New Rig (PC) Vendor recommendations needed

Gamers,

1000 dollar budget?

I really would recommend building it yourself. I mean it takes like 30 minutes to put everything together. That way you can ensure the quality of the parts your installing.

The problem with these gaming specific brands (Dell's XPS line, Alienware, VooDoo, etc.) is that they're extremely expensive.

For $1000, it'll be hard to find a good gaming rig that doesn't rip you off. Your best bet is Dell though since they have these coupons that take like 30% off and stuff.

yeah but those coupons never apply to XPSs, and the new vostra's never seem to want to put any real highend gfx in their systems so I think he's going to be paying for it regardless. but if you are willing to spend money on dell, give HP a look. HPs are actually built better.

but man, w/ leopard coming out I would even give the new imacs a glance and just run bootcamp.

If you don't want to build the entire thing, you can still buy a nice and powerfully machine w/o a monitor for $800 and then buy an awesome graphics card for $200.

Installing a graphics card is as easy as inserting any PCI card (network, wireless, sound...) and installing a driver.

It's so easy, a caveman could do it.

Thanks for the suggestions. I like the idea of getting a stock 2.66 box and upgrading the graphics card myself. Regardless of vendor, wouldn't I need a beefier power supply than stock, especially if I were looking at a 8600 card?

Thanks

The cheapest Refurb XPS from Dell - $2K


XPS 720
(System Identifier: 0GRJ1Z95)

* XPS 720 Tower: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (8MB L2 Cache,2.93GHz Factory overclock) Black Chassis
* Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium

System Price : $1,949.00

Operating System
Genuine Windows Vista Home PremiumMemory
4 GB Corsair Dominator DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz OC'd to 1066MHz (4 DIMMs)Floppy Drive
No Floppy DriveHard Disk Drive
320 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)Video
256MB Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTSSound Card
Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer (D) Sound CardMedia Bay
16X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capabilityCertified Refurbished
Certified RefurbishedBase
XPS 720 Tower: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (8MB L2 Cache,2.93GHz Factory overclock) Black ChassisSoftware Upgrade
BIN + 1 Overclock
Microsoft Works 8.5Hardware Upgrade
USB Keyboard
Dell Optical USB 2-button Mouse


For comparison if I built it myself, roughly
Case $65
PSU -(~500W) $150
Mobo - (ABIT P35) $180
RAM - (4x 1GB Patriot 800Mhz) $180
HD -(WD 150GB 10000rpm) $185
Sound -(Soundblaster X-Fi) $80
Video - (8600GT 256MB) $130
CPU - (Intel core 2 quad Q6700 2.66Ghz) $540
Media -(Lite-on 20x DVD +_R) $40
OS - (MS XP Pro) $140
NIC - (10/100) $20
Keyboard/Mouse $30
TOTAL $1740

The difference is $250 - Not worth the risk of getting everything working properly. Plus the Dell is overclocked.

It's also 2x my budget.

What am I missing here?

http://www.ibuypower.com/ibp/store/configurator.aspx?mid=119

Any case (whatever looks cool)
500W power supply (if you want. 420W should do fine)
E6750 2.66Ghz Dual Core CPU (quad core is fast but it'll be a while before any games use it. And that money would be much better spent on a video card)
Base motherboard is fine (unless you want SLI or firewire)
2GB of quality RAM (Corsair Value is fine)
7300LE 256 (you'll be upgrading this anyway)
320GB HDD (make sure you get one with 16MB cache)
The special on DVD drive will work great.
pick and chose what you want with mouse, keybaord, and speakers.

Comes out to $777 for me.

Just buy an 8600GTs for under $200. And a nice keyboard/mouse setup.

why on earth must you go so expensive, if you put in a q6600 it costs half the price and keeps you cutting edge without cutting up your wallet. Also a lot of your prices look slightly inflated.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Silly Question, Assuming I'm going to swap out the stock Vcard how can I be sure the new card will fit in the case I choose? Other posts indicated the huge size of the newer cards poses challanges. Can I assume that if the card is offered as an option on the case that it'll fit?

EVGA 512-P2-N773-AR GeForce 8600GTS 512MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

Lastly, SLI? Don't really need to worry about that?

SLI is an advance option. If you want it then you'll need to plan ahead, if you don't want it then don't worry about it. Something that works with SLI (video card, motherboard, and power supply) will still work in single card mode.

Most of the cases at ibuypower are gaming cases, designed for video cards. Some of the smaller cases may have a problem with big cards but anything less than a 8800GTX or HD2900XT should fit fine. (including all 8600 cards)

I'm looking to put a EVGA GeForce 8800GT into a new box that's mother board is:
Asus P5KPL-VM Intel G31 Chipset w/6-channels, Gb LAN, S-ATA 3Gb/s, USB 2.0, Single PCI-E MB

The 8800GT says it's: PCI Express 2.0

How can I be sure that the 8800GT will work w/ this mobo? The mobo specs don't sapecifially say PCIE 2.0.

