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raiden
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should I buy a superexpensive yet completely badass system from alienware, or build one?


go.

8/6/2007 11:25:48 AM

synapse
play so hard
60929 Posts
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build...unless you enjoy throwing away money.

/thread

8/6/2007 11:41:44 AM

Noen
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31346 Posts
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neither...unless you enjoy throwing away money

/thread

8/6/2007 11:58:18 AM

xvang
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both...unless you don't enjoy throwing away money

/thread

8/6/2007 11:59:18 AM

raiden
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yeah I've got a pretty big budget to build a badass desktop, just havent' decided whether or not to go thru alienware or build the box.

8/6/2007 11:59:32 AM

Noen
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let me build it, ill charge only a modest amount, and you'll be helping out a fellow wolfwebber

8/6/2007 12:11:22 PM

neodata686
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build yourself. only labor costs will be your time spent putting the parts together.

8/6/2007 12:35:57 PM

gs7
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build...money should be spent for enjoyment, spend more on the best parts, less on labor.

/thread

8/6/2007 1:26:18 PM

raiden
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well, as a christmas gift to myself, I'm wanting to buy a pretty badass machine, with super awesome gaming ability plus a lot of storage space.

systems that I "built" online with alienware and falcon were around 10G and lil bit more; but that's with all that stuff, speakers, monitors etc.

getting another laptop pretty soon, probably this week.

but I know that I want to get a badass desktop machine, and seeing as how its a christmas gift to myself, I don't mind waiting a lil while to get it. I've got a big budget for it; so that's cool.

8/6/2007 1:41:28 PM

neodata686
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With dell/alienware, and falcon you'll be paying a lot more for labor. I suggest buying all the same parts yourself and saving a bunch of money. Unless you want to pay the extra $ and have them build one for you.

http://www.falcon-nw.com/config/build.asp

For example if you compared the price you got there^ to the price you do here:

http://www.newegg.com

Then you'll find that the newegg price is much much cheaper.

[Edited on August 6, 2007 at 1:54 PM. Reason : .]

8/6/2007 1:48:28 PM

Noen
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if you have a big budget you should definitely let me build it

i dare say that other than bobbydigital and synapse, i've probably built more systems than anyone on this board, most of which have been highly specialized setups.

8/6/2007 1:57:08 PM

neodata686
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I highly recommend:

http://www.antec.com/us/productDetails.php?ProdID=81802

Used this case on my last build, and both panels come off allowing you to cable behind the motherboard. Very handy.

^he knows what he's talking about... just don't ask him about a side panel window, i made that mistake before.

[Edited on August 6, 2007 at 2:10 PM. Reason : ..]

8/6/2007 2:10:29 PM

Noen
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^that's a pretty damn good case. Although, if you willing to drop 5-7K on a machine, there are MUUUUCH better options out there.

8/6/2007 2:13:40 PM

neodata686
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^so if you had no price limit on a case what would be some of your choices? I think i'm only knowledgable in mid-range antec/tt cases.

8/6/2007 2:31:47 PM

evan
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Quote :
"i dare say that other than bobbydigital and synapse, i've probably built more systems than anyone on this board, most of which have been highly specialized setups."


i believe you are wrong my friend

8/6/2007 2:59:49 PM

Noen
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its possible, because Im sure there are plenty of lurkers here. But im up in triple digits.

8/6/2007 3:09:47 PM

Saarbruecken
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If you are doing it for gaming, spending any more than $2k excluding monitor is retarded.

8/6/2007 3:19:24 PM

raiden
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I want great gaming capability, but also great capabilities for storage and damn near anything else I would want to do.

8/6/2007 3:22:40 PM

neodata686
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^^haha well you could say the same thing about cars. "spending more than 40k on a car is retarted" unless you have the money. It's easy to go over 2k$ for a decent gaming rig and raiden wants to do it.

[Edited on August 6, 2007 at 3:22 PM. Reason : /]

8/6/2007 3:22:43 PM

raiden
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hey, I'm not opposed for saving a buck or thousand, however if something can be found that is comparable to a built alienware/falcon/(insert other company here) system; then I'll check it out.

and I'm not opposed to having it built.

one of the things that liked about alienware setup was that you could have 4TB of space, that's a lot of hdd space.

also want a pretty sweet monitor or dual monitor setup.

8/6/2007 3:28:50 PM

kiljadn
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44689 Posts
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horse..... trickle down the bypass dawson.

