New Rig Help

[Thanato]

I am thinking of getting a new rig, as the one I have now is over 4 years old.

I want it to be a gamming rig under $2500 CAD, so any help will be dandy.

~Thanato

[Edub]

If you know how to build it. That will save you a lot of money.

[OliverMarshall]

I ahve a Alienware and it's great when it works but when it doesn't, techinical support sucks so I recommend not getting a specialist but rather getting one from a larger company who have just as good computers like Dell, who have recently bought Alienware anyway.

So if you want a desktop:http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xpsdt_700?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/cto_xpsdt_700?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

or a laptop (I recommend a laptop since its easier):http://www.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/xpsnb?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&~ck=bt

[DavidUpton]

Bought all my parts and had it put together by someone else.

It works.

[Katulobotomia]

Bought all my parts and had it put together by someone else.

It works.
Oh man building a comp by your self with absolutely no experience is a pain in the ass. I bought an AMD 64-bit 3500+ CPU, ASUS A8V-Deluxe motherboard, ATI X850 XT VC and 2 gigs of RAM (PC 3200). The first time I tried to put all together everything didnt seem fit, and then had installed the wires wrong which resulted in sparks and smoke after the comp was turned on :D. Then I couldnt get the heatsink to fit on the CPU so I had to almost stand on top of it to make it go all the way in :D I just wonder how am I going to survive the next major upgrade. I am thinking of getting an dual-processor and a new VC with DX 10 support with Shader model 4 and all the glory. And I have to switch to PCI-E from VGA, because no one told me that VGA is going out of date (-_-) great motherboard but I cant use it too long anymore.

[Rapishorrid]

Definitely build your own. Far cheaper than anything else you could do. I built my computer for around $500 whereas if I had bought the same spec machine from Alienware or something it probably would've been over double that price.

But if you're really willing to spend that much (its about $2200 right?) then you can build yourself a monster of a rig. If I were you I would go AMD, Nvidia (possibly the7950GX2), 2 gigs of ram (don't bother getting expensive ram if you're not going to overclock, as they are all the same stock). Or maybe cut down on some and get a water cooling system to overclock instead. Or possibly no overclocking and just spend the extra money on a PhysX card. The options are endless until you make the decision of brands and sockets etc.

[Lozza]

I can most definitely help, PM me if you want any info.


they are all the same stock

No, they usually have lower timings.


extra money on a PhysX card

A waste of money at this point, (newer revisions from ageia soon?) and a wider selection by Nvidia/ATI will be released next year sometime. I predict any ATI card will be able to be plugged into a third PCI-E slot (they have asked them to be implemented in future boards). The same goes for nvidia, but things may change. Not enough games out at the moment, and the beneifits are relatively pointless (a few particles in ghost recon for a 20fps drop, wow). By the way, a good graphics card is not going to be any good unless you have the moniter to run it, what you got at the moment?

First time build or not?

(Please don't get Dell or Alienware)

[{TLC}Corporal_Jigsore]

lol i buy all my parts from mainland europe now because the taxes are much less than england! and because i know a courier i get free travel :D

i built all 3 of my pcs most of which were medium budget ones (i threw one away because it was old however lol) but i am currently saving for a high spec one of around £700-£900 but trying to get that much money when ure 15 isnt exactly easy because u always spend it on something else! lol i have £343 so far i hope to get it by the end of august :p


if u wanna go extreme u can always try this!

Your DIY 4 GHz Dual Core Gaming Rig For €600
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2006/06/12/your_diy_gaming_rig_for_720_uk/

[Lozza]

Did you see how much voltage they were putting through that 805?! How long do they expect it to live for? 6 months? Insane fools... Tom's hardware always seems a bit iffy to me, no matter how professionally they present it.

Overclocking is good if you have money, some people learn the hard way when the suicide run FX60's on LN.

[Rapishorrid]

No, they usually have lower timings.

Yes, obviously they have differences (otherwise how would they justify a price difference?) but what I mean is those lower timings don't translate into performance benefits. However they do allow for far better overclocking, which of course would be a performance increase... if you're willing to OC your machine.

And yes the PhysX card is generally a bad choice at this time, but it was just an option to put out there since this is the 1944 forum and 1944 is utilizing that technology.



(Please don't get Dell or Alienware)

Even if you don't listen to anything in this thread... PLEASE listen to that! :D

And Lozza is right about the monitor, you should check out your situation there. You also have to take into account your harddrives, you don't want to be bottlenecked on something as simple as that. You just have to make some decisions, like I said before... what socket CPU and GPU, which then can limit your mobo choice. Then decid what type of harddrive (probably go SATA if I were you) which limits it more, plus memory and all of that... and eventually you should have a pretty good idea of what you should get.


And surprised noone asked yet but, what are you going to be using this comp for?

Also, if you've never built a computer before I can reccomend a few places to go for information and/or help.

http://forums.anandtech.com/ - The Anandtech forums are a great and friendly place to ask questions and learn about all you need to know for building your rig.

http://www.tech-forums.net/ - Where I first learnt about computers. I knew absolutely NOTHING, went there and after a little while of reading, posting etc I built my rig (that I have now) from scratch.

[Lozza]

Sorry that i'm being a bit of a smartarse here, but timings do actually offer performance benefits, especially in the video editing world, but he's using it for gaming anyway I think. 2gb of cheapo stuff should do fine I reckon.

And to add to the website list:

http://www.overclock.net
http://sg.vr-zone.com
http://www.techpowerup.com

are fantastic websites.

[Volvulus]

A pretty good article from gamespot http://www.gamespot.com/features/6153327/index.html . Hope it will answer some questions with graphics card:D