5punk

And I want a new computer, cos my 3 year old self built one is too noisy and getting a bit unreliable in it's old age. I really can't be arsed with building another one, and since I have a fairly well paid job at the moment I figured I'd just buy one off the shelf.

Obviously it must be able to run the equivalent of Crisis on max settings, but it must all run quietly and be reliable. And none of the all-in-one mobo crap (hello Dell) which prevents upgrades at a later date.

Price isn't really an issue. I've heard of Alienware, any other well-known OTS brands?

And as an added incentive, my old box and bits will be sitting in Ealing if anyone nearby wants to grab them. I'll post some specs later, but there's a 8800GTX, some RAM and other bits and bobs people might be interested in.

I suspect you pay a lot for the name with an Alienware. It's more something to show off with at LAN parties. Rock rings a bell as a decent make, but I'm no expert on pre-built systems (in fact, I'm no expert on hardware) so one of the tech sorts will probably put me straight before long.

Alienware are stupidly overpriced. Most regular manufacturers have a customise button, where you can specify exactly what you want, but they build it for you. The 'What to buy' thread in news had some good examples of high/medium/low range components.
http://www.5punk.co.uk/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=32023

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Alienware/Voodoo/ are a waste of money imo, yes they will put lights in fancy places or paint your case in any garish scheme you want, for a few grand. but the stuff inside isn't majical. Best value pre-builds are places like ocuk. mesh computers aren't too bad as long as you spend the time customising your order.

If you're feeling silly rich then maybe look at nehalem/i7 pre-builds at ocuk?

The Ultima Extreme Accelerator set up looks to offer ridiculous speed but not too much crap tagged on to bump the price.

If you want 24"+ tft's then you're looking at the ATi 4870x2 at the moment, but I can see both sides aiming to release new high end cards soon.

I really would give it a month or two until prices drop a bit and there's more choice.

The BFG OC GTX 280's have just price-dropped by £90, the day after I bought one :S so the new lot of cards should be along soon - I think I saw 8th Jan somewhere.

Ouch. I'd return it and then re-order at the new price for £90.

HereComesPete wrote:I really would give it a month or two until prices drop a bit and there's more choice.

Is it me or does this get said every time someone asks for hardware advice?

.

Dog Pants wrote:
Is it me or does this get said every time someone asks for hardware advice?

Recently yes, but there's been a bit of a pissing competition over the past year.

Company X releases product A, company Y does a press release talking about product B which is speculated to be better than product A. Wait till both are out for a head to head, winner gets a month or two grace before loser goes and does a press release about a new product that'll be better than the winner.
Rinse and repeat.

Moore's law in effect, which has expanded from CPU's to incorporate GPU's now.

That. The impending stagnation with existing cpu technology lead people to look back at old designs with new technology, suddenly we get nehalem and it's really silly fast. The new i7 stuff and the mobo's ram etc that go with it are pricey but will last, that market is due the phenom II and the fighting they will bring.

The card market really is jumping about right now, good products from both sides, each having the best card for different people and different set ups. I think even the end of this month will seem very different to now.

Of course it's generally the case that you buy something, then it gets dropped in price very soon afterwards and it's a kick to the balls. It's happening a lot faster and is harder to gauge at the moment hence my caution on just going out and buying stuff.

friznit wrote:Obviously it must be able to run the equivalent of Crisis on max settings

I'm sorry dave, that can't be done.

Really, ignore that idea.

Dog Pants wrote:Is it me or does this get said every time someone asks for hardware advice?

Often, but the GPU market has been moving fast recently, CPUs less so, and nehalem has been floating ahead looking menacing.


On the subject of actual machines, I'd agree with the ocuk prebuilds, They're pretty close to proper machines, but with that you do still have some risk of shit not quite working (I've no experience with OCUK machines, but I doubt they're as solid as a dell etc)

I'm very happy with the Cyber PC I bought off of newegg, runs everything decently and only paid about $500 for it sans monitor.

Don't, dontdontdontdontdont buy alienware, they are overpriced crap boxes. I've owned one and had nothing but problems with it. It arrived 2 months late, it advertised USB 2.0, only the MB does not support usb, alienware's solution, I go and buy a card. I finally get them to send me one, they send a sata controller. After sending it back 2x and getting a new sata card back I sold it for $20 and bought a usb card. And to make matters worse, arent they owned by Dell now too?

Akiakaiu wrote:And to make matters worse, arent they owned by Dell now too?

They are, which is kinda good, because at least you have a massive company there for support.

Voodoo are owned by HP now too.

friznit wrote: And as an added incentive, my old box and bits will be sitting in Ealing if anyone nearby wants to grab them. I'll post some specs later, but there's a 8800GTX, some RAM and other bits and bobs people might be interested in.

Given the average age of the bits in my PC, you can colour me interested in this. What RAM/mobo/CPU do you have?

Why Ealing?
thats near me, or was near me. Are you local?

The first/cheapest i7 system on ocuk seems pretty good, and it's not as silly priced as alien wares

Stuff worth knowing:

Apparently x58 chipsets without the NF200 are faster at SLI than those with it, so avoid those.

Also, the gtx285 is about 10 days out, maybe 2 weeks for decent supply, probably worth waiting for, should be a bit faster and cooler than a gtx280

OK I think I just terminally fucked my main machine, so it's definitely time to buy a new one. Having poked around some of the above suggestions I think OCUK looks a good bet, and I still like the look of this one:

Ultimate Extreme Accel

The important bits are:

- Intel Core i7 920 2.66Ghz Nehalem
- Asus P6T Deluxe "OC Palm Edition" Intel X58 Mobo
- Kingston 6GB PC3-14400C8
- GeForce GTX 285 1024MB
- Corsair TX 650W ATX2.2 SLI Compliant PSU
- Antec 900 Case
- Fista 64 bit Home Premium
- 2 x Dell UltraSharp 2209WA 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor

Comments? I don't see a soundcard mentioned, do I need to get a separate one?

From a google search:

This motherboard provides 7.1 independent analog audio outputs, which is great (even though Intel DX58SO has also 7.1 audio, it only offers 5.1 analog audio outputs). It also features on-board coaxial and optical SPDIF outputs (Intel DX58SO has only optical SPDIF out).