/thread

8/6/2007 3:31:39 PM

Saarbruecken
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Quote :
"for a decent gaming rig"


I guess you have a distorted definition of "decent". Doesn't matter if you spend $1500 or $5000, your system will still be out of date the next time a major technology comes around (recently: dx10, dual core, physics cards). I'd say 9/10th's of the time you couldn't tell the difference between a $2k rig and $4k rig until the next major technology comes out making both rigs "obsolete" for high end gaming. At that time you could just buy another $2k machine and outperform the older $4k machine with no questions asked.

I guess if you want to spend all that extra money for the one out of ten times it's noticeable, more power to ya.

8/6/2007 3:32:33 PM

neodata686
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Quote :
"however if something can be found that is comparable to a built alienware/falcon/(insert other company here) system; then I'll check it out. "


^^^you realize ALL the parts alienware/falcon use you can purchase for yourself off http://www.newegg.com.

Quote :
" was that you could have 4TB of space, that's a lot of hdd space."


Some of the full tower cases have 10+ HD bays, so in theory you could do far more than 4TB.

Either way the cheapest/best route in my opinion is simply building it yourself or having someone build it for you. The ONLY thing you're paying for when buying a rig from falcon/alienware/dell is the name, and maybe a custom case plus some support.

8/6/2007 3:34:49 PM

RoyalFlush
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Exactly, you can build a superb gaming righ, with all the storage you could possible need for around $2k

8/6/2007 3:35:32 PM

Noen
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For a full tower, the Lian-Li PC2100A/B Plus II (http://www.lian-li.com/product/product06.php?pr_index=29&cl_index=1&sc_index=2&ss_index=7&type=b) is awesome,

but the Soldam WiNDY Alcadia ZR3000 is the gold standard for an air-cooled case. (http://www3.soldam.co.jp/case/alcadia_zr/3000/index.html)

In a mid tower, the Soldam WiNDY Alcadia ZR1000 is pretty much top of the heap(http://www3.soldam.co.jp/case/alcadia_zr/1000/index.html), with most of the Lian-Li mid tower cases following closely. I really like the PC-S80, PC-V1100, and PC-V1200 Plus II

They are all way ahead of Antec/Thermaltake/Coolermaster/et al. All those guys are still stuck in the 90's "modder" design style, using 10+ year old production and engineering technology

8/6/2007 3:39:05 PM

Noen
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Quote :
"you realize ALL the parts alienware/falcon use you can purchase for yourself off "


Not true. Not to say you can't get BETTER parts off newegg, but there are several components (especially with alienware) that are made ODM just for them.

And there's a marked difference between a built 2k rig and a 5k rig. If the person building it has a clue what they are doing, it will jump the performance curve at least a full generation. Sure you pay for it, but if you being a full 6-8 months ahead of everyone else is worth the money, then go for it.

Quote :
"The ONLY thing you're paying for when buying a rig from falcon/alienware/dell is the name, and maybe a custom case plus some support."


You are paying for the warrantee. Plain and simple. And even if you have someone build it for you, for that much money and that high end a system, you better believe they should warrantee their work on the hardware.

[Edited on August 6, 2007 at 3:43 PM. Reason : . ]

8/6/2007 3:42:17 PM

neodata686
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^it was implied that companies use some ODM parts specifically made for them. For these purposes buying parts off newegg would do just as well.

^Yeah, along with support i forgot to mention warranty. You gonna offer a warranty Noen?

[Edited on August 6, 2007 at 3:46 PM. Reason : .]

8/6/2007 3:45:16 PM

raiden
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alienware area-51 alx setup ~$8500:
Dual 768MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800 Ultra - SLI Enabled - Liquid Cooled!
Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme QX6850 3.0GHz 8MB Cache 1333MHz FSB - Overclocked to 3.33GHz!Includes Liquid Cooling!
4GB Low Latency DDR2 Performance SDRAM at 800MHz - 4 x 1024MB
Alienware® Approved NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Motherboard
Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 (b/c I don't want vista)
2TB (2 x 1TB) Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7,200 RPM w/ 2 x 32MB Cache [+$460 or $14/mo.]
2TB (2 x 1TB) Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7,200 RPM w/ 2 x 32MB Cache [+$460 or $14/mo.]
20X Dual Layer DVD±RW/CD-RW Burner
20X Dual Layer DVD±RW/CD-RW Burner
Ageia PhysX PCI-Express Processing Unit w/ 128MB GDDR3 - More Info
Alienware® 1000 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply
27'' Dell 1920 x 1200 UltraSharp Widescreen Flat Panel - Supports Blu-Ray!
Logitech® Z-5300e 5.1 280-Watt Speakers
Logitech® G15 Gaming Keyboard Alienware Recommends!
Logitech® G5 Laser Gaming Mouse Alienware Recommends!

