Monte Carlo Posted February 24, 2004 Share Posted February 24, 2004 Is this the best gaming rig...I'm so tempted to buy it today. The risk of divorce is high, but I'm going in! Tekkies, dweebs and propeller-heads...I need you! Is this the gaming system you'd buy? Is this an act of utter folly? Note: I'm not going for the lime-green "Ankheg armour" version, though. Cheers MC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Judge Hades Posted February 24, 2004 Share Posted February 24, 2004 2 things. 1) I wouldn't risk a divorce. You should share the computer with your wife. 2) I would have more than just 120 gig of hard drive space. A minimum of 200 gig should suffice for a gaming rig. Believe me, 120 gig can get full quickly. My older machine has 160 gig total of space and its nearly full. My oterh comp has a brand new 120 gig hard drive that is slowly being filled with games, PDF files, and music. I would avoid Seagate hard drives all together. They are the Emerson of the hard drive market. I have had great long life with Maxtor and Western Digital. Beyond that it looks like a sweet system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorth Posted February 24, 2004 Share Posted February 24, 2004 Having an almost identical system myself, only a 2.8 Ghz though and home built, I can verify that, yes, thats a nice gaming platform. You might want consider a smaller, but the fastest possible system drive, like the medium sized Western Digital ones and then add a large capacity storage drive. Of course, if you have unlimited funds, you might just want fast AND big for both drive types I found though, that four cheaper, large drives put in two raid 0 pairs performs quite nicely for storage. Good luck and happy gaming. Gorth PS: You might consider keeping the wife around as the rig can't cook nor make coffee “He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice.” - Albert Einstein Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sammael Posted February 24, 2004 Share Posted February 24, 2004 Read about PCI Express and the new generation of GPUs before you do anything, MC. And Visceris is right, 120 gigs isn't enough even now, and I don't know if upgrading the 'puter by adding another HDD yourself voids the Alienware warranty or not. There are no doors in Jefferson that are "special game locked" doors. There are no characters in that game that you can kill that will result in the game ending prematurely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sammael Posted February 24, 2004 Share Posted February 24, 2004 Having an almost identical system myself, only a 2.8 Ghz though and home built Out of curiosity, is my calculation of about $1,800 (without software) for a home-built version of that rig right? There are no doors in Jefferson that are "special game locked" doors. There are no characters in that game that you can kill that will result in the game ending prematurely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slammy1 Posted February 24, 2004 Share Posted February 24, 2004 Well, AlienWare isn't as bad as it's reputation seems to hold (on the nerd er tech boards you see a fair number of dissatisfied customers), they are undoubtedly overpriced. For a pure gaming rig, I'd invest in an AMD 2500 (or higher) instead and put more into the memory and GPU. What the heck type of memory is that, a rather critical question for the P4C800. And go for a 9800XT, which will give you much better (well at least with high graphics demand) performance. OMG, the 3.2 EE is great if you have so much money value is unimportant, but if you have to go the Intel route I'd go 2.4 or 3.0 (depending on desire to overclock). Video cooling is a waste at this time for a faster GPU since there's no reason to o/c with current gen games. I wouldn't RAID unless you're willing to invest in some high quality drives (Raptor or SCSI), and for a gaming rig the only real advantage you'll see is if you play online games it'll start you sooner giving you an advantage. No brand on DVD ROM, it's about at the point where you should consider a DVD writable drive for a system that is that high end. Aside from that, no problems with that build. Wait, just noticed, no mention of PSU either. Bottom line, if you're going to build a high end gaming system I'd say an AMD with the fastest video card is your best bet. NVidia may bench the same as ATI, but graphics quality is superior with ATI. For $1500 I could build a system that absolutely pwns that one. I'm not trying to be rough or flame or anything, but I'd definitely recommend against that purchase for that application. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorth Posted February 24, 2004 Share Posted February 24, 2004 Out of curiosity, is my calculation of about $1,800 (without software) for a home-built version of that rig right? A little more, like 2,388.32 USD (current exchange rate), but it includes a DVD RW +/- writer and was bought 6 months ago. I guess your price would be about correct now 6 months later, perhaps around 2000 USD. Oh yes, and you need the Screwdriver Feat too “He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice.” - Albert Einstein Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sammael Posted February 24, 2004 Share Posted February 24, 2004 I'd go 2.4 or 3.0 2.4 is no longer in production. Slowest Intel processor available right now is 2.8, at around $180 for a boxed (non-OEM) version. I'd never go for either an AMD or an ATI card, personally. There are no doors in Jefferson that are "special game locked" doors. There are no characters in that game that you can kill that will result in the game ending prematurely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pregethwr Posted February 24, 2004 Share Posted February 24, 2004 I bought a similar top-of-the-line computer about 2 years ago. From my experience then I would say that custom build is the way forward, and that the alienware deal looks nice but that you are paying a hefty premium for a (an?) l337 image. If I remember from the Interplay board you travel between the US and the UK and the US is probably cheaper for parts EDIT: And the dollar.... If you are looking in the UK though something like this (http://www.bluewatercomputers.co.uk/) looks ok. I see nothing wrong with AMD from my use of them and they are about 1/3 cheaper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhombus Posted February 24, 2004 Share Posted February 24, 2004 cool case if nothing else... are you planning on running DOOM III with 2048x1600 and 500+ frames or something?... What do you want?.