I've sort of tuned out to how things have changed once I bought my last computer from Alienware 3 years ago. When I got it, it ran everything flawlessly. Newer games, though, are giving me major headaches (Bioshock, CoD4) , and even some of the older ones (WoW, CS:Source) that used to run fine are lagging and having issues.

I haven't upgraded anything in the system at all. Just been using it as is until now.

I'm wondering if it's worth it to try and upgrade this machine, or if I just need to start over. I want to try and stay under $1250 if possible.

My current system:

Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3500+ @ 2.2 GHz
RAM: PC3200 (200 MHz) DDR-SDRAM 512MB x2
Mobo: Abit AV8 (VIA K8T800P-8237)
Video: GeForce 6800 128MB AGP 8X
Sound: Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS

I'm just not sure it's worth it to buy new components for this one. I've heard AGP is now majorly outdated by PCI-Express.

Anyone have any recommendations of things to look for, and things to avoid when looking for new hardware? AMD/Intel? Geforce/other? Should I have a 10k rpm main hard drive or will a larger 7200 rpm suffice?

I can't say enough about the GeForce 8800GT w/1024 mb. :D

For under $1250 I would not recommend a new system if you want it with newer games in mind.

For a quick fix I suggest you buy a GeForce 7900 (AGP 8x) or nice Radeon-HD card and stick another 1GB of RAM in there and you should be better off. Check out NewEgg.com and Pricewatch.com for good prices on these components.

A 7200RPM HD will suffice you for your older system. I use a 10k 150GB Raptor as my main drive, but the noise of it spinning is really irritating sometimes. If you really want to splurge though and reformat your drive, feel free to get a 10k. Reinstall Windows no matter what you do (if it's been a while).

In any case I suggest you spend as little as possible on a couple good upgrades and start saving up for a killer home-built gamer machine in a year or so. The only thing I would ever think about buying from Alienware is one of their laptops anyway.

Using a configurator at cyberpowerpc.com I came up with what *LOOKS* like a decent system for the price.. I'm skeptical though because I've never bought a premade system from them before.

As copied from site after configuration:

$1092.00(before all applicable rebates)


CASE: Apevia X-Supra Gaming Mid-Tower 420W Case (G Type Black Color with Side-Window)
CPU: AMD Athlon™ X2 6400+ Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology
MOTHERBOARD: Asus M2N SLI NVIDIA nForce 560 SLI MCP Chipset DDR2/800 SATA RAID PCI-Express MBoard w/GbLAN, IEEE1394, USB2.0, &7.1Audio
MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)4GB (4x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair or Major Brand)
VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT 1GB 16X PCI Express (EVGA Powered by NVIDIA)
VIDEO CARD 2: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT 1GB 16X PCI Express (EVGA Powered by NVIDIA)
LCD Monitor: NONE
HARD DRIVE: Single Hard Drive (320GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)

Using a configurator at cyberpowerpc.com I came up with what *LOOKS* like a decent system for the price.. I'm skeptical though because I've never bought a premade system from them before.

As copied from site after configuration:

$1092.00(before all applicable rebates)


CASE: Apevia X-Supra Gaming Mid-Tower 420W Case (G Type Black Color with Side-Window)
CPU: AMD Athlon™ X2 6400+ Dual-Core CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology
MOTHERBOARD: Asus M2N SLI NVIDIA nForce 560 SLI MCP Chipset DDR2/800 SATA RAID PCI-Express MBoard w/GbLAN, IEEE1394, USB2.0, &7.1Audio
MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)4GB (4x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair or Major Brand)
VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT 1GB 16X PCI Express (EVGA Powered by NVIDIA)
VIDEO CARD 2: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT 1GB 16X PCI Express (EVGA Powered by NVIDIA)
LCD Monitor: NONE
HARD DRIVE: Single Hard Drive (320GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)


I bought a computer from Cyberpowerpc.com... Best computer I have ever had.