falcon setup ~12G:
ICON Exotix - Flames (the paint job is about 1500 bucks)
Mag-Lev Mach V Chassis fan replacement.
ICON Standard Solid
Silverstone 750Watt Strider - Modular
EVGA nVidia nForce 680I - SLI
Intel Core 2 Quad Extreme QX6850 3.0GHz
Icon Watercooling Kit
4GB Corsair Dominator 8500C5
2x nVidia GeForce 8800Ultra 768MB
BFG PhysX Accelerator - 128MB
Creative Labs X-Fi Fatal1ity
D Link WUA-2340 Rangebooster G/USB adapt
No Raid
Hitachi 1TB 32MB Cache SATA 2
Hitachi 1TB 32MB Cache SATA 2
Hitachi 1TB 32MB Cache SATA 2
Hitachi 1TB 32MB Cache SATA 2
Sony 16X DVD-ROM
Sony DRU830A 18X Dual Layer DVD+-RW
Sony 3.5in. Floppy-Black
Windows XP Pro - 32 Bit
Logitech G-15 Gaming Keyboard
Logitech G5 Laser Mouse
Samsung 24" - 1920x1200
Logitech Z-5500 Digital 5.1
Monster Power 800HP


but yeah, those are the 2 systems that I've "built" online via their config site. so I'm going to get either one of those or piece one together. either way, as long as it rocks, its all good.

8/6/2007 3:50:26 PM

neodata686
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^ now go to http://www.newegg.com and build those systems, and see how much cheaper they are. If you're spending the money, might as well get a 30" at 2560 by 1600 instead of the 24"/27".

[Edited on August 6, 2007 at 3:54 PM. Reason : .]

8/6/2007 3:51:59 PM

RoyalFlush
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Dude, if you drop $12k for a computer, you are a fucking idiot. Especially if you pay $1500 for a god damn paint job on A FUCKING COMPUTER.

8/6/2007 3:53:46 PM

raiden
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forgot to mention, only got the 1 year warranty.


and I"m making enough that I can get a rig like this and if I feel like I need to upgrade the following year, then I'll just turn the old into a file server and get a new one.

but its bad when my (current) laptop kicks my current desktop's ass.

8/6/2007 3:53:50 PM

Saarbruecken
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^x6 And stability. I know alienware does pretty extensive testing to make sure your machine will be as stable and have parts w/o defects in it. If they miss something you've of course got the warrenty.

Quote :
"And there's a marked difference between a built 2k rig and a 5k rig. If the person building it has a clue what they are doing, it will jump the performance curve at least a full generation. Sure you pay for it, but if you being a full 6-8 months ahead of everyone else is worth the money, then go for it."


I'm sure you have more knowledge about alot of things to do with this than I but I still don't think there will be a noticeable difference between the two. After building a $1k machine you'll be hard pressed to find a game that will push the computer to a it's limits (even with a 2xxxX1xxxx resolutions). It might be a year before a game even comes out that even uses half the shit you have (dual core game support just starting to come around, DX10 games mainly coming out end of this year). It's even worse with higher end computers. Once you get past the $2k mark you already have just about the best of everything. Past that you're just stacking more of it. More RAM. SLI cards. Quad instead of dual. etc etc.

If you want a uber computer go for it. But past $2k you are paying mainly for epeen enhancement not performance.

[Edited on August 6, 2007 at 3:58 PM. Reason :  ]

8/6/2007 3:56:14 PM

Noen
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better watch out for those liquid cooled systems. Dell (alienware's parent company) recently stopped production on their high end XPS line that uses the same components because of instability problems.

Liquid cooling is a pain in the ass to deal with too.

----

And yes, I've provided 1 year hardware labor warranties on every machine I've ever built, minimum.

----

^Nope. There's a LOT you can do to boost overall performance once you get above that 2-3k threshold. Gaming can be improved dramatically with SLI on the two biggest cards available, and it will make a marked difference at the extreme high end.

[Edited on August 6, 2007 at 3:58 PM. Reason : .]

8/6/2007 3:56:28 PM

neodata686
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Quote :
"After building a $1k machine you'll be hard pressed to find a game that will push the computer to a it's limits (even with a 2xxxX1xxxx resolutions). "


You're not including monitor? I have an e6600 at 3.15ghz, with an 8800gtx OCed, plus a 10k drive and I can barely run the newer games at max at 1920 by 1200 much less 2560 by 1600.

