So I got budgetary approval from The Wife for a new gaming rig in the next month or two. I'm proud of myself because approval came in earlier than expected.
My last new rig was 3.5 years ago from iBuyPower. I am generally happy with it but I think I lucked out in not needing customer service ever. Not sure if iBuyPower customer service even exists.
I wanted to pick your collective brain on what you woukd suggest this time around. Trying to stay at 2k for price. Is that doable for an Alienware. Falcon NW or Dell high end gaming machne? Probably not for bleeding edge...but maybe a custim build? I haven't shopped around for a new PC in over 3 years, so I want some help.
Also considering building my own but I am never sure if that truly costs less or not.
All advice welcome-thanks guys!
Must be nice. I'm still stuck with my ancient rig. But congrats because I know that must be an awesome feeling. O0
I think you can do a mid-range Alienware rig for about two grand. Depends though if you're intending to get a new monitor or not? If not that 2K can go a long way to an Area-51 desktop.
MB:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3947170&sku=A455-9902
CPU:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4904561&CatId=11857
RAM:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7526003&CatId=11483
SSD:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2416664&CatId=5300
I actually have the same capacity in a Seagate SSD but this is about what I paid during a sale. Sales are really key to keeping the price of SSDs down.
GPU:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8687103&CatId=7387
again, I got this a year ago so check prices for newer and better stuff.
PSU:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8687728&CatId=2533
this has more then enough juice to run everything in this build.
Case:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8753762&Sku=JOR-102188694
I used my old case but I want to get this one.
CPU Cooling:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7413643&CatId=499
the stock heatsink and fan work but this works better.
so far this costs $1370.00 and it runs everything Ive thrown at it with all setting on maximum.
Total War, AirLandBattle, Homeworld...the lot. boot time has always been under 35 seconds.
if you play more shooters then maybe get a more powerful GPU. hell, with another $600.00 you can get 16 gigs more of RAM and a supersweet GPU and a 1000 watt PSU.
his PSU:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=9160998&sku=JOR-102569189
and this GPU:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8869859&CatId=7387
and doubling the RAM brings the total to $1790.00 and it will crush anything.
Nice - thanks Star. I may keep the monitor...it's a very good 24" Dell, never had any problems with it. Also kinda sorta considering an Alienware laptop, but I don't like that I can never open it up, upgrade, etc.
I was just looking and a comparably priced Alienware has a smaller SSD and slower RAM.
and its also a Dell.... shudder
I can't hate on Dell...a rig I had bought ~10 years ago is still going strong as the family computer.
I may very well go with almost exactly the build you put above.
its pretty much exactly the pc I built and I love it.
How long do you keep your computers?
till they die.
Gus. I have a Falcon NW Talon which is an excellent rig and in fact is the best PC I've ever owned. You can get a solid Talon plus cpu, gpu upgrades for under $2K.
I'd also look at Digital Storm and Xotic PC. I own an Xotic laptop which has been a beast. I had an Ibuypower rig, which was awesome and in fact it's still in use as far as I know to this date. You get a lot of parts upgrades for less, but the quality isn't the best.
I'd personally stay away from Dell/Alienware. I just don't think the value is there anymore honestly.
Also upgrade to a 27 inch monitor. Size really does matter in this case. I recently got a 27" BenQ monitor from newegg and it didn't cost me an arm and a leg or a night on the couch.
wow... saying size matters to Gus is pretty evil.
a big part of a new build pc is finding the deals and sales.
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on April 08, 2015, 11:00:19 PM
a big part of a new build pc is finding the deals and sales.
Meh. I'm over that phase. I just want the fucking thing to show up, be well built, play games awesomely, and have the ability to watch some
porn youtube videos.
I understand but the Gus wife has a much firmer grasp of his nuts.
The beauty of this is The Wife has already been briefed :)
Will check out a 27" monitor, I'm curious as to how much a monitor that size costs these days.
And a Falcon NW can really be had for under 2k? Will have to check that out too.