Not much will take advantage of 4GB of ram, 2gb is usually VERY sifficient. In fact you can look at a few articles on many sites stating the Windows XP, handles above 2gb POORLY, and that Vista only handles it marginally better.

Also, almost no game worth playing supports SLI/Duel Video Cards, and most of the time you have to turn it off. I dont recommend it.

Everything else looks good

If you're building a new machine and are interested in performance, I wouldn't suggest staying with AMD.

i have Core2 Duo, works really good, i do have some heating issues though.

I too have purchased a pc from cyberpower and I've been nothing but happy with it. Spent about what you want to spend about a year ago and it's ran great for me.

Thanks for the infos everyone. Going to look into things a bit further and see what I can work out. Only thing I fear is if I build this new machine... I'm never going to see daylight again :P

I concur on the processor, get a Core Duo. Gone are the days of paying less for the same performance with AMD. I put a Core2Duo e8400 in mine. Works great.

Also, I would suggest going with a single higher end card rather than two mid range cards. I just built my system out with a single 8800GTS 512 and it serves me well (runs AoC perfectly at 1900x1200, CoD4 great at 1900x1200, crysis demo at 12xx X 7xx and not everything turned up, but still looks great and gets good framerates). Still get the SLI board though to leave yourself open for an upgrade to an SLI config in the future. You should check out TomsHardware.com though and see how different cards are performing before making a decision. Tom's does a "best graphics card for the money" post every month that may be worth checking out too. Here's May's: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-card,1923.html

As to ram... its pretty cheap, so if its not a substantial savings you might as well throw 3-4 gigs in, especially if you ever plan on going 64 bit on that rig. Little do people realize, but everyone EVENTUALLY will be going 64 bit, even if its not vista x64.

Do a little bit of research on the nForce 560 chipset. There was a couple releases in the 500 series that had some issues, if I remember correctly. I've bought nForce MoBos since they first came out and have been very happy with them, though.

If its not too much more, you may think about throwing a second hard drive in and setting up a raid0. Single drive on my rig gets about 70 - 80MB/s burst read / write. With the raid0 I get 100-110MB/s.

So I went ahead and ordered my PC from cyberpowerpc.com and what a fucking nightmare that turned out to be. I picked it up, brought it home, set it up, turned it on and... 'Missing operating system..' The sons of bitches didn't install Vista. They didn't include any documentation saying "BTW, You'll need to install this yourself". They didn't provide a CD/DVD with any sufficient drivers to get the computer going at all. Maybe they were just too stupid to figure out how to set up a SATA RAID 0 configuration on Vista and said "Fuck it, let them figure it out". Anyway, I finally got it going but this leaves a very sour taste in my mouth with this company. Not only that, but their customer service is ridiculous. I called up at 4pm PST and got voice recordings that, rather than listing their business hours, or letting me stay on hold, lead me to a voice mail box to leave a message.

Sorry to hear about that. I haven't purchased a store bought computers for years, with the exception of my laptop. I even tried to build that, the parts just aren't out there yet.

Just from memory, all of this was around $450 on Newegg. I haven't ordered it yet, so I lost the specifics. All of these were well rated mid range items.

- 320 gig HD - $80 ish
- 4 gig memory - $90-$120 depending on sticks
- Core 2 Duo 2.2 ghz - $130 ish
- ASUS something good motherboard - $120
- Radeon 1 gig memory video card - not quite top of the line, but budget - $80

It's worth watching the sales on Newegg and Pricewatch.

From my old PC I can recycle the power supply, old HD, peripherals, monitor, and operating system. I know this is nothing new for most of the folks here, but if you're willing to tinker some you can save a lot of money building your own box. With a good motherboard you'll save upgrades down the line - that was my goof last time, so I'll need to replace my memory this time around. When I priced desktop PCs, many of the upgrades cost more than the original item - you pay almost double. Apple seemed especially bad about this.

