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I've recently reached the point of having positive money again, and am looking to fix that as soon as possible. I'm looking for a desktop that'll be used pretty much entirely for playing games on. The only restrictions are that I don't want to go much past $1700 US, it needs to be available in / ship to Canada, and I don't want to do any assembly.
Can anyone tell me what sort of letter / number combinations I should be looking for these days? What stores, manufacturers, or websites are good? Once I figure that out, what new games should I pick up? I haven't had a good system for gaming in four years or so, so I'm looking forward to checking things out.
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While I'm sure there's many people here who can help you, I've always found Sharky Forums to be a great resource. There are some super computer nerds on that messageboard.
Posts: 367 | Registered: Apr 2004
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For a good gaming machine one of the main things to look for is the videocard. As far as I've seen, you're not going to get a quality 3D card in an "off the shelf" model from a retailer. However, many places will install it for you if you buy the machine and the video card from them.
As for specific brands, if you're not doing any assembly yourself I'm afraid I don't have much of a recommendation. I've been on build your own and upgrade in parts for too many years.
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Are you able to build your own machine? In general, when it comes to gaming boxes -- and when you're talking around $1600 -- that's still the way to go.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Gah. I'm beginning to remember how much I hate looking for computers. Too many choices involved.
Posts: 148 | Registered: Feb 2000
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I built a top of the line machine last year for 900 bucks, including wireless keyboard/mouse (which you probably wouldn't want for gaming). The only thing that didn't include was the monitor, which I reused.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Sean, where in Canada are you? If you're in the Vancouver area, I can recommend an excellent computer shop.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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DO NOT go through a major manufacturer for a gaming rig. They'll charge you out the nose and all (except Alienware who charges out the nose and every other orafice in the body) put low quality hardware that will seriously hamper your speed. Honestly, I have a hard time pricing out a system for myself that will game capably but not be overkill at $1700. Lemme give you some specs, though.
CPU - AMD64 3000+ Venice core (Socket 939) (Don't be discouraged by the speed of this processor. CPU speeds don't matter NEARLY as much as RAM and Video Card speeds on a gaming rig.)
Motherboard - For the processor mentioned, you have to think what you really want. Do you want SLi capability (two video cards used as one)? If so, for now use nVidia's nForce4 SLi chipset. ASUS and MSI both make incredible motherboards based on it. If you don't care about being 1337 (SLi doesn't offer any real world gains yet unless you are using mid-range vid cards) use the nForce4 Ultra chipset. Again, ASUS and MSI are great companies.
Memory - Don't go under 1 gig. Going over that level also won't offer much more in the way of performance. You'll definately want to go for high quality RAM, as using budget stuff will limit your video card's performance in many ways. For the two motherboards mentioned, the most compatible RAM is made by OCZ. It's quality stuff and runs fast. You'll want PC-3200 at a minimum, but throwing in some DDR (NOT DDR2. That spec doesn't add any performance yet and isn't expected to for another year, and it's much more expensive than it's worth and isn't supported by AMD processors) PC-3600 or higher RAM will give a good boost to performance.
Hard Drive - With your price range, I'd be screaming for a pair of Western Digital Raptors set for RAID, but RAID arrays sometimes fail which makes it a good idea to have a third hard drive. It also may be a little more than you want. Again, I like Western Digital for normal hard drives as well. Avoid Quantum, Hitachi, and Fujitsu. Hitachi has some huge drives, but they're slow and loud. Get as much space as you want, Hard Drives aren't the most expensive thing in the world anymore (Unless it's a WD Raptor...but those are freaking FAST!!!).
Power Supply - Don't use a power supply that comes with a case (Case is usually a matter of preference. Get whatever you think looks cool). A high quality Power supply will save you from a ton of trouble later on. Try to stay above 450 Watts for this kind of system. There are a load of good companies for power supplies. I use Aspire (Which is a nice power supply, since it has 3 fans and nice little blue LED's in it). OCZ also makes these well. Thermaltake and Coolermaster are great as well.
Video Card - Yeah, here's your baby. I'm an nVidia fan, personally. the 6x00 series is sweet. With the current series, it really is a matter of preference between nVidia and ATI. While Benchmarks weigh slightly in ATI's favor, real world application will show no noticable difference. For your system, don't go below 6800GT or X800Pro. You could easilly get away with a 6800 Ultra. You may even be able to squeeze by with a 7800GTX, which is the best single card on the market right now.
That's all the stuff that really matters. CD/DVD burners are up to you, case (as mentioned) is really a matter of preference as well.