Noens right, once you pass the 2-3k mark you can greatly increase performance with sli, raid, etc.

[Edited on August 6, 2007 at 4:01 PM. Reason : .]

8/6/2007 4:00:22 PM

Saarbruecken
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Drastically improved? What on max settings you get 130 fps instead of 90 fps? You get a higher score on benchmarks? I'm sorry thats not a noticeable difference. That's all for bragging online to other people who spend too much money on gaming rigs.

Sure two years down the road your SLI cards will be noticeably better. But at this time just use the 2-3k you saved on the last computer to buy a new one that kicks the shit out of anything you could of bought before.

^ yes w/o monitor.

Quote :
"If you are doing it for gaming, spending any more than $2k excluding monitor is retarded."


[Edited on August 6, 2007 at 4:04 PM. Reason : .]

8/6/2007 4:03:00 PM

neodata686
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Quote :
"Drastically improved? What on max settings you get 130 fps instead of 90 fps? You get a higher score on benchmarks?"


Noooo. 50-60fps compared to 20-30 fps. For example on Oblivion (older DX9 game) i just now was able to turn all the settings on max at 1920 by 1200, and it still dips down to 35-40fps outside. On even newer games with my e6600, and 8800gtx I can't max out the settings because the fps will dip down below 30. If you don't believe me go to http://www.tomshardware.com and look at all the cpu/gpu charts, and you'll see what i'm telling you.

Another example on Call of Juarez (bad dx10 remake of an alright DX9 game) i had to turn all the settings down to medium and crank the res down to 1680 by 1050 with no anti-aliasing to get it to stay above 30fps. (obviously a DX10/driver issue, but the DX9 version wasn't much better).

So in conclusion, yes a 3-4k gaming rig is the only thing that will be able to play newer games cranked up at max. (resolution dependent obviously, but why buy a nice computer unless you're going to play it on a 24"+ monitor).

[Edited on August 6, 2007 at 4:11 PM. Reason : .]

8/6/2007 4:04:58 PM

raiden
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dang, I thought they would have gotten better with the liquid cooling thing by now.

8/6/2007 4:05:57 PM

Shrike
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Dude, spending more than $1500 on a complete PC (ie. every required component) at one time just wouldn't make any sense. You have to look at the games that are out now, and are coming out soon, and figure out exactly what you need to play them at the resolutions you want. Crysis is pretty much going to be the peak of performance, and it was shown running at 2048x1536 on a Q6600 with a single 8800GTX GPU at around 60fps. Wait for the fall refresh on nVidia's line of DX10 video cards, buy one of the lower end Conroes, get a 150gig Raptor and load up on RAM. All together, it shouldn't cost you more than $1200 + the cost of a sweet ass 24" LCD.

Spending lots of money now, to be able to play games in the future just doesn't make any sense because prices on these things fall so fast. Spend just enough to play what you want to play now, and upgrade later for fractions of the cost. About the only thing you need to be sure of is that you have a platform that will be upgradeable for a couple years at least. Since LGA775, DDR2, and PCI-Express are gonna be around for a while, you shouldn't have to worry about that.

[Edited on August 6, 2007 at 4:17 PM. Reason : :]

8/6/2007 4:14:22 PM

neodata686
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Ok you guys seem to think you can play current games at higher res with nice FPS using a 1500-2000 gaming rig. NOT TRUE.

http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html?modelx=33&model1=859&model2=722&chart=298

That's oblivion at 1920 by 1200 (doesn't have 2560 by 1600) and that's NO AA and the top of the line 8800 ultra only hits 30.5 fps.

Quote :
"Crysis is pretty much going to be the peak of performance, and it was shown running at 2048x1536 on a Q6600 with a single 8800GTX GPU at around 60fps."


Yeah cept that was using a DX9 card on xp. Once they implement DX10 support for Crysis it'll take much more than a single 8800gtx to run it at 60fps at 2560 by 1600. Most of the demos at game conferences were on an XP machine running in DX9. (crysis will run in DX9 on xp, and DX10 in vista) and most reviews i've read for Crysis show quite a difference in regard to DX9 vs DX10.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/05/26/crysis_dx9_dx10_comp/1

One DX10 feature i noticed in Call of Juarez was depth of field. This was not included in the DX9 version of the game. The depth of field adds sooo much to the game. You'd have to play it to know what i'm talking about, but after playing that older games looked flat because everything was in focus no matter where you looked.

