New Games System..Build or Buy?

c0y0te

So,

Here I am again, a few years down the road since my last upgrade with cash burning a hole in my pocket

The decision is to either purchase a kickass gaming system, or build one, however there are variants in between as well.

My current system was a komplett bundle variety, which has been fine for the last couple of years but its a bit dated now. Thinking ahead to Doom 3 / Half Life 2, I'm trying to decide on the best course of action so I thought I'd throw up a poll.

Please vote for your chosen option, and include comments and advice if you wish. Thanks in advance.

c0y0te

declan_lgs

if your usin your rig for games mainly, id go for an alienware rig..
they optimise there comps for gamers, and build nice machines..
dell sux ass, their a total rip-off..
building a pc wouldn't be a bad idea, its the cheepest if ya wanna overclock..
id go for an alienware rig, but only if i had the cash for a decent one

zAbbo

Wait until those games are released, dont give in to the hype.

Oh and build your own

Creamy Goodness

Originally posted by declan_lgs
if your usin your rig for games mainly, id go for an alienware rig..
they optimise there comps for gamers, and build nice machines..
dell sux ass, their a total rip-off..
building a pc wouldn't be a bad idea, its the cheepest if ya wanna overclock..
id go for an alienware rig, but only if i had the cash for a decent one

don't go dell, don't go alienware.

build your own round the time them games come out.

for best performance start looking at P4's

tman

who the hell voted for dell

alienware if you've got the wonga to spare, build your own if you've still got a few recyclable components from the last rig.

astrofool

definitely build your own. Also, would recommend overclockers.co.uk or overclock.co.uk at the moment, esp. if u plan to overclock at all, you can get far better coolers from them than with komplett, and usually they have alot more in stock. Also, their case selection is much much better.

Get a nice p4 or athlon 64 system. Price/performance wise rests with a p4 3.0, or a64-3000+, gig of ram and 9800pro 128meg right now. p4 overclocks more, the athlon 64 is a good bit faster if not overclocked.

declan_lgs

omfg, dell are crap.. total rip-offs..
if your building your system, definetly shop around, can save alot of money.
www.overclockers.co.uk are great, my brother bought from them.. deliver in a few days, pretty good

Dempsey

Id recommend building your own. You'll get satisfaction in building your own.

uberpixie

if you have built before build again. Better value for money if you are building a high end gaming rig.


If you decide not well buy dell to be honest.

1430 euro these days gets you

3ghz ht
512mb ram (2x256mb) pc3200
875 chipset
120g 8mb cache sata hd
ati radeon 9800pro 128mb
audigy 2 soundcard
16x dvd
48x burner
19" ultrascan monitor
floppy
56k modem
crap two button mouse
win xp
1 year waranty



2077.55 in alienware gets you

3ghz ht
Intel® D875PBZ - Intel 875P Pentium 4 Motherboard
512mb ram (2x256mb) pc3200
120g 8mb cache sata hd seagate
nividia 5700 ultra 128mb
audigy 2zs
16x dvd
48x burner
floppy
winxp
420 watt power supply
no monitor!

I don't care how good the parts in the alienware are it no way justifies a 600 euro price hike ovthe the fecking dell and no monitor! Bastards expect you to pay 2 grand for a system that does not have a **** kicker of a graphics card in it and no monitor.
Are they on cocaine? or are people actually stupid enough to pay that money to them?

Would hardly call the dell for1430 euro a rip off, not compared to alienware anyway! A dell wont win any bench mark awards but it will play games well and the other 600 euro you save can be spent on games, a nice set of speakers and black jack and hookers

c0y0te

Keep it coming.. I'm really interested in your views/comments, and if you have any decent links (like overclockers above) please include them;)

c0y0te

Caliden

be the envy off all ur m8's with an alienware rig.
the graphics are next to god-like, and with their new athlon-64 bit model that money of yours will go to a top-notch machine of mind-boggling bench-marks.
still depends what your looking for as a build-your-own you can specify your mobo,pro,graphics. only problem is putting the damm thing together but if your good at that then pick the parts and make it

Creamy Goodness

he graphics are next to god-like,

erm if say an alienware uses a ati 9800pro.

what's the difference between that and the one you can buy in komplett ???

