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Craterus
02-03-2006, 22:59
I hope to have enough money to buy a new computer before M2:TW comes out. But how much is enough money?

I want a computer that will be good enough to play the game on huge unit settings and still have great graphics, so I'm thinking it'll be top of the line.

I've got a year to save up for this computer, but I was just wondering how much a top of the line computer costs. I'll bump this thread nearer the release so I know what machine to get (I'm assuming new hardware will be released in the next year or so).

So, how much do I have to save?

TosaInu
02-03-2006, 23:36
Top of line, should start around $1,000-$1,500 exl. monitor. You have a decent mid-range then. Should play all modern games. If you really want the top: $2,000 and more.

My personal strategy is settling for the (higher) mid-range. The top is often way too expensive for the little extra gain.

When you plan to buy a new PC for M2TW: do it only just a month or so before it ships. You'll always get faster hardware for less money when you buy later. Normally :)

Beirut
02-03-2006, 23:47
I find staying a year behind the times gets a computer that still plays everything but is reasonable priced. My AMD64-3000/512/9800Pro still rocks, but by summer I'll certainly be looking at a whole new rig.

By then the stuff I'll be buying will be a year out of date, but I'm sure it will play everything very nicely.

Craterus
02-04-2006, 00:59
I'll be buying this computer in the January sales of 2007. That should cut a bit off the price, and thanks for the rough estimates. :2thumbsup:

Phatose
02-04-2006, 06:43
Just make sure you check the video card carefully. I've seen prebuilt machines come with nice specs on everything, but a massively underpowered vid card for a machine being sold as a gaming rig. Check benchmarks too, video RAM isn't a good indicator anymore.

As for top of the line, while no price has been officially announced yet, it's general expected that Dell's super-top-of-the-line XPS-600 renegade with quad SLI is gonna cost $8-9000.

Craterus
02-04-2006, 23:58
Top of line, should start around $1,000-$1,500 exl. monitor. You have a decent mid-range then. Should play all modern games. If you really want the top: $2,000 and more.

My personal strategy is settling for the (higher) mid-range. The top is often way too expensive for the little extra gain.

When you plan to buy a new PC for M2TW: do it only just a month or so before it ships. You'll always get faster hardware for less money when you buy later. Normally :)

Oh that's reassuring, I just pumped that into a currency converter and even the top of the line is only just over £1,100.

I thought they cost more than that.

doc_bean
02-05-2006, 19:56
I'm not a fan of pre-built machines, they always have a weakness.

Some general comments:

-Like Tosa pointed out: high range is rarely worth the extra cost, these days computers don't evolve as fast as they used to, pretty much all advancement is made in the graphics cards. Don't buy a top of the line graphics card, it costs about twice as much as the next best thing and really isn't that much better usually. OTOH, gfx cards are what makes the difference these days.

-IMHO RAM is the most overrated aspect these days, lots of RAM is a good thing, but it's not always worth the extra cost. Generally if a game runs fine with a certain amount of RAM, it won't run better with more.

-Don't buy a new system because you think you need it, check out the game first to see if you need it, and of course, if it's really worth the upgrade.

Lemur
02-05-2006, 20:04
I've always built my own PCs, but I may go for a pre-fab next time. There are a few places that will let you spec every little thing, and still bring the machine in under the cost of buying the parts. How they do it, I don't know, but I'll probably take advantage of it. Check out the level of detail at the dippily named I Buy Power (http://www.ibuypower.com/mall/lobby.htm) and tell me that you're going to wind up with junk parts.

I know two people who bought from this site, and they're both mightily pleased.

doc_bean
02-05-2006, 20:13
Is the system still upgradable ? I've heard certain compagnies 'weld' in components so they can't be replaced. :help:

Lemur
02-05-2006, 20:21
Both Compaq and Dell used to weld parts in, but that practice is over, so far as I know. Dell's big thing is using non-standard parts, so that upgrading is a nightmare. They even use their own spec of power supply, so don't even think about putting in a new mobo.

I Buy Power uses standard parts, and there's no welding involved. I can attest to this personally; I poked around inside my friend Ben's PC after he bought from them. And Ben has replaced both his proc and mobo with no problems, so there you have it.

I can't speak to everybody else. I'm sure if you buy a custom watercooled Voodoo PC you won't want to do any upgrades yourself. Don't know about Alienware and Falcon Northwest. But those guys also charge buckets of cash for their PCs, so I wouldn't be leaning their way anyway.

I can attest to I Buy Power being geek and upgrade-friendly, but I'd like to know about more places. Anybody have any experiences they can share?

Proletariat
02-07-2006, 03:07
The last pc I bought was from http://www.cyberpowersystem.com/ and I love it. I was able to tweak what I wanted and it was just a tad more expensive than it would've building it from scratch on newegg. Worth it to me for the tech support that was included.

I don't think the parts are welded, but I never checked. :peers in the case window: What should I be looking for to find out?

drone
02-07-2006, 17:08
I prefer to build my own, and not just for the hardware options these days. OEMs these days throw so much crap software on the systems that it can slow down supposedly fast machines. They also may not send you everything you need if you would like to reconfigure your PC (120 GB C: drive why?!?!?), such as the XP disk for your op system. Here's an article on the Dell XPS "Gaming" system I found that demonstrates this issue: http://hardocp.com/article.html?art=OTI0

Besides, where is the fun of opening one big box and starting to play, when you can open many small boxes and build it yourself?

Lemur
02-08-2006, 06:03
I know for a fact that the two computer makers Prole and I mentioned will ship you a pre-built box with an empty hard drive and no OS. So you can actually build a Linux machine and not pay the Microsoft tax, and isn't that nice? Or if you already have a license for a MS OS, you don't have to pay all over again.

Dell is notorious for putting shovelware on their PCs. Best advice I've heard is that if you get stuck with a Dell, wipe the drive and start over. To quote Ripley, "It's the only way to be sure."

Papewaio
02-08-2006, 06:16
PCs power may also increase to met the demands of MS Vista... which needs at a minimum 512MB of RAM, a Intel 4 (600 sequence ... 666? processor) or AMD 64 FX processor, at least a GeForce FX 5200 or Radeon® 9500 Series or higher etc

All these requirements should mean more high end machines pushing the price down for those a year or more older... when Vista hits the market that is.

Xiahou
02-08-2006, 07:10
Dell is notorious for putting shovelware on their PCs. Best advice I've heard is that if you get stuck with a Dell, wipe the drive and start over. To quote Ripley, "It's the only way to be sure."I agree wholeheartedly. Dells run horribly out of the box in my experience. There's so much unecessary garbage that comes loaded on the (Dimensions in particular) that they run like 486s. Once you get a clean install on them, it's much better.

doc_bean
02-08-2006, 12:43
PCs power may also increase to met the demands of MS Vista... which needs at a minimum 512MB of RAM, a Intel 4 (600 sequence ... 666? processor) or AMD 64 FX processor, at least a GeForce FX 5200 or Radeon® 9500 Series or higher etc

All these requirements should mean more high end machines pushing the price down for those a year or more older... when Vista hits the market that is.

Why does Windows require a fancy 3D card ?
I'm sticking with XP until I get a completely new computer, nothing slows a PC down faster than windows*.


*Okay, Matlab, and probably a few others