I alawys built my own PC's in the past but there is no way you can build a PC cheaper than buying a complete unit. I went with a Cyberpower PC - fully expecting a peice of donkey dung, but I was pleasantly surprised - tech support ....I can't say - I always do my own troubleshooting anyway. Alienware/Falcon Northwest make quality stuff but you pay for the brand - however, I suspect their tech support may be worth the extra cost if that's an important factor in your purchase. Not only that but you get to brag you own an Alienware or Falcon Northwest system ;-)
Isn't Cyberpower related to iBuyPower?
Another vender you might consider is Digital Storm. I have had good luck with them. I have not had to use customer service much, but when I have, they have been responsive and helpful.
I don't buy FNW for the brand; I buy it because they have reliably proven again and again to provide the best performance with rock solid hardware and software architecture and, on the rare occasion I needed it, highly competent technical support. Come to think of it, I don't recall ever needing tech support for a problem inherent to their computers, only for something I wanted to do and/or which I messed up. Also, strictly speaking, I don't recall EVER ONCE actually having to talk to their tech support: the sales guy (Matthew I think) who answers the phone has always been enough. Their pre-tech support also includes all manuals and backup discs for all drivers and OS. I buy a three year warranty for the formality of it; some rigs (like their Tiki which is the size of a console system like the Playstation) come with the 3 year warranty built-in. Also, they throw in a good backpack for smaller units.
Unfortunately, my old browser at work no longer operates some key parts of their site, so I can't check what $2000 will buy nowadays.
I have yet to go directly to the Falcon NW site but I may not...there are some sweet machines on Tigerdirect. And prices have definitely come down since I last shopped in 2011.
The best Tiki system I can price for $2K or under.
ChassisTiki - Standard Black
Chassis Logo Insert: White Light
Chassis Base: Aluminum - Black
Power Supply: SilverStone® 450 Watt SFX
Motherboard: Asus® Z97I Plus
Processor: Intel® Core™ i5 4670K 3.4GHz
Processor Overclock (they'll do this for free but it takes a few extra build days to make sure it's safe. They'll also let you know if there's no point 'safely' overclocking it. Manually overclocking stays within the Falcon Warranty, so long as they regard it as safe.)
Processor Cooler: Asetek® Liquid Cooling - Tiki
Memory: 1866MHz 2x8GB (16GB)
Video Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 960 2GB
Sound Card: On-Board Audio
Networking: On-Board Ethernet
Operating System Drive: Micron® M600 SSD 256GB (also the only drive)
Optical Drive: Slot-Load DVD Writer
64-Bit Operating SystemMicrosoft® Windows 8.1
USB Rescue Drive
Falcon Northwest Manual
Warranty: 3 Year Warranty - Tiki (this comes standard with Tikis; and they'll match your freight back to you at their cost. They can build this in because statistically Falcons are like rocks. O0 )
Your cost including freight in North America: $1987
Best Fragbox for $2001
Components
ChassisFragBox - Standard Black
Chassis Logo Insert: White Light
Power Supply: SilverStone® 500 Watt
Motherboard: Asus® Z97 Gryphon
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7 4790K Devils Canyon
Processor Overclock (though that's probably worthless with the Devils Canyon as it does dynamic overclocking)
Processor Cooler: Asetek® Liquid Cooling - FragBox
Memory: 1866MHz 2x8GB (16GB)
Video Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 750 Ti 2GB
Sound Card: On-Board Audio
Networking: On-Board Ethernet
Operating System Drive: Micron® M600 SSD 256GB
Optical Drive: Slot-Load DVD Writer
64-Bit Operating System: Microsoft® Windows 8.1
USB Rescue Drive
Falcon Northwest Manual
Warranty: 3 Year Warranty - FragBox
Alternately: you could dial the processor back to a Intel® Core™ i5 4670K 3.4GHz, and upgrade the video card slightly to NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 960 2GB which has twice as good efficiency in using those 2 Gigs of onboard RAM. $1911 for this variation.
A Talon will cost you more than a Fragbox for the same horsepower; but basically you're paying for more room to add numerically more upgrades later. Note that the Tiki and the Fragbox can still be upgraded, but with stronger things, not numerically more things (except for the FB which can add a few more things, too.)
