Buying a new desktop?

youcancallmeal

Hey all, I'm looking to buy a new desktop and any input would be really appreciated since i'm looking to spend about 3k€(including 19" flat screen).

So far i've mainly been lookin at the dell xps gen4. Although i've compared this to the dell 8400 and i cant understand the price difference??? I selected customize and buy for both models and chose identical options with them(i.e. hard drive, graphics card etc). After all this there was a price difference of €600!? As far as i can see there is only 3 differences, namely:

1. Special silver XPS case

2. Special XPS support (that support by gamers for gamers crap :rolleyes: )

3. And most significantly the processors(below). XPS which comes an extra mb cache.

Dell XPS Gen4
Processor - Pentium 4 processor 640 with HT technologyb (3.20GHz, 800FSB, 2MB cache)

Dell 8400
Processor - Pentium 4 processor 540 with HT technology (3.20GHz, 800FSB, 1MB cache)

Surely these 3 things for the xps are not worth an extra €600?


Anyway i also looked at alienware but i'm not really sure about importing from the uk(costs, customer support etc). Are there any other viable options in ireland for getting a high end gaming pc? I'm not really into building my own PC from scratch because i reckon if i buy one now then i can just upgrade whenever i need to.

All comments/suggestions appreciated. Thanks for reading

Regards,

al

Astro1996

BUILD it yourself, you could make a killer pc with 3k :eek:

Ciaran500

Alienware are way over priced. Dell PCs are not upgrade friendly.

For a high end PC it is always a better choice to build one, or have someone build it for you from your chosen parts.

youcancallmeal

Astro1996 wrote:

BUILD it yourself, you could make a killer pc with 3k :eek:

I'm beginning to think this more and more but i wouldnt even know where to start? I vaguely remember reading something about a commercial interaction forum on boards.ie where some companies offer to build custom machines with quotes for similar systems from say dell up front. Does this exist?

Ciaran500

There will be a plethora of help available from you if you on boards if you decide to build your own. People will advise you on what to get, where to buy and any problems with parts.

It is very easy, most things are colour coded and reuire nothing more that a screwdriver to put toghter.

Capt'n Midnight

€3K - don't forget that you'll get the same performance , ram and HDD specs for about half that in 18 months time ! Really depends on how far up the curve you want to go.

Silicon and drives just drop in value. If you are looking for something to cover you for three years then one option is to spend a lot on the Monitors, keyboards / mice / joysticks etc. say about €2K overall and then spend the other grand on upgrades of memory , cpu , motherboard in about 18 months time.

youcancallmeal

Been doing some serious use of the search button for older threads on the same subject(buy or build?) and i've come to the conclusion that for me to buy an xps machine would probably be the biggest mistake i'd ever make!

Capt'n Midnight your point makes a lot of sense. At this stage i realise i can pretty much get everything i want for a lot less than 3k so then upgrading in 18months time wont be to bad at all

Now all i have to do is decide whether i should get an Athlon or P4?

aidan_dunne

If it's going to be used mainly as a games machine, go for an Athlon 64. For anything else, especially video encoding and the like, a Pentium 4 would be the better option. Just really depends on what it's going to be used for, really.

And, yes, building would be the best option. 3k will build you one hell of a machine but what Capt'n said is good advice, get a good monitor, keyboard, speakers (say a good set of 5.1's or whatever. Creative and Boston Acoustics, for example, make some nice sets), etc. now, which you can hold onto in the future, and then build a decent enough system with the rest of your cash, which you can then upgrade in say a year or two when prices come down a little.

Word of advice, get a good, reliable power supply. Not necessarily the most powerful, you don't have to go up in the realms of a 500 watter quite yet, but a reliable one. It's very important. Over the past year or so I've seen quite a few people get stung after buying really crappy PSU's. They thought they'd buy a 450W supply and they'd be grand, only to find it's the quality of it itself which has let them down. They would have been better off buying a 350 or 400W PSU, which was reliable, rather than something like a 450W Qtec. As they say, it's not the size, but the quality that counts!

And don't worry about the building aspect, it really is pretty simple, and there's lots of folks here on Boards to help you out. It also gives you really good experience in building a system and working around inside a PC.

dearg_doom

youcancallme>al wrote:

At this stage i realise i can pretty much get everything i want for a lot less than 3k so then upgrading in 18months time wont be to bad at all

You'd be surprised :rolleyes:

Also dot forget that we are supposedly on the cusp of affordable dual CPU's, 64-bit Windows, 64-bit P4's...etc...

youcancallme>al wrote:

Now all i have to do is decide whether i should get an Athlon or P4?

A very simplistic rule of thumb here would be, decide on what your priority is:

Athlon64: games

P4: encoding video

Lydesia

youcancallme>al wrote:

I'm beginning to think this more and more but i wouldnt even know where to start? I vaguely remember reading something about a commercial interaction forum on boards.ie where some companies offer to build custom machines with quotes for similar systems from say dell up front. Does this exist?