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monte Carlo Posted February 24, 2004 Author Share Posted February 24, 2004 cool case if nothing else... are you planning on running DOOM III with 2048x1600 and 500+ frames or something?... Yes. Oh yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellester Posted February 24, 2004 Share Posted February 24, 2004 I say go for it, I Life is like a clam. Years of filtering crap then some bastard cracks you open and scrapes you into its damned mouth, end of story. - Steven Erikson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fionavar Posted February 24, 2004 Share Posted February 24, 2004 Alienware ... hey if you can afford it ... well there really ain't no debate Just ask Mistress! The universe is change; your life is what our thoughts make it - Marcus Aurelius (161) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slammy1 Posted February 24, 2004 Share Posted February 24, 2004 First, in gaming benchmarks the AMD is slightly behind HT systems, but that does not hold for the 64-bit processors which are faster. The EE CPU is the fastest currently, but there is a price premium ($859 lowest on price watch). They stopped making the 2.4 a long time ago (in tech time), but they built up stock and it's still selling. Without getting into an Intel vs AMD debate, I've only owned Intel but I don't use my system solely for gaming and browsing. If that's what you want, then AMD is much cheaper for comparable performance. Ultimately the GPU is the system bottleneck on a gaming system, and I only think the most backward tech board would say ATI is not the performance leader. Whether it's worth the price difference when the FX5900 is so cheap is debatable. Really, it's not a good time for a big system investment. As mentioned, PCI express looks to be taking care of another bottleneck in processing, the next gen of video cards are due out soon, and the Prescott is just being introduced along with unforeseen potential with the 64-bit architecture of the AMD. Once they start programming to take advantage of the newer tech, the situation could easily shift one way or another and you may find yourself with a dead end technology. The key to building your own system is thorough research. State of the art components may have issues and conflicts, asking experienced builders about what works is what makes it work. That's easily the hardest part of a system build, the rest is pretty easy if you can handle a screwdriver. I run a 3.0C on an Asus P4P800-D with 2 raptors striped for my primary, I spent a while researching the components. Spending that much for an uglly case is not wise, but it's not like I haven't overspent on components I simply liked. There are cases that look similar out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightblade Posted February 24, 2004 Share Posted February 24, 2004 $3000+ ? They'd better throw in one mean mother LCD monitor as well then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Judge Hades Posted February 24, 2004 Share Posted February 24, 2004 I would also go with AMD over Intel. Both my systems are AMD Athlons and they work great. My older computer is an Athlon 900, with a GeForce 2 and a SB Audigy 1 it can play KotOR fairly well. Average 15 to 20 frames a second. My last Intel system blew up after a year and I have never gone back to them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sovz Posted February 24, 2004 Share Posted February 24, 2004 Buy Laptop instead. Take a look Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monte Carlo Posted February 24, 2004 Author Share Posted February 24, 2004 ...and with the current UK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadowstrider Posted February 24, 2004 Share Posted February 24, 2004 http://abspc.com If you're going to buy prebuilt systems, that is the only place I can recommend. They are a great value, and high-quality. EDIT: http://www.abspc.com/gamezone/index.html Thats where they keep the gaming machines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tripleRRR Posted February 24, 2004 Share Posted February 24, 2004 ...and with the current UK Using a gamepad to control an FPS is like trying to fight evil through maple syrup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
St Paddy Posted February 24, 2004 Share Posted February 24, 2004 I thought the general consensus was Extreme Edition is overpriced. Far overpriced. From what I've read (I'm getting a new rig in a few weeks hopefully) the AMD64 3200 is currently the best buy. Also I'd switch your ram to Corsair (I don't know why, but all the techies reccomend registered RAM. I think it may just be for overclocking though, so if you don't do that, I guess just go for the cheaper one) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magena Posted February 25, 2004 Share Posted February 25, 2004 The people that I know who have alienware are overjoyous about their computers. - of course the one that I would get, would cost me about 9grand... so that isn't in this years budget. - need a digital camera first. :D (and for that I'm looking at 3grand) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slammy1 Posted February 25, 2004 Share Posted February 25, 2004 It's not that Alienware is a bad company, just that they're overpriced. And there are a lot of threads complaining about them on the tech boards, though I did a search on Anandtech and it has been a bit since someone wrote a negative thread about them (1 month). I think there was a phase ca 3 months ago when they were getting slammed on A-Tech, but mostly it went back to pricing from what I remember and some CS concerns. The concensus was Falcon NW (or Blue Tooth, as mentioned) were better sources for pre-builts. The EE is a bragging rights CPU. Intel didn't seem to want to really mass market the CPU, but wanted a response to the A64 which beats the other Intel processors in gaming benchmarks. The Prescotts are power hogs, and really run hot. My 3.0C runs 43C under stress, but I've been reading the Prescotts are running much hotter (ca 60-70C). For a top gaming machine, right now the A64 seems the clear choice, but for multi-media Intel still is the winner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoenix Posted February 25, 2004 Share Posted February 25, 2004 I agreed most Slammy1 said: custom build instead spending money on brand, get AMD 3000+MHZ proccessor, bigger hard disk (200Gb), and ATI Radeon 9800XT (certain DirectX9 functions run better on it than nVidia). Get M-Audio Revolution 7.1 (check review at Gure of 3D), Creative sound card is okay but i heard a lot about the sucky driver. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roshan Posted February 25, 2004 Share Posted February 25, 2004 i always go for custom builds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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