Sidenote: Falcon doesn't care whether a chipset is NVIDIA vs AMD, or Intel vs AMD. They only care about reliability and performance. In past years I've seen them offer AMD builds but only where the chips passed rigorous burn tests. This year (and last year) they aren't offering.
Falcon guards its reputation religiously. If they aren't offering an AMD build this year, they have technical reasons.
(Similarly, they'll talk customers out of a costlier piece of tech if they don't think it'll bring better performance than a less expensive option, though they'll offer it anyway for riggers who want to mess with it personally.)
Just a note - if you are looking for a fast boot, you really need to get a SSD hard drive. As you will most likely buy a new motherboard, they are UEFI standard, and are AHCI, along with latest gen of SATA ports for hard disks. Hell, Intel is coming out with a new SSD that is PCI-E now ( that means we are jumping from 12 Gbps of data transfer with SATA to 128 Gbps with PCI-E 3.0x16!! Crazy. If I wasn't busy with the baby and work, I would have got a new motherboard to advantage of the new offerings.
Wow guys...quite the wealth of knowledge here. If I didn't know better I would say Pratt works for Falcon.
I don't think Cyberpower and ibuypower are connected. I don't know the scoop in the US, but Newegg prices are always better than Tiger Direct here in Canada - for goodness sake don't buy anything sporting an AMD A-series CPU - great for a secondary laptop system maybe, but totally out of contention for a desktop CPU.
I've never owned an AMD powered anything!
AMD, Corsair, Asus and ATI work together very well and do so at a pricepoint that beats Intel for similar performance. Its all I've built for the last 16 years or so and that covers roughly 10 machines. 3 of those 10 were my personal pc's.
Never had an AMD. My last ATI was 15 years ago.
Where are we at on this Gus? Don't be missing the opportunity to take advantage of your wife's irrational allowance of you spending money on a gaming rig you want brother!
^I hear you. Shopping still. Still leaning towards buying the parts and assembling, but I have found a few Falcon NW builds like Pratt recommends above for some really good prices, around 1800-1900. So...torn, a bit right now.
There is a primal satisfaction to be derived from building your own computer, much like that which you gain after brewing your first batch of tasty home-made beer. It's true that you merely followed the careful steps outlined by others who blazed the trail before you but is that any different than assembling a kit-built light aircraft or replicating your Grandmother's classic savory biscuits? Do it at least once, just so that when your grand children (or better yet great grand children) ask you what life was like back in the twenty-teens you can say "Well, among other things, we sometimes built our own computers" and you can see their eyes widen with wonder. ;)
Just stay away from my Grandma's biscuits and everything will be fine.
I shall endeavor to be a perfect gentleman. O:-)
Quote from: Gusington on April 13, 2015, 12:29:47 PM
Just stay away from my Grandma's biscuits and everything will be fine.
butt your grandmas biscuits bring all the boys to the yard.
They certainly used to.
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fstream1.gifsoup.com%2Fview6%2F2434155%2Ftechno-grandma-o.gif&hash=840f3cd60b9236c15c82015d03d9d0d65ed78bf5)
Almost there...comparing some NewEgg builds to the Tiki.
The one time I needed some serious customer service from Newegg, they went above & beyond. No hassle. All in one phone call. :smitten:
That's the only place I've been buying parts for many years now.
+1
Think I found it:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229614
That plus an Acer monitor for around 1650.00. I would love to get a Falcon but a similar built would be around 2300.00.
http://www.ibuypower.com/Store/IBP-Intel-Z97-i7-Special-PRE-BUILD
Same price more RAM and lots more free shit.
Hmm...I have an iBuyPower right now...can't complain about it...
Quote from: Banzai_Cat on April 13, 2015, 05:18:06 PM
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fstream1.gifsoup.com%2Fview6%2F2434155%2Ftechno-grandma-o.gif&hash=840f3cd60b9236c15c82015d03d9d0d65ed78bf5)
Is that the primate prance or the chimp cha-cha?
dont forget the USB Fleshlight.
Have a 1-2 week delay. Had to budget in some household work :(
a sex swing is household work?
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on May 16, 2015, 11:46:27 AM
a sex swing is household work?
The part where you assemble the swing is work. After that... ^-^
Plumbing. Well work and water purifier.
