OT: PC Gaming Hardware Thread

[Naples39]

FWIW, I am satisfied with my ibuypower desktop from a few months ago. I think I got pretty good value, with a system that can run all the latest games on high or max settings very well for $1200.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15774

[Danimal]

I'm glad its working for you Naples. We bought 3 of them and all of them died within 1 year from various problems, mainly mobo failures. Also each ones fan died and needed to be replaced. So that kind of left a bad taste in my mouth.

[Naples39]

I'm glad its working for you Naples. We bought 3 of them and all of them died within 1 year from various problems, mainly mobo failures. Also each ones fan died and needed to be replaced. So that kind of left a bad taste in my mouth.

Yikes. Now you have me all worried.

[Jimmydeicide]

My son needs a lap top for College, hes going into an engineering program so hes going to be running CAD I'm sure. Funds are at a premium here so im looking at any options (is there a Woolworths anywhere i may go back to my school days and steal one for lunch )
So far I've been offered a Dell xps for $285 its old tho i think cor 2 duo, 2GHz, 2g ram , 250hd and a Sony Vaio for 260 same sort of specs. He would need more ram i think for CAD no?

Is the dell still a decent option or is it too old any one with suggestions? I may go too around 500 on price but would prefer a cheaper option.

[Pete1210]

I'm glad its working for you Naples. We bought 3 of them and all of them died within 1 year from various problems, mainly mobo failures. Also each ones fan died and needed to be replaced. So that kind of left a bad taste in my mouth.

Yikes. Now you have me all worried.

I've had my ibuypower PC for nearly a year with no problems. I did replace the fans when I got it because they were too noisy. After purchase I did read that their Power Supplies were on the cheap side, so I decided to upgrade that as well.

[Pete1210]

My son needs a lap top for College, hes going into an engineering program so hes going to be running CAD I'm sure. Funds are at a premium here so im looking at any options (is there a Woolworths anywhere i may go back to my school days and steal one for lunch )
So far I've been offered a Dell xps for $285 its old tho i think cor 2 duo, 2GHz, 2g ram , 250hd and a Sony Vaio for 260 same sort of specs. He would need more ram i think for CAD no?

Is the dell still a decent option or is it too old any one with suggestions? I may go too around 500 on price but would prefer a cheaper option.

They have lots of laptop deals posted here daily, many under 500:
http://dealnews.com/

[dbdynsty25]

My son needs a lap top for College, hes going into an engineering program so hes going to be running CAD I'm sure. Funds are at a premium here so im looking at any options (is there a Woolworths anywhere i may go back to my school days and steal one for lunch )
So far I've been offered a Dell xps for $285 its old tho i think cor 2 duo, 2GHz, 2g ram , 250hd and a Sony Vaio for 260 same sort of specs. He would need more ram i think for CAD no?

Is the dell still a decent option or is it too old any one with suggestions? I may go too around 500 on price but would prefer a cheaper option.

If you're running CAD you're going to need a TON more ram. I wouldn't get anything less than 4gb personally if you're looking to have it last four years. You should be able to get 6gb and a Core i5 for that price. Ignore those other two you were offered.

Something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834216456

[F308GTB]

My son needs a lap top for College, hes going into an engineering program so hes going to be running CAD I'm sure. Funds are at a premium here so im looking at any options (is there a Woolworths anywhere i may go back to my school days and steal one for lunch )
So far I've been offered a Dell xps for $285 its old tho i think cor 2 duo, 2GHz, 2g ram , 250hd and a Sony Vaio for 260 same sort of specs. He would need more ram i think for CAD no?

Is the dell still a decent option or is it too old any one with suggestions? I may go too around 500 on price but would prefer a cheaper option.

If you're running CAD you're going to need a TON more ram. I wouldn't get anything less than 4gb personally if you're looking to have it last four years. You should be able to get 6gb and a Core i5 for that price. Ignore those other two you were offered.

Something like this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834216456

I'd say it depends on the CAD package. I've got a 3 year old PC running Win7 Home Premium with 3gb. One of my programs won't run on that, and until recently our IT folks were clueless on how to get it running on Win7 Pro. So I had a Win xp pro 64 bit virtual machine running on top of Vmware to run the Ideas program from Siemans. Granted the version I'm running is 4-5 years old, but even the latest isn't much more demanding on hardware. With that I could do a fair amount. As a college student I doubt he'll be generating large assemblies, so even a recent mid-range laptop will be more than adequate for mundane tasks.

The key thing is to find out what package he'll be running. Big difference between Catia, ProE, Siemans PLM and something like AutoCAD. Also, FWIW most of our "high end" workstations at work, which haven't been replace in 3-4 years are chugging along with 4-8 gb RAM. Granted they have very high end (and 4 year o.d technology) graphics cards, but the graphics really only come into play when doing large assembly dynamic rotations of shaded or hidden line views. Wireframe is not a resource hog.

[Jimmydeicide]

Good info guys . Yeh im not going with those old ones leaning more to a newer one now and he gets student discount some places.
Thanks again.

[Brando70]

So if I wanted to jump into PC gaming and get a quality rig, any idea on what I would be spending? Can you get in for less than $1000 and still be able to play just about anything? Does it still make sense to even get a desktop for PC gaming?

[dbdynsty25]

So if I wanted to jump into PC gaming and get a quality rig, any idea on what I would be spending? Can you get in for less than $1000 and still be able to play just about anything? Does it still make sense to even get a desktop for PC gaming?

Easily can get something under a grand and run damn near everything. My current setup can be had for around 1000 and I can run everything at ultra res 1920x1200 without a single issue. You can step down a bit on each item and pull off the same feat I'm sure and then knock a few hundred off, as I'm the idiot that buys the best available when it comes out. LOL...I'm learning to not do that again.

If you want me to spec something out for you, no problem. Are you building it yourself or are you trying to have someone else do it, because if it's the latter, it's going to be harder to get a competent machine for under 1K when you include the labor/software.

[Brando70]

I would probably have it done for me -- not sure I'm handy enough to do it myself. Also, I'd want to err on getting something that's powerful enough to be up to speed for a while. If I'm going to do this, I'm not going to half-ass it.

At this point, I'm just trying to see if this will even be feasible for me at, say, Christmas this year. If getting a new computer than will work for gaming is greater than $1000, I may not be able to do it now.

[Rodster]

I would probably have it done for me -- not sure I'm handy enough to do it myself. Also, I'd want to err on getting something that's powerful enough to be up to speed for a while. If I'm going to do this, I'm not going to half-ass it.

At this point, I'm just trying to see if this will even be feasible for me at, say, Christmas this year. If getting a new computer than will work for gaming is greater than $1000, I may not be able to do it now.

Brando if you're not going to build it you might want to look at the latest Alienware X51. They had a sale going recently. http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-x51-r2/pd.aspx

They are decent PC's for the money and look pretty slick. I built a Steam Box for around $1150 and it includes a GTX 780.

[Brando70]

Thanks, Rod.

Also, I am assuming the computers I am seeing with SSD and standard hard drives are using the SSDs for the OS and standard for storage? I got a new Dell laptop for work with an SSD and I will never go back to the old hard drives now because of the speed increase.

[Rodster]

Thanks, Rod.

Also, I am assuming the computers I am seeing with SSD and standard hard drives are using the SSDs for the OS and standard for storage? I got a new Dell laptop for work with an SSD and I will never go back to the old hard drives now because of the speed increase.

They use the SSD for caching IIRC. I still use spindle drives.

[Brando70]

Is it very hard to build your own computer? I've done some mundane things like added RAM and video/sound cards, but not much more beyond that. The savings would be nice but I'd hate to spend hundred of dollars and then not have it work.

[Rodster]

Is it very hard to build your own computer? I've done some mundane things like added RAM and video/sound cards, but not much more beyond that. The savings would be nice but I'd hate to spend hundred of dollars and then not have it work.

Nah its pretty easy nowadays. I can send you pics of my Steam Box if you like. I just added liquid cooling to the CPU.

edit: i you decide to build your own don't buy a CPU cooler. I have 2 brand new coolers I can sell you for the cheap.

[dbdynsty25]

It's almost all plug and play now Brando. The days of killing yourself trying to find malfunctioning equipment is long gone. It's really simple. Check out Tom's hardware...they do a lot of walkthroughs and whatnot...see if you think you're up to it. But seriously, if you can add ram, you can do the entire system. The trickiest part is getting the switches and lights mapped from your new case to your new motherboard. LOL. Seriously, that's the only part I dread these days. And even that has gotten easier and easier as case wiring has become fairly standard.

And yes, SSD for OS and applications and then spindles for Storage. If you're not using SSD on your main OS drive, you're severely limiting yourself. There's no bigger upgrade to a computer than switching to SSD.

[Brando70]

Thanks, gentlemen. I did do a little research and found a gamesradar guide that came in below $900. It doesn't look as difficult as I thought it would, especially if I follow someone's blueprint where I know the parts should all work. Now I just have to see if I have the money after I get my roof redone this week (the joys of home ownership).

The interest stems from enjoying XCOM so much -- I would love to get a PC machine that would let me tap into the strategy games you just don't find on consoles. With the sports genre dying and most of the console games I like also being on the PC, popping a few hundred more for a PC instead of a new console has a lot of appeal right now.

[Jimmydeicide]

Hard drive is about to fail. my question is , i did the recovery discs so after i install a new hard drive do they work on the new harddrive to get my system functioning with windows. i dont have a copy of my windows.
Its been so long since i opened a pc im so out the loop.
Its a compaq presario bought the first day windows 7 came out.

[dbdynsty25]

my question is , i did the recovery discs so after i install a new hard drive do they work on the new harddrive to get my system functioning with windows.

Yes. That's about all there is to it.

[Jimmydeicide]

Thanks db and in before my pc crashes again. cheers.

[Danimal]

I didn't want to start a new thread and I thought DB or Rod could answer this.

Can I use a Windows 7 64 bit upgrade on a Windows 8 machine? I bought a 3 pack upgrade a long time back and I have a laptop I want to get this curse of Windows 8 off of.

Thanks

[Rodster]

I didn't want to start a new thread and I thought DB or Rod could answer this.

Can I use a Windows 7 64 bit upgrade on a Windows 8 machine? I bought a 3 pack upgrade a long time back and I have a laptop I want to get this curse of Windows 8 off of.

Thanks

No you can't because they are separate licenses and what you are attempting to do is a downgrade. However you can do a clean install with your Windows 7 upgrade and activate the license with a simple registry hack.

[Danimal]

You have info on how to do this you can PM me?