Kanyli,

In another respect, though, Apple desktops and laptops hold their value incredibly well. Before I purchased the Penryn MacBook Pro, I had a PowerBook G4 12" which I used for anything that did not require gaming until February this year. The laptop ran most software without a hiccup, including Creative Suite 3. My new MacBook Pro dual-boots Vista and OS X, and plays Crysis at 30-50fps at 1152x resolution. I can also play World of Warcraft and EverQuest in VMware reasonably well with version 2 beta 1, but I rather play the OS X native version of World of Warcraft.

Most users will keep their Apple product in commission for at least 1.5 years if not 2 years. You don't need to install Apple genuine parts for RAM or hard drive; I found the hard drive and RAM relatively easy to install, even for laptops.

Upgrades for video card run about the same price, since ATI/AMD and nVidia even sell upgrade kits for Apple's desktop unit, Mac Pro (i.e., ATI Radeon HD 3870 Mac and PC Edition, http://www.tuaw.com/2008/06/15/graphics-powerhouse-ati-radeon-hd-3870-mac-and-pc-edition/), at the same price.

I also feel I need to debunk the price myth of Apple products too:

As a target set of specifications, I went for the following:

CPU: 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo
RAM: 1 GB DDR2 667 MHz
Hard drive: 100 GB 7200rpm
Graphics: Ati X1600 with 256 MB*
CD/DVD drive: 8X DVD+/-RW Dual Layer
Connectivity: Built-in Wireless and Bluetooth

[...]

The results were… well, quite stunning:

Inspiron E1705 $2,893
Precision M90 $3,452
Inspiron 9400 $2,981
MacBook Pro 17" $2,799

At first, I thought I had made some mistakes - maybe I'd accidentally added more than 1GB of RAM - but after doing the entire process twice for each notebook, just to be sure, I realized that I had made no mistakes. All three Dell notebooks are more expensive than the MacBook Pro!

Source: http://kurafire.net/log/archive/2006/04/25/debunking-the-price-myth-apple-vs-dell

You didn't include the cost of buying a useful OS to put on the MacBook.

Laptops are a pain in the ass anyway. Compare desktop prices.

Here's a comparison for a Mac Pro 3.0GHz 2x Quad-Core Intel Xeon vs Dell 2.66GHz 2x Quad-Core Intel Xeon (caveat, these comparisons were taken a year ago; I'll look for one for this year's):

http://web.mac.com/leilaj/iWeb/MotleyRunners/Images/maccomp.png

I realize this isn’t really an, er, apples to apples comparison. There’s probably somebody out there that will tell me why the PC architecture is better or something, but on the surface, it appears you can get a lot more Mac for your buck than Dell.

I configured a Mac Pro and a Dell as equally as I was able. I could have upgraded the Dell to a 256 MB graphics card, but I wasn’t sure which was most comparable, and the Dell price would have gone up even more...

Source: http://web.mac.com/leilaj/iWeb/MotleyRunners/TrevsBlog/1393120D-3E74-4E3F-8D22-3843FB4E518F.html

That's a CAD/CAM/3D machine, not a gaming machine. Look at that video card.

8 cores are utterly useless for gaming and/or regular use. Most people will rarely even use four to any worthwhile extent.

I configured a Dimension with a faster processor and better graphics card for $1,299.

Similar Mac Pro (I removed the second quad core chip from default) was $2,299.

They don't sell Dell Dimension on the Dell storefront for the Home/Home Office market. They only have XPS and Inspiron. (http://www.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/desktops?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs). Which configuration did you use?

It was an XPS.

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=dxcwcf1&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&m_1=D1Q66H&m_8=320S&mo=1~D1Q66H&mo=8~320S&kc=productdetails~xpsdt_630

(with the +$100 faster processor, if that link doesn't include it)

Prices change too - looking at laptops last summer, the Macbook lines were considerably more expensive than Dell, but that may not be true anymore. It was Apple's website where I noticed that going from 1gig to 2gig of memory was more than double the price of buying a comparable 2gig stick elsewhere.