_sheep

What kinda money we talking ?

WizZard

What kinda money we talking ?

You'd need to say what you are prepared to spend. The cheapest Alienware is around €1500 AFAIK.
I've just built my first PC myself, ran into a few little bumps but got them sorted. It now kicks ass!
It cost me around €1600 and I sourced most of the parts through Overclockers.co.uk
Here it is (shameless boast )

AMD Athlon64 3200+
Zalman 7000-AlCu HSF
ASUS K8V Deluxe
1Gb Corsair XMS3200LLPro Memory
160gb Seagate Barracuda SATA150 HDD (x2)
LiteOn 8x DVD/RW Drive
LiteOn 52x CR/RW Drive
Sapphire Radeon 9600XT 256mb
Thermaltake Xaser III v2000a
Thermaltake 480w 'Butterfly' PSU
Logitech Cordless Desktop MX

Dempsey

Id agree with uberpixie. I hear that intel boards arent any better than the ones dell use. Dell arent crap but you should price one yourself and compare it to what you can get off dell.

If ur gonna want to overclock, then you'll have build yourself. Some nice specs being mentioned there. Id recommend P4's myself, cos ive used a 2800+ and a 2.8c. The difference is noticable everywhere.

OfflerCrocGod

Half-Life 2/Doom 3???.

Wait. Summer. Athlon 64. Komplett. Pc-Look.com. STOP.

Sir Random

If you want a kick-@ss gaming machine, you'll have to wait patiently (like the rest of us) until March/April when the next-gen gfx cards are released and PCI-E mobos are available.
We are at the end of the current gpu chip cycle (the 9800XT and 5950 have stretched their chips to the limit) so If you build now, you won't do better than an Asus P4C800-E Dlx + 3.2Ghz Northwood (Prescotts available from tomorrow 02/02/04) + Rad 9800XT.

Current top-end gfx cards are just chronically overclocked/revised versions of chips released over a year ago. The first batch of next-gen cards (as well as being much faster) should be very overclockable, as the chips will be clocked at the lower end of their potential spectrum.

c0y0te

Interesting points Sir Random....


to answer some of the questions above:-

1) Budget - I can see myself spending up to 2K on this (I know, starving millions and better things to spend it on blah blah), but I spend so much time on my system that it might as well be a good un!

2) Previous Build experience - I got a m8 to do the necessary last time. I spec'd (and got second opinion) the rig from komplett and then had a m8 put the whole thing together.

3) I've an AMD system at the mo, but was thinking of going back to Intel this time around.

Keep it coming, very useful discussion and poll as far as I'm concerned. :ninja:

c0y0te

WizZard

If you can afford to, I'd wait for a month or two.
Socket 939 Athlon64's are coming out at the end of Feb so this should push the prices on the current Athlon64's down. The new FX-53 will be coming out around the same time so if you were to wait til summer you could probably put together a demon system for 2k.
I've no idea of Intel's roadmap, maybe somoeone else could shed a bit of light on what their plans are.

Venom

c0y0te post the specs of your current system as you may not need to replace all of it. Building your own is the way to go rather than buying a pre built system but also bear in mind that the newer gfx cards,chips and mobo's will cut into your 2k budget big time. You need to deceide if you want a top of the range gaming rig or the latest peice of tech poser system.

joePC

I would say hold out until March/ April, now is the worst time to upgrade your system because all the new components are coming out very soon, wait until PCI express + SATA + Prescot + ATI / Nvidia's next chip, its only a couple of months, then u'll have the best gaming system....

Thanks joePC

ykt0di9url7bc3

You may want to wait for BTX boards and the new pci slot...dunno what the future may hold but hold off until the summer

Dempsey

Originally posted by joePC
I would say hold out until March/ April, now is the worst time to upgrade your system because all the new components are coming out very soon, wait until PCI express + SATA + Prescot + ATI / Nvidia's next chip, its only a couple of months, then u'll have the best gaming system....