[Edited on August 6, 2007 at 4:36 PM. Reason : .]

8/6/2007 4:25:08 PM

Saarbruecken
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^

Even though you're only speculating about what Crysis will take.... as Shrike said:

Quote :
"Spending lots of money now, to be able to play games in the future just doesn't make any sense because prices on these things fall so fast. Spend just enough to play what you want to play now, and upgrade later for fractions of the cost"


And second I've been talking about noticeable differences. Even if you can't run full settings at 2560x1600, you probably wouldn't notice the difference between that and 1680x1050 unless you have some monitor I haven't heard of that's 60" or are sitting a foot away from your 30". Also as resolution increases, AA becomes less important.

Once again, anything past around $2k is mainly to stroke your epeen.

8/6/2007 4:36:48 PM

neodata686
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^i have a 24" inch and 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 look VERY different. AA adds A LOT to game in 1920x1200 too. I can't really say anything other than to try it out for youself. I was sad i couldn't play Call of Juarez at 1920 by 1200 with AA turned on, i had to play it at 1680x1050 with no AA, and it looked VERY different than 1920x1200 with AA turned on.

8/6/2007 4:39:24 PM

synapse
play so hard
60929 Posts
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10K-12K for a computer? then turning it into a file server in a year and buying another?

you're either

1) trolling
2) an extremely wasteful person.

if its 2, take 2K-4k, build a god system, and donate the rest to an organization who will use it to actually help people.

8/6/2007 4:46:15 PM

neodata686
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Quote :
"take 2K-4k"


Exactly. Best range in my opinion to build a computer (gaming). Oh then run the smp folding at home on your new rig and help out the team.

[Edited on August 6, 2007 at 4:50 PM. Reason : .]

8/6/2007 4:47:48 PM

Shrike
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Dude, you're talking about one game, Oblivion, which is known to have pretty shit performance outdoors. In fact, it's been that if you turn off one setting "Shadows on Grass", you get about 20-30 more FPS out doors. On top of that, its an RPG, not really a game that demands awesome FPS at all times, especially most of the fighting in that game takes place in dungeons. DX10 as a whole has poor performance regardless of your setup right now.

http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3029

And that will improve with newer (most likely cheaper) hardware and drivers.

I took the liberty of putting together the balls to the wall system I would build today if I didn't care about money. It's still overkill in every regard, but it comes no where close to the prices of those Alienware system.

8/6/2007 4:49:47 PM

neodata686
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^you're right. Oblivion does kill gpus outside. Have you played it before? Yeah i turned the "shadows on grass" off a while ago. Really helps.

Quote :
"DX10 as a whole has poor performance regardless of your setup right now."


Exactly, and until new drivers come out, and games with better DX10 support are released it kinda sucks. But didn't DX9 have the same issues to? Good article on AnandTech on DX10 btw.

Like ^ said, either way building your own system on Newegg is gonna save you tons. Look at the build Shrike just put together. It's a nice one, and it's around 2k. I might go with the evga 8800gtx KO though. Best performance of the gtxs:

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/03/21/matchless_muscle_overclocked_8800/

[Edited on August 6, 2007 at 5:07 PM. Reason : .]

8/6/2007 4:54:51 PM

Noen
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if someone wants to spend 10k on a computer, more power to them.

who are you guys to judge ANYONE? Most of the people in this thread (myself included) have spend god only knows how much money on electronics we neither needed nor really utilized to their fullest.

8/6/2007 5:09:23 PM

Shrike
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Well of course, he can buy what he wants, god knows I don't have room to criticize. But the problem with buying from Alienware is you are spending so much more money and not getting much back in return. Alienware is one of the reason PC Gaming is on a decline, because people think they have to spend that much to get a good performing gaming PC, which is simply not true. I'm just trying to educate the guy, and anyone else who reads this thread. I liken it to buying HDMI cables from Monster Cable for $150, when you can get the same thing from Monoprice.com for $6. It just doesn't make sense.

8/6/2007 5:15:45 PM

raiden
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Quote :
"10K-12K for a computer? then turning it into a file server in a year and buying another?

you're either

1) trolling
2) an extremely wasteful person.

if its 2, take 2K-4k, build a god system, and donate the rest to an organization who will use it to actually help people.

