cash and get a better machine.

You can pick up matched bundles; motherboard, ram & cpu from many good suppliers and simply add a power supply, case, HDD & gfx card of your choice to this. Et voila, kickass PC for considerably less cash.

[Zacker]

2,862.69 USD is way too much to pay for a computer these days imo. You can easily cut 1000$ of that price and still get a kickass machine.

[Thrik]

I think if he wants to avoid the hassle and pay more that's fair enough. I've been building them for years and it still takes me quite a while and a fair bit of stress to get a new one going, including the new one I built a few months ago.

I think that system looks more than adequate H2O. It's essentially the same as mine, and mine floors pretty much any game you throw at it. The only major difference is that it's a quad core at 2.4GHz, while mine is a dual core.

It's worth pointing out that at the moment, multiple cores still aren't used that widely in games; indeed, even Team Fortress 2 uses just one of them. This isn't much of an issue as a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 is still one serious beast, but worth noting.

I wouldn't really advise going for the other computers on that page though as they come with much less powerful graphics cards.

Another thing to consider is that new GeForce cards will almost certainly be coming out before Christmas, replacing the 8800 GTX as the most powerful card. It could be as early as November when they appear, so it's something worth considering.

[MrH2o]

Thanks for the advice guys! means alot.

The think about bundles JamesL mention sounds attractive, still the noise and overheat is the problem I've encounter mostly so far and I would like to reduse it, and I guess its not as easy as just buy alot of fans and throw them in, cause you gotto know how much power you need to have.

I've changed graphicscard, networkscard and added ram to computers so Im not all new to the interior and maybe I do a bigger scene then what it is.

Thrik, you said your is dual core and the one i suggested was quad (3) right? I've always looked how many megahurtz ( :roll: ) a computer have as a guidline how powerful it is, but with 2 cores with 2.4Ghz that means that basicly its a 4,8ghz?

You also mention that no games uses more then one core as it is now. I thought the new HL ep used one of the core to do the destruction but maybe im missinformed, whats so good with 2 cores if no games use it btw?

Another question is if i shall go for Vista with its full dx10glory or if i shall stay with the old and "safe" XP?

I wont need to buy a gfx card since I won a 8800GTX that I havent even touched

[Thrik]

It basically works like that, yes. If a game is properly coded to use multiple cores, it simultaneously gives each core processing to do, which as long as it's written well can as much as double the performance. What it can't do is just add both cores together to give you 4.8GHz; games have to be specially coded to delegate the tasks to each core. A quad core is four cores, so a game that uses all four cores would run massively faster than one just using a single core.

Games are using multiple cores a lot more, though. Games on the newest Unreal engine such as BioShock use multiple cores, the upcoming CryEngine will as far as I'm aware, and most other engine developers are realising it's something they need to include.

Valve are actually implementing multi-core support within a month as Orange Box is also coming out on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, both of which have multiple cores. By the time the game is released properly you should get your money's worth with those cores. About a year ago the state of multi-core gaming was pretty poor. It is rapidly getting better, though. I'm sure a lot of games will make use of your quad core and that it'll last a long time.

As for Vista, at this exact moment there's not much incentive to use it, but the drivers have gotten so good now that you're not really going to lose a significant amount of performance or image quality by using it instead of XP (when Vista first came out the drivers were terrible).

It's probably worth getting used to Vista though as eventually games will start to be very much impaired without DirectX 10 (Crysis is one game that has a lot of stuff missing from its DirectX 9 version, including a real-time day/night cycle).

At the moment where in a long changeover period where games support both DirectX 9 and DirectX 10 pretty much equally; however, just like with past versions of DirectX, DirectX 9 will slowly be phased out and eventually become vastly inferior to the DirectX 10 mode in games, if it's even supported at all. Might as well get ready for that in advance instead of having to scramble when it does actually happen.

[NormySan]

Where do you live? I could give you some advice on what parts to get from a online computer store where you live.

DELL has good computers, but the choices they give you while configuring is crap imo.

Edit: You're from sweden? So am i if that's the case, you should buy a computer from komplett.se or datorbutiken.se and then build it yourself, they do have som packages to that are way more worth the money than the dell computers.

I would not use Vista, i would wait and upgrade to it when the dx10 games actually comes out, i've noticed a very big different in dx9 games when i changed back to XP from Vista.

Edit 2: I put together a little something from komplett, it's got almost everyhing exept the gfx card, mouse, keyboard and speakers.

http://www.komplett.se/k/shoplist.aspx? ... 76DCC3314A

[MrH2o]

Thanks Normy, that looks like a good rigg, I like the chassi alot .

Have you any experience in building computers? Whats with the Duo core and not quad? and what do you other guys think of this? Anything missing ? It sounds risky just to buy stuff like that so more opinions would be helpfull

edit: I have mouse, speakers and monitor that I'm happy with. I pretty much use my comp for playing, handeling all my photos (big files) and fiddling with Photoshop & Illustrator.

[Thrik]

Crysis is coming out in just a couple of months NormySan and the demo is due within days, so we're pretty much at that point now. Unlike past DirectX 10 titles such as BioShock, Crysis will be inhibited when running on DirectX 9.

With drivers having reduced the XP/Vista fps divide to an almost negligible amount, there's really not much to lose. There's just not much to gain either until games like Crysis come out.

[NormySan]

Yeah you are right, it's closer than i thought

I concider quad core to be more of an "e-penis" thing. I have no proof to back this up but i do think that the majority of games coming out atm won't have support for quad core but i could be wrong.

You can get a quad for about 700 SEK extra, but the speed is a tad bit slower on each core.

Or you could go for this if you want a faster dual core.

[Zacker]

Most games are still only beginning to make good use of 2 cores, so a quad core is definitely not of much use today except for enlargement of a certain body part. They are not that much more expensive though and they will for sure be used in the future, so if you got the money to spend, then it won't hurt.

[Skjalg]

You guys are forgetting that windows has support for quad cores, so that means I can listen to music while having 3d studio max, photoshop, firefox with loads of tabs, opera and internet explorer up with the same tabs, and run world in conflict on max settings at the same time...

..-And then start a compile which will, even now, take 10x less time than my previous cpu (amd xp 3000+).

Suck on that.

[MrH2o]

Will it feels wich core to use or do I have to change any settings?

I want to know what you guys thinks of the rig NormySan showed.

and NormySan do you have any experience of building or did you just throw some stuff togheter in that shoplist?

[NormySan]

I have built most of my friends computers and i've built the one i'm currently using. I put that one together pretty quick but it's good quality parts and the airflow in that case is good.

And with windows supporting many cores i can't relly say that it does it well.

[MrH2o]

Ok, I will seriously consider it when Im back from my vacation then, I'll pm you