Discussion Forums > Technology
Need help choosing a new desktop
datora:
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As kitamesume pointed out, this tech forum has several excellent topics on building systems. There is a lot of detailed discussion about parts and their capabilities ... discussions that would help you very much in evaluating pre-built systems, also.
So, urgently advise you to use the Search function. If you click on it without entering anything, you will be asked "Did you forget to put something to search for?" and offered the option for Advanced Search, which is powerful. You can search only the Tech forum, for example.
Beyond that, I will always recommend that people build their own desktop. You get the best value for your money, and what you learn by doing it will make you a very literate user, someone who is in control of their system and won't have to helplessly take it in for simple problems and get gouged on service fees.
That's your decision. Building is not horribly complicated so long as you learn basics and are careful & methodical; there is plenty of help here to get you pointed in the right directions, and you can search youtube for videos that will show & explain in detail everything you'll need to know.
So first questions: is your budget for the computer "box" only, or does it need to include the monitor, keyboard & Mouse?
$1000 is very, very generous to build a fairly l337s rig for most gaming if it's for the box only. If you need to reserve $250 or $350 for a fairly high-end monitor, then the budget starts to get tight, but you can still do a hell of a lot for $700 or $800 on the box.
Consider that you will start off with 8 GB of decent RAM. You will not need more to start, and you can budget an upgrade for "down the road" if/when it becomes critical.
Alienware is crap for the money you spend on it. Don't get sucked in by their marketing; it's designed to separate you from your money, not provide you with good performance vs. value. Even if you go pre-built, you can get a LOT better value for your money.
Nvidia does not suck. Anyone who tells you that is a fool that you should avoid taking advice from. There are serious advantages to their products depending on what you will use them for and what your budget can handle. There are also advantages to going with other options. Keep an open mind at this point.
Since you have plenty of mass storage capacity, one of the things that will be serious consideration is to look at Solid State Drives (SSDs). Right now, 128 GB SSDs are of exceptional value for the useful size and performance; with care you can get an outstanding one for ~$100 delivered (Samsung 830 series or Crucial M4 or Mushkin Enhanced Chronos Deluxe are some of the better, although not only, options ... learn to watch for them on special and grab them fast when they turn up on one).
Are you in the U.S. ? Can you use newegg.com within the U.S. ? If not, what region will you have to purchase in? Subscribe to the newegg E-BLAST newsletter (homepage on the right edge, about halfway down the page). You'll get notices about five times a week or so with all their current deals, and you can save a hell of a lot of money by watching them.
List a few of the exact, highest end games you wish to play, also. That will give a solid idea of how much power you actually need.
But, definitely take some time to read through a few of the more recent topics here. It'll help us out a lot if you increase your basic literacy on the tech.
Then, think carefully if you want to build or buy a prebuilt and we''l take it from there.
kitamesume:
^ i'd say 120GB SSDs has a greater $/GB ratio, going for as much as 1$/1.34GB but more commonly at 1$/1.2GB.
Newegg 120GB SSD
SSDs in itself can be used as a regular harddisk, a big enough SSD can save you money by not buying an HDD as the build's main storage BUT it is still a good idea to pair up an HDD for colossal file storages since they're the most cost effective storage at the moment.
also, an SSD has a great characteristic of being one of the fastest drives you can use, using it as a boot-drive would tremendously accelerate your system's boot-speed and regular application accesses, some games even profits from being on an SSD by cutting the time it loads by a huge amount.
also, the graphics card is the core of a gaming system. the settings desired, specially the target resolution, decides what kind of graphics card you'll need. for example at 1080p low settings you'd need at least an HD7770 or GTX560SE to maintain a steady >30fps, in aspect to that the fair and most reasonable choice in the numbers of graphic cards available would be the HD7850 or GTX560Ti where they can pretty much handle mostly everything at 1080p.
a quad core seems like a must now a days for future proofing reasons, believe me i've been there and feeling some regret of passing up a quad myself, but never the less it is still a great choice of picking the i3 line of intel or AMD's bulldozer 4core-2module line tho in essence the i3 would dominate the comparison in most occasions. i could say they can handle most of the workload of a regular person, cutting short on a heavy user but its just about the right performance for an all-around build.
as for the ram, about 4GB would be plenty of ram for a standard build and pretty much will be able to handle a regular person's workload, but cutting it short for a heavy user, 8GB would be the sweet spot for a heavy user and practically plenty for most workload.
CanalDigger:
Wow, you guys are giving great advice.
I'm going to start browsing the forums some more and check out Newegg.
I'm mainly focused on the box atm, since I can get logitech keyboard and mouses really cheap and the monitor will probably a much easier decision to make.
Is there anything else I should stay away from, other than overpriced pre-built rigs, like Alienware?
*Also, I might be playing games like Skyrim, Fallout: New Vegas, and maybe Max Payne 3, but then again also I have restricted myself since I my comp could barely handle most games even at low graphics, so I may try new games, too.
kitamesume:
for those kinds of games even at 1080p the HD7770 or GTX550Ti or GTX560SE would be plenty. heck im playing fallout3 at 720p med settings on my HD6570 that isnt even half of HD7770's performance.
you should pay attention to reviews in newegg, if the complains about them dying so soon goes over 30% then you should pretty much stay away from that.
monitors arent as easy to choose from as you may think, three factors that you'd want to consider would be the brand, type of monitor and it's native resolution at a certain size. most preferably you should aim for a 21.5" or 23" with a native resolution of 1920x1080 and preferably a led backlit to save electricity, also IPS-panel monitor are quite good but tends to be expensive. also pay attention to reviews as well, high feedback issues like dead pixel, bleeding, etc. should be indications of a bad product.
as far as the build goes everything else would depend on your taste, specially cases and form factors. personally i like compact form factors so i could fit the whole rig into hidden places.
CanalDigger:
I like kitamesume's build example, and am starting from there and comparing the other products on newegg.
Is there a substantial difference between having 1GB of memory versus 2GB for the graphics cards?
Also, I know there won't be an OS when I get the comp assembled. Do I have to have an official Win7 disc or something?
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