"


1.yeah not trolling
2. not wasteful, I once had a small lan in my house and know that its awesome to have a fileserver for backups and pretty much anything else I wanted.

and yeah, say I did spend a shitton of money at alienware and bought a great system so what? yeah the components might go out of date but that's a year or so down the road; and once I have the base there's always room to upgrade. I could take the "old" components, put it in my current old as shit desktop and boom fileserver/webserver/whatever I wanna do box.

look, the point is now that I"m making some really good bling; I want some good stuff. I want a top of the line box. buying a bigger house, puttin cool shit in the house is something I want.
I've not bought a desktop since I got my current one, and my current one is running 1.2Ghz with 512 ram and about a 100gig of hdd space, and that was the shit at the time. And if it turns out that I get something that no game isn't going to completely use the full potential, well then, that's kinda the point isn't it?

I'm not kickin anyone in the shins here, and its not like I"m runnin out tomorrow and gettin a system.this is a christmas gift to myself; so I have from now till then to find the "right" system.
Hell if Noen works his kung fu and can build a comparable system for a few thousand less, so be it, I'll ask him if he'll do it. if not, that's cool.

and say what you want about the "paint job" shit, I think painted cases look cool, and my current case is a custom paint case. I kinda like the one falcon does with blue flames on the case, keyboard and mouse, but that's me.

anyways, I kinda have a big budget set up for this, and just trying to get the best/fastest/you know what I'm sayin machine that I can.

btw, I'm completely enjoying the input, you guys are bringing stuff up I didn't think of.


and liquid coolin, its still crap? that came out years ago, I though they would have gotten it down pat and shit. any other cooling suggestions besides a thousand fans?

8/6/2007 6:08:08 PM

Noen
All American
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Quote :
" I liken it to buying HDMI cables from Monster Cable for $150, when you can get the same thing from Monoprice.com for $6. It just doesn't make sense."


And you, like most of the kids in this thread, do not understand that many people would much rather let someone else handle the problems if anything goes wrong. If a monster cable goes bad, you just replace it. You build your own computer and something fucks up, I'd rather it not be my problem in time or money.

Quote :
"and liquid coolin, its still crap? that came out years ago, I though they would have gotten it down pat and shit. any other cooling suggestions besides a thousand fans?"


Nah, liquid cooling is fine. The chips being used in those systems are in extremely short supply and are being performance binned, the problems have arisen from the chips running past their stability point.

But honestly, you dont NEED liquid cooling. It's added weight, complication and hassle for limited gains. You still have to have big ass fans cooling the radiator, and there's still going to be noise on a performance machine, and a considerable amount.

If you looked at the Soldam cases I linked to, they have a three part process, one is air filtration and noise reduction on the intake, two is directed airflow within the case itself, and three is noise filtration on exhaust. Combined with internal sound dampening, they are considerably more quiet than your average tower. They also carry a price premium (220-400 bucks) but are absolutely beautiful and the craftmanship is amazing.

Also, as far as I know, I have to order then direct from Japan still, unless they've gotten a US distributor recently.

8/6/2007 6:27:04 PM

Stein
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"Spending lots of money now, to be able to play games in the future just doesn't make any sense because prices on these things fall so fast. Spend just enough to play what you want to play now, and upgrade later for fractions of the cost. About the only thing you need to be sure of is that you have a platform that will be upgradeable for a couple years at least. Since LGA775, DDR2, and PCI-Express are gonna be around for a while, you shouldn't have to worry about that. "


For the love of god, listen to the man.

It's awesome you want a great computer, but $10,000 is going to be better sunk into a home theater/upgrades for your bigger house than a gaming computer.

Also, think about it this way. Right now there's a decent lull in games that if you buy the best video card on the market, you're pretty much set for the next couple of months. Then, after the next generation of video cards comes out for the next series of games, you can pick either a brand new, faster video card for what the price of that second initial video card would have cost you or get an SLI companion for your current video card for cheaper.

Also, do you really need 4 terrabytes of hard drive space right now. Look at how quickly hard drive prices have been falling and tell me if you're going to burn through all the hard drive space before prices come down again. Sure, you can spend $900+ for 4 TBs now, how much will that same money buy you if you just get 2 TBs now and then wait to fill it up?

The beauty of the PC as a platform is that it's fully upgradeable and modular. It's awesome to run out and splurge, sometimes you're better off just waiting or building your computer up.

Two more things:
1) If you spend that much money on a computer and then get Logitech speakers, you're doing a disservice to yourself
2) neodata686 is one of the dumber people to post on this site, so I highly recommend not listening to him at all.

8/6/2007 6:31:53 PM

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