It says:
Expansion Slots
PCI Express x16 1
PCI Express x1 1
PCI Slots 2

For $35 extra I can get this mobo:
Asus P5N-E SLI nForce® 650i SLI Chipset w/6-channel CODEC, Gb LAN, S-ATA Raid, USB 2.0, IEEE-1394 Dual PCI-E MB

Expansion Slots
PCI Express x16 2 (SLI mode: x8, x8)
PCI Express x1 1
PCI Slots 2

But I don't need that If I'm not going SLI?


TIA

The 8800GT is backward compatible with most (if not all) PCI-E x16 slots. I'm not sure if there are some older PCI-E slots that won't work but G31 chipset is fairly new so it should work.

I believe that the 8800gt will be bottlenecked on PCI-e 1.0. This is just what I read so I'm not too sure but sounds pretty correct to me.

[quote name='dragonsho']I believe that the 8800gt will be bottlenecked on PCI-e 1.0. This is just what I read so I'm not too sure but sounds pretty correct to me.[/quote]

I doubt it. Most cards now can't even fully utilize 100% of the bandwith. If anything is going to bottleneck the card, it's going to be the CPU and RAM.

[quote name='Cosmo-kicka$$']The cheapest Refurb XPS from Dell - $2K


XPS 720
(System Identifier: 0GRJ1Z95)

* XPS 720 Tower: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (8MB L2 Cache,2.93GHz Factory overclock) Black Chassis
* Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium

System Price : $1,949.00

Operating System
Genuine Windows Vista Home PremiumMemory
4 GB Corsair Dominator DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz OC'd to 1066MHz (4 DIMMs)Floppy Drive
No Floppy DriveHard Disk Drive
320 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)Video
256MB Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTSSound Card
Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer (D) Sound CardMedia Bay
16X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capabilityCertified Refurbished
Certified RefurbishedBase
XPS 720 Tower: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (8MB L2 Cache,2.93GHz Factory overclock) Black ChassisSoftware Upgrade
BIN + 1 Overclock
Microsoft Works 8.5Hardware Upgrade
USB Keyboard
Dell Optical USB 2-button Mouse


For comparison if I built it myself, roughly
Case $65
PSU -(~500W) $150
Mobo - (ABIT P35) $180
RAM - (4x 1GB Patriot 800Mhz) $180
HD -(WD 150GB 10000rpm) $185
Sound -(Soundblaster X-Fi) $80
Video - (8600GT 256MB) $130
CPU - (Intel core 2 quad Q6700 2.66Ghz) $540
Media -(Lite-on 20x DVD +_R) $40
OS - (MS XP Pro) $140
NIC - (10/100) $20
Keyboard/Mouse $30
TOTAL $1740

The difference is $250 - Not worth the risk of getting everything working properly. Plus the Dell is overclocked.

It's also 2x my budget.

What am I missing here?[/QUOTE]

It looks like you're going with MSRP of all those parts. You don't have to pay MSRP.

ou can get 2gb of Patriot RAM (your chosen brand) for $30, making two gigs $60, which is $120 below your listed RAM price.

I got a 550w Antec TruePower PSU yesterday for $60, which is $90 below your listed PSU price.

You can get a much cheaper (by ~$50) mobo and not lose anything.

Any ~100+ mobo will have very good onboard networking, you won't need a NIC unless you want it for the wifi or gigabit networking -- getting a 10/100 card is redundant with whatever mobo you choose.

The Dell doesn't have a 10,000 RPM hard drive, so it's unfair to compare it to a build that does. Also, two 7,000 RPM hard drives in RAID 0 will give you comparable performance for less $. But anyway, a 7,000 RPM 320gb drive like the one in the dell is $90, so a system savings of $95.

That alone is $375 of additional savings. A very huge difference.

You forgot with building a box you get good warranties. 3 years for the CPU, 1 year for the motherboard, lifetime on the RAM and 3-5 years on the the HDD. If anything goes wrong with your box it is an easy RMA or a cheap fix and you know the quality of your components. The cheapest of the cheap parts are on par if not better quality than most big box components.

To get any warranty like that from a big box maker it will cost you... I'm a DIY kinda of guy and building a PC is a good Saturday project. 95% of the time everything goes smooth as cake.

Just remember you don't have to go all ape shit when building your PC and put 10,000 RPM HDD, DDR3 RAM, $250 motherboards or quad core CPU. Leave those parts to the ones with more money than sense and go for bang for the buck. If i cost $XX for very marginal gain most of the time it isn't worth it for the casual PC gamer.

Thanks for your help everyone. I made a decision on the buy vs build and ultimately went with an Ibuypower rig with some personal customizations. I opted to get the cheapest GPU they offer and ordered the 8800GT. I did upgrade the PS just to be safe. I'm DIY the additional RAM myself and re-using some HD and CD drives I already have.

Thanks for the suggestions from everyone on this thread. My 11 year old is stoked and thinks he'll have the best rig of any kid in town. It was a good experience for him to sit w/ me and go over every component and cross check the stats and prices.

In a few yrs, when he's ready for a new box, he can build one himself.

Thanks again