Further delay until July/August...furnace and water heater :/
Why do I own a house again?
Sorry to hear that
Gus. At least it's only been postponed (and not indefinitely)!
Quote from: Gusington on May 30, 2015, 11:50:35 AM
Why do I own a house again?
Beats the hell out of me! :crazy2:
True. And of course a gaming rig upgrade is a 'nice to have' - not a must have - like heat in the winter and clean water.
Still, the five year old in me wants it NOW NOW NOW.
Quote from: Gusington on May 30, 2015, 12:18:47 PM
True. And of course a gaming rig upgrade is a 'nice to have' - not a must have - like heat in the winter and clean water.
Still, the five year old in me wants it NOW NOW NOW.
You ate him whole?
He didn't have a chance. So I figured to get him a new rig to shut him up.
I have everything in the electronic shopping cart right now. If I wasn't such a Team Player with The Wife I would just get everything and suffer The Consequences (wrath).
Quote from: Gusington on May 15, 2015, 08:25:21 PM
Hmm...I have an iBuyPower right now...can't complain about it...
My iBuyPower is noisy as hell! My wife informed me that it will be the last IBP I purchase. After years of ultra-quiet Dells she has a point. But....I do get a new computer in the fall when she gets to put Dr. before her name. I'm good with that!
I'll have to look at your specs, Gus, and see if it suits me. And I'm not Mirth or Star, that doesn't mean anything besides what I said!
Quote from: Gusington on May 30, 2015, 01:30:06 PM
He didn't have a chance. So I figured to get him a new rig to shut him up.
I have everything in the electronic shopping cart right now. If I wasn't such a Team Player with The Wife I would just get everything and suffer The Consequences (wrath).
Damn the consequences - what's the worse that could happen?
his nuts next to the dogs.
he has spawned all the mini gusses he needs
a new pc trumps nuts when youre done spreading the gene pool
Perhaps. Right now I am on the train going home from a summer beer fest in the city. I you guys lather me up enough I'll just buy the rig with this here phone. I have an hour and half to kill.
You know, Gus, it's verrrrry, verrrry easy to accidentally push the wrong button on a phone, they're so damn tiny!!! Who could be mad over an accident? O:-)
It's also so very easy to remove my nuts and display them on the mantle.
Be careful Gus, i read some newer processors have less power than ones from a couple years ago.
^Really? I know about the NVidia 'scandal' with the GeForce 970 cards, which IIRC is now worked out...haven't heard anything about processors.
They seem to be working on power efficiency, deciding processing power is plenty. Its possible the articles are about laptop cpus, i am not up on current model numbers. Iirc the discusion was at toms hardware.
In their cpu benchmarks section the first eDmark test is
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2015/-14-3DMark,3706.html
The top score goes to an i5, the second to an i7, then both intermixed, not in clockspeed sequence, till the 10th is an i3. Out of a massive list.
What does it all mean? I'm so confused! Actually, i dont give a shit any more because my 2yr old bargain acer laptop, with integrated graphics, seems to run all my games on a 42" 1080p screen very well. I did the counterstrike video stress test, it was at over 150 fps. I had to turn up the candy settings.
^I tend to agree. To me power supply, video card and memory are at the top of the list. Processor is 2nd. I'm looking at i-chips exclusively anyway which score high anyway.
One thing that IMO would be very valuable is getting the amazing fire hdx or samsung tablet screens onto a pc. Given everything you do is experienced through that portal, it would make a real experience benefit. Is there a video card that can drive 4k tvs at full res? Im guessing they max out at 2560x whatever.
Quote from: Gusington on May 30, 2015, 11:50:35 AM
Further delay until July/August...furnace and water heater :/
Why do I own a house again?
QFT.
Always something, huh?
The last couple of weeks have been multiple somethings. Luckily this time it was just an exhaust fan that was loose...but that's spooked me enough to hold on to the money, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Mirth and I have decided to replace you with Brant.
Quote from: GDS_Starfury on June 01, 2015, 09:46:33 AM
Mirth and I have decided to replace you with Brant.
How's that gonna work? He's nowhere near the proper height. ???
It's about time I got released from such a lopsided contract.