Thanks joePC

If your gonna wait for the next best thing, then you'll never buy anything, if ya wait till march/april, then you'll want to wait for BTX then you'll want to wait till intel bring out their pinless sockets and the "Tejas" Chip, before ya know it, its next christmas.

Im not buying anything till the Tejas is out myself because the transition from 32 bit and ATX will have swinged to 64 bit and BTX. That will be next christmas before prices will have come down from the changes. Ya dont have to wait though. A good PC now will be able to handle Half Life 2 and Doom 3 very well.

c0y0te

My current spec (as requested):-

Win XP Pro
AMD 1.8ghz
ASUS Av7333 Mobo
Komplett ATX 'Dragon' Tower Case with usual fans/power etc.
Geforce TI 4400 128mb
2 x 80gb 7200rpm Maxtor HDDs
512mb DDR PC2700
Usual DVD / CDRW optical drives
Hansol 920D Plus 19inch CRT Monitor
Crappy Soundblaster Live 5.1 PCI Soundcard


c0y0te

OfflerCrocGod

As everyone one is saying, wait!!. I wont be getting a new rig until next Jan/Feb, why? - Dempsey^^ pretty much sums up my feelings, except I'll be getting an Athlon64 (maybe FX??:D). If you really want to get a new rig for those new games wait until they are actually available, not before then, remember HL2 was meant to be out last year!:(.

OfflerCrocGod

Jesus c0y0te your current specs are just fine!!!, they are just like mine (you have better Gfx card) and my machine runs along at a fine speed, why not wait.

BigEejit

A lot of people are mentioning forthcoming major standards changes like BTX and PCI-Express ... anyone know when these will actually appear? ... approximate prices?, we all know you'll pay through the nose being an early adopter, so a buy now and sell when later when those standards are commonplace (and therefore cheaper) mightnt be a bad idea ... not to mention avoiding all the flakey driver releases etc etc that you get with being at the bleeding edge...

Venom

These all all fine and you have no need to upgrade them.

Win XP Pro
Komplett ATX 'Dragon' Tower Case with usual fans/power etc.
2 x 80gb 7200rpm Maxtor HDDs
Usual DVD / CDRW optical drives
Hansol 920D Plus 19inch CRT Monitor

These could do with some upgrades.......

Crappy Soundblaster Live 5.1 PCI Soundcard - Audigy 2 are going damm cheep and are a kick ass sound card.

AMD 1.8ghz - Do the job right and get a P4
ASUS Av7333 Mobo - as above

Geforce TI 4400 128mb - ATI 9600xt again going cheep or spend the cash for a top of the range 9800xt card

512mb DDR PC2700 - if your going for a P4 system get at least ddr 3200 ram. Go for 1gb as it make a huge difference to games.

El_MUERkO

Originally posted by WizZard
You'd need to say what you are prepared to spend. The cheapest Alienware is around €1500 AFAIK.
I've just built my first PC myself, ran into a few little bumps but got them sorted. It now kicks ass!
It cost me around €1600 and I sourced most of the parts through Overclockers.co.uk
Here it is (shameless boast )

AMD Athlon64 3200+
Zalman 7000-AlCu HSF
ASUS K8V Deluxe
1Gb Corsair XMS3200LLPro Memory
160gb Seagate Barracuda SATA150 HDD (x2)
LiteOn 8x DVD/RW Drive
LiteOn 52x CR/RW Drive
Sapphire Radeon 9600XT 256mb
Thermaltake Xaser III v2000a
Thermaltake 480w 'Butterfly' PSU
Logitech Cordless Desktop MX

Can I ask where you got the Case & Power Supply?

Woden

venom i've been wondering myself about the advantages of a gig of ram over my half gig how do you think it would affect my system?

Venom

Originally posted by Dataisgod
venom i've been wondering myself about the advantages of a gig of ram over my half gig how do you think it would affect my system?

You may not really notice that big of a difference in general windows usage going form 512 to 1024 ram. I did but I went form 256mb to 1gig. For games tho it makes a huge difference. Also the latest MMORPGs like Sw:G, Planetside and Horizons really need 1gb to be playable and I would imagine that games like Doom3 and HL2 will run much better with a gig or ram.