iBUYPOWER PC's

[LadyCrimson]

This time around, I'm so out of touch with general hardware/graphic tech, prices, etc. that every time I start to research what I need to build one, I get a headache. I feel lazy and I think I'd prefer to buy a pre-built system. My problem: where to buy one from? All these companies/websites...there are 2 main issues that concern me for buying pre-built: customer service, and the ability to upgrade/alter your rig at a later time, yourself. ie, if a company's pre-builts are somehow proprietary in any way, I want to avoid them.

 

John Scalzi (a Hugo winning author whose blog I read) bought an i7-950 recently and he seems pretty happy with it. He bought it from iBUYPOWER.com. His rig is the middle one in the list of specs here: http://www.ibuypower.com/dual-radiators/HA...ators.aspx#p=p2 (page down past the flashy graphic). He customized it a little bit beyond that, and I probably would too.

 

Anyone heard of them? Use them? I sure haven't. Does that system seem ok? A decent buy? blah blah blah.

 

Edit: Newegg sells their i7-920 version, and 72% of 54 user reviews gave them a 5 star...you can see their customer reviews of ibuypower & rig here.

Edited September 1, 2009 by LadyCrimson

[Deadly_Nightshade]

It seems a bit overpriced to me but I haven't crunched the numbers yet.

Edited September 1, 2009 by Deadly_Nightshade

[LadyCrimson]

I've seen similar rigs selling for a couple hundred bucks cheaper here and there, but not by a whole lot.

 

Also, I might switch out the ATi's for Nividia's, and I could go w/only 1 card which would make them a bit cheaper I guess. I don't know if I really need the 2-graphic card setup, the way I play games?

[Gfted1]

Wow, the V2 is one hell of a machine, but that price doesnt include a display? Ouch. Whats the processor speed of the 950 chipset?

 

As to your question, sorry but Ive never heard of iBUYPOWER.

[LadyCrimson]

Heh yeah...no display. Already bought one of those, so that's ok.

 

The 950 is rated at 3.06 GHZ, the 920 at 2.66

[LadyCrimson]

IGN from April 2009 liked their service quite a bit, building a whole Paladin w/monitor. They did say

There isn't much of a markup, but you'd definitely be able to build the system yourself for less provided you have the knowhow. If you don't, iBuyPower is definitely worth the premium.

 

ie, you might save $400-$800 building it yourself, which seems not unreasonable. I must say that their customizing options are 3 pages of dizzying lists. My quickie run through of all those, unchecking 1 vid card and the Blue Ray and adding USB external ports/soundcard to replace the onboard etc. meant I'd likely price the V2 for $1890 or so, not inclu. shipping.

[LadyCrimson]

Hubby doesn't think the 950 is worth the extra few hundred over the 920...so we could start with the V1 instead, and customize it up to about a $1500 rig.

 

Would anyone agree/disagree about the 950 vs 920, for gaming performance? the GHZ rating certainly isn't all that huge a difference...don't know how important .40 GHZ is to gaming these days...

[taks]

i take it you guys are technically illiterate enough that you don't want to undertake your own build? i build my own not for the cost savings, btw, which can be significant if you do your research, but simply because it is fun to do.

 

no, btw, the 400 MHz clock difference won't make a noticeable difference in your performance. if you are developing some real-time code and you're inserting inlined, vectorized assembly commands to use every cycle of the CPU, then yes, there will be a difference, but not many people are doing that kind of work.

 

taks

[mkreku]

The i920 is very easily overclockable up and beyond whatever the i950 is running at (they are exactly the same chip, only factory clocked differently). So no, definitely not worth the extra dollar. It's the same with every family of CPU's in the Intel range. The Core 2 Duo 8400 is the exact same chip as the 8500 and 8600 and so on. What you're paying premium for is something you can very easily do yourself, ie. overclock.

[taks]

ah, yes, i didn't even consider the OC thing.

 

there are SOME differences between different parts, though not in construction. most manufacturers bin their parts based on performance so the ones that get rated higher, performed better during in-house testing. the reason for a reduced rating could be something simple, like a one-bit error on a bus after a billion transfers, but it is enough for QC to rate a part differently.

 

i do not know how they perform their testing though i'm sure you can find out in many locations (hardocp comes to mind).

 

taks

[LadyCrimson]

The i920 is very easily overclockable up and beyond whatever the i950 is running at (they are exactly the same chip, only factory clocked differently). So no, definitely not worth the extra dollar. It's the same with every family of CPU's in the Intel range. The Core 2 Duo 8400 is the exact same chip as the 8500 and 8600 and so on. What you're paying premium for is something you can very easily do yourself, ie. overclock.

That's a good point. I've never overclocked a system in my life, however, and I probably won't start now. Still, it's clear that the 950 on it's own is not worth that much extra, so...

 

One other tech question would be re: hard drive speed. It was pointed out that the 7200rpm is now supposedly really slow and that would affect gaming, but a quick search tells me that 7200 is still very 'average' for most home systems. The 10000rpm is still fairly new and costly per capacity, and the few articles testing such indicated that the faster spindle speed did not, in fact, really help w/gaming much...mostly helping in giant file crunching tasks instead. Thoughts?

 

i take it you guys are technically illiterate enough that you don't want to undertake your own build?

No, that's not it. I'm not technically very savvy - tho I can assemble parts in a case, it's not hard - but hubby's very tech savvy overall. All our past systems he's put together himself. But neither of us finds the process very fun. For once I'd just like to order something and be done with it. Also we like to online purchase as little as possible-buying parts all over the internet in search of the deal isn't our thing. Since it's clear that finding actual walk-in stores that have all these parts for build-it-yourself savings is becoming more work than worthwhile, choosing one online place where you can customize options/hardware and end up w/a rig you can upgrade later etc. seems the best option for me.

 

From what I've read on forums many found they were hard pressed to build their own similar i7 systems for terribly significant savings and just opted to buy the prebuilts w/customization because it's so much less hassle, instead.

 

Edit: Shoot that last part was a lot longer than I meant it to be. I ramble so. Heavily edited to be shorter.

Edited September 2, 2009 by LadyCrimson

[Humanoid]

10000rpm HDDs are pretty much obsoleted by SSDs which cost pretty much the same. Is an SSD worth it? Yes, it's going to make a far bigger difference than upgrading anything else in your system and I'd recommend one in any serious gaming system these days (indeed, in any system). Install your OS and games on it, and go for a low-speed HDD for your media files, etc. (i.e. a 5400rpm one like the Samsung F2 or WD Green)

 

 

Aside, the new i7 860 has just been released at a similar price point as the 920 (and cheaper overall once you include the rest of the platform) and performs somewhere in between a 920 and a 950.

Edited September 2, 2009 by Humanoid