Build a machine, or i will build it for you (for a very small fee)
lydesia@hotmail.com

with 3k you could build yourself a VERY sweet system.

kikel

http://www.buildyourown.org.uk/

Khannie

youcancallme>al wrote:

Anyway i also looked at alienware but i'm not really sure about importing from the uk(costs, customer support etc). Are there any other viable options in ireland for getting a high end gaming pc? I'm not really into building my own PC from scratch because i reckon if i buy one now then i can just upgrade whenever i need to.

If you have three grand to spend, but don't have the knowledge to build one yourself I would say either:

a) learn how to build one yourself
or
b) buy alienware

People on this forum will tend towards telling you to build one yourself (myself included) because it's better value, but from what I understand alienware customer support is fantastic and the build quality is excellent.

I wouldn't buy Dell for a high end gaming PC. As others have pointed out, their upgrade path is pretty much non-existant though the one time I did ring their support (about 8 years ago) in the middle of the night, I was well looked after by a lad in Texas. Nice touch that. Not sure if they're still as good as that.

Tobias Greeshman

Komplett have some good PC bundles that you can buy with:

• Case
• Ram
• Graphics Card
• Harddrive
• Cables
• Motherboard
• Floppy
• CD/DVD burners
• CPU

For under €800 normally, you should be able to build quite a monster for about €1200.

kaimera

or Elara.

put a nice AMD64 3200 together online with them a day or two ago, only came to about E1100.

dunno about delivery tho...komplett GLS is E22 odd for a fully built pc!!

daggeredge

dunno if it's still there but every so often the German site www.jes.de have "the Machine from hell" friend of mine bought one ..thought twas pretty cool and he added a 400 euro (600 here) graphics card with no probs to it.... also saw this -good spec if you already have a monitor mouse and keyboard http://www.jes-computer.de/product_info.php?pID=19833

delly

With regards the XPS, its been the case from the start that you can get a non XPS Dell for a whole lot cheaper, and i don't understand it myself. One thing i do know is that the XPS is made in the East somewhere like Taiwan or China, and not in Ireland.

But more to the point, Alienware are based in Ireland would you believe??? Give them a call on 0906 456500, Athlone I believe.

youcancallmeal

Thanks for all the comments, I've decided that i'm not going to buy a kit. I would rather research all the my components before deciding then purchasing them individually on whichever site is selling cheapest at the time

I'm still undecided about processor. I've heard great things about the amd athlon64 3000+ range, stuff like the mid-high athlon processors will outperform intel's most high end processor and still be cheaper? I suppose the only reason i'm unsure about the athlon is that i'm so used to using p4's and the whole 64bit thing just goes over my head?

Anyway heres what i've come up with so far,

Processor
AMD Athlon 64 3800+ 2.4 GHz Socket 939, 512KB cache
or
Intel Pentium 4 650 3.4 GHz Socket LGA775, 2MB cache, EM64T

Motherboard
Havent really looked at any yet but probably whatever looks good with selected processor

Hard Drives
1 x Western Digital Raptor 74GB S-ATA 8MB cache 10000RPM
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 300GB S-ATA 8MB cache 7200RPM NCQ
Does it make sense to have the raptor there for installing windows and other priority programs on it to make them run quicker or would there even a noticable difference? The seagate would be used for storage.

Memory
Will get a gig of ram, havent looked at type yet(any suggestions?)

Graphics
ATI Radeon X850XT 256MB PCI Express

DVD/CDRW
DVDR IDE LiteOn SOHW-1673S

Sound
Audigy2(There is nothing elso close imo)

Case
Enermax or Antec which come with own power supply(350w)

Well its early days yet anyway so any input would greatly appreciated

Pinhead

Excellent selection, but you can afford to pimp it up a bit with a budget of €3k

Motherboard wise, I'd go the for the newest DFI Lanparty seeing as you can afford it. Has everything you could want.

The Athlon 3800 you picked is great. Don't bother using the stock cooler that comes with it- pick up a Zalman CNPS7700-CU Ultra-Quiet. Check first to see if it's compatible with the mobo (it almost certainly is).

It's a good idea to use a 10,000RPM Raptor to install your OS on. Storage wise, you can afford 1 Terrabyte of SATA (4x250). Buy it from Overclockers.co.uk for under €600 inc VAT.

Get two gigs of low latency RAM. Something like Corsair Platinum TwinX (2-5-2-2).

As for a graphics card, I'd be more inclined to get a nVidia 6800GT (but that's a personal thing). If you fancy the SLI architecture of your motherboard, buy two!

The case is a very personal thing, althought I'd suggest Coolermaster and Antec before any other. If it comes with a reliable PSU, great. Otherwise go 400w Zalman or Antec.

youcancallmeal

Well at the mo i havent got a 3k budget, more like 2k after monitor plus other accesories, just sussing out possible lineups at the moment. I'm not a big fan of nvidia mainly because i'm quite loyal to the ati range(they've never let me down before).
Anyway your input is much appreciated

Ciaran500

Around the €2k mark you should be able to afford go down the SLI route. Don't be afraid to try new things