As for getting all this put together, go to some computer shops in your area and see what they'll charge to put something like this together for you. I'm almost completely certain that any shop that isn't ripping you off can build what I've mentioned for about $1400-1500US.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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www.hardocp.com has a great forum full of information.
I'd recommend finding your neighborhood geek, asking him if he's capable of building a computer, then ordering all the parts from www.newegg.com or www.zipzoomfly.com
ZZF also has a very nice buyers guide that answers in pretty good layman's terms how RAM works, the mobo/CPU, etc. Read it for a good overview of the working parts.
Good sites.
Monarch Computers have custom built PC's but I'm not sure if they have AMD systemware.
Like Boris said, go AMD 64 bit. Not much to add to that.
Posts: 1236 | Registered: Mar 2002
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I'll second everything Boris said. All my current hardware is just one or two steps behind what he outlined, and I'm very happy with it. And I spent right around $1000 for it all.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
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I hope you don't mind Sean if I use your thread too for a second but... I might be getting a computer soon, too. The only game I'll be playing on it will probably be Elder Scrolls Oblivion. Could I stick with a name brand computer, like Compaq or HP?
Posts: 853 | Registered: Feb 2004
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I "built" (in that I chose all the parts, but paid someone else a few bucks to put them all in the box for me) my current machine while I was in Toronto and ordered it from NCIX (out in Vancouver). They were a little slow in putting it together, but I've been quite pleased since getting it. A stick of RAM fried after a year and a half, but that happens. Just in case you want to order from somewhere within Canada as it can be less of a bother. All told it was ~$1300 sans monitor, but I paid extra for the bleeding edge graphics card and sexy case that I didn't need but craved in a lustfull fashion that I only assume increased the distance between myself and God.
Posts: 3243 | Registered: Apr 2002
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I have a really easy question. How good is the Mac mini? I'm going to be getting one for my b-day next week and I just want to know if I can play WOW on it. Posts: 870 | Registered: Mar 2005
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WoW would be pretty slow but run on a mini. Its intentionally not at all aimed at being a gaming machine.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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What kind of computer should I get then? Oblivion and maybe a couple of others later on are really the only games I'll be playing on it so I don't want a computer that's designed exclusively for games. Mostly it'll be used for saving documents and web browsing. And I can't build a computer. What should I get?
Posts: 853 | Registered: Feb 2004
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Well, here's the thing. A computer that's designed for gaming will do everything else perfectly. But a system that's designed just for document writing and web surfing can't possibly play modern games without choking. Unfortunately, the game you want to play will require some major graphical capability. You should probably get something pretty close to what I outlined above. The only thing I think you can save on is the video card, but I wouldn't drop too far below a 6600GT on that. The exact system requirements for Oblivion haven't been released yet, but you'll want to go a good bit above the minimum requirements to enjoy the game. The good thing about having a gaming rig for daily use is the fact that they are more than responsive and don't slow down easilly. Plus, you can multi-task very effectively and with most quality video cards you can have a dual monitor setup which is just awesome for web browsing.
I usually recommend people get computers from local builders or use your geek friends if you have any. Tell a guy who knows how to build a computer you'll pay him a hundred bucks or so to build one for you if you get the parts, and he'll do it, I promise. If you NEED warranty service, go to a Computer Shop. They can sometimes be slow to build systems, but if anything major happens you'll have a place to take it. Warranties don't cover virus issues or settings problems unless you happen to find a particularly friendly shop. A good warranty will set you back about $200-300 above the cost of the computer, so there is that to think about.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Well, no, it won't. It will do most common tasks perfectly well, but a gaming rig will, particularly if one cuts corners to get more gaming oomph, often not be optimally suited to other specialized uses. For instance, compile-heavy development (far more important to have very fast hard drives, whereas many gaming rigs just go with low speed SATA or even plain ATA) and high data integrity tasks (graphic design as a business; better to take a performance hit on hard drive access because of RAID than risk data loss).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Originally posted by fugu13: Well, no, it won't. It will do most common tasks perfectly well, but a gaming rig will, particularly if one cuts corners to get more gaming oomph, often not be optimally suited to other specialized uses. For instance, compile-heavy development (far more important to have very fast hard drives, whereas many gaming rigs just go with low speed SATA or even plain ATA) and high data integrity tasks (graphic design as a business; better to take a performance hit on hard drive access because of RAID than risk data loss).
By everything else I meant everything else that a typical person uses a computer for. But since you mentioned it, the hard drive I mentioned way up there is a 10,000RPM SATA drive. It's not big on space (Maximum 76gig), but it is very fast.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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