Need a New PC

[thealmighty]

Looked up the last thread and it didn't contain the information I need, so here I am.

I have a 5 year old Dell XPS which has been a great machine for me-never once had any trouble in the five years I've had it. I still play WoW on it (albeit on low settings) but I can't play any games that are built for newer machines...and I want to.

What I would like to know is what to look for. I'm not a computer guy, so not into building one. I was looking at Dells but just don't have knowledge of what I should look to get in terms of:

• i5 (from last thread I read, this is the way to go), what speed?
• 8gigs RAM or 12? DDR/DDm/DDT, whatwhat?
• video card (I especially know nothing about these)
• monitor-21.5"?22? All the letters that come after that tell you stuff I have no idea what they mean?
• sound card, surround 5.1/7.1? Saw Bose with 2 big looking speakers, too?
• whatever else I don't know enough to ask about

I have up to about $1500, give or take, and want something for internet and gaming (not badass hardCoRe, but still...)?

Thanks for your help.

[Sun Tzu]

Well...lets start with your plans for the PC. What games do you want to play? How often do you play? How important are frame-rates/jaggies etc? Do you want to watch Blu-Rays on it? Just give a full run down of what you'd like this rig to be able to do.

[Groundhog]

$1500 should get you a pretty damn good PC.

I bought a new PC a few months ago, built it myself but if you buy all the parts from the same place they'll probably put it together for you for free or for a small charge. Even a few years back when I didn't have the nerve to build a PC myself, I always bought the parts and had it assembled rather than buying a packaged PC.

I spent around $1000AU ($875US) excl. the monitor, and consider it pretty top of the line - all games I've tried I've run on max graphics with no issues (Mass Effect/NBA 2K10/Dragon Age).

I got the i7 970 which is pretty extreme. The i5 is a good chip too.

RAM is cheap, but if you're not running x64 Windows 7, there is no point having more than 3 gigs as the OS can't use it. I've got 6 gigs right now, and that's proven more than enough. DDR3 is the RAM you want, assuming your motherboard supports it (it should these days).

Video cards are probably the one component that I know next to nothing about. I spent $250AU on a card (can't recall the model off the top of my head) based on the recommendation of the guy at the store I always use, and as I said above, it works beautifully. You could spend less and still get a quality card though.

Monitors come down to brands and size preference. Bigger isn't always better IMO, because of how close you sit to it. My monitor (a cheap brand, but one of the few monitors available a few years ago that was compatible with my xbox 360) is a 22" HD and I don't think I'd want to go much bigger.

As for sound, depends how fussy you are. You can just use the motherboard's onboard sound with some cheap stereo speakers, or shell out cash for a soundcard and quality speaker setup. You can spend quite a bit of money here if you really want.

[thealmighty]

Originally Posted by Sun Tzu

Well...lets start with your plans for the PC. What games do you want to play? How often do you play? How important are frame-rates/jaggies etc? Do you want to watch Blu-Rays on it? Just give a full run down of what you'd like this rig to be able to do.

I want to be able to play WoW or AoC mmo games with high-end, beautiful graphics set to on. Also newer games like Dragon Age; maybe even FM with lots of leagues playable. Frame rates in mmo games is important but no idea what a jaggie is.

I watch DVD movies on the one I have and have had no problem doing so but never had a blu-ray. Also, I don't do any editing of videos or whathaveyou, if that matters.

Oh, and I play ALL the time, as in way to damn much. More than I should, especially as one of the old farts (yes, older than Bucc). Never got around to the whole 'matyrity' thing.

[Desnudo]

Originally Posted by thealmighty

Looked up the last thread and it didn't contain the information I need, so here I am.

I have a 5 year old Dell XPS which has been a great machine for me-never once had any trouble in the five years I've had it. I still play WoW on it (albeit on low settings) but I can't play any games that are built for newer machines...and I want to.

What I would like to know is what to look for. I'm not a computer guy, so not into building one. I was looking at Dells but just don't have knowledge of what I should look to get in terms of:

• i5 (from last thread I read, this is the way to go), what speed?
• 8gigs RAM or 12? DDR/DDm/DDT, whatwhat?
• video card (I especially know nothing about these)
• monitor-21.5"?22? All the letters that come after that tell you stuff I have no idea what they mean?
• sound card, surround 5.1/7.1? Saw Bose with 2 big looking speakers, too?
• whatever else I don't know enough to ask about

I have up to about $1500, give or take, and want something for internet and gaming (not badass hardCoRe, but still...)?

Thanks for your help.

I work on a product team with a huge pc lab and a bunch of geeks. Some additional things to consider:

If you're concerned mainly with gaming and graphical performance:

-SSD hard drive to minimize load times
-You can now daisy chain video cards. Buy a card and a motherboard that supports dual+ cards, even if you only buy one today
- 3D, does this matter? It's something that's probably going to be fairly prominent over the next few years.
- Cooling - this impacts performance more than you think, even if you have AC
- Overclocking, safe and fairly easy to get done from a smaller builder
- Get a fresh install of Windows 7 without all the crapware and OEM preloads

[Passacaglia]

Hey cool, I'm in a similar situation. We've been using a laptop for a while, but we got a new desk, so it'd be nice to get a desktop. I don't play many games on it -- although I'd like for Football Manager to run better then it does on my laptop (i.e. without slowing everything down), and I know I'll want to play the new Civ game when it comes out.

[chesapeake]

I built a new pc after my last one died 3 months ago. I used an i5 750 (2.66 GHz) and have been very pleased with the performance so far.

[Passacaglia]

Anyone have opinions about intel processors vs. AMD? I'm looking at some Dell computers, one with an AMD Athlon II x4, one with an i5.

[weegeebored]

Since the release of v2 of Intel's dual-core procs they have handed AMD their proverbial hats each and every generation of new CPUs. Look at every benchmark and you'll find this to be true. Unless you are getting a spectacular price on an AMD machine stick with Intel.

[MrBug708]

Is the i3 that outdated now?

[Passacaglia]

Here's a few I'm looking at on Dell's outlet site. Anyone have any experience with that?

* Studio 540 Mini-Tower: Intel Core 2 Quad processor Q9400 (6MB L2, 2.66GHz, 1333FSB)
* Genuine Windows 7 Professional
* 640 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200 RPM)
* 8 GB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz (4 DIMMs)
* 6X Blu-ray (DVD+/-RW + BD-ROM)
* 1024MB nVidia GeForce GTS 240
Price -- 819

* Studio XPS 8100 Desktop
* Processor: Intel Core i5-750 Processor (8MB Cache, 2.66GHz)
* Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium
* 1 TB SATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM)
* 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz (4 DIMMs)
* 16X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability
* 512MB NVIDIA GeForce G310 DDR3

Price -- 699

* Studio XPS 8100 Desktop
* Processor: Intel Core i7-860 Processor (8MB Cache, 2.80GHz)
* Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium
* 1.5 TB SATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM)
* 16X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability
* 512MB NVIDIA GeForce G310 DDR3

No mention of memory?
Price -- 1159

* Studio XPS - 435 Tower
* Processor: Intel Core i7-920 Processor (8MB L3 Cache, 1MB L2 Cache, 2.66GHz)
* Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium
* 750 GB SATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM)
* 8 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz (4 DIMMs)
* 16X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability
* 512MB NVIDIA GeForce G310 DDR3

Price -- 789

[weegeebored]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

Is the i3 that outdated now?

Not outdated as it is essentially the same generation as the i5 and i7. It's just the budget version with some differences like an integrated graphics processor and no turbo boost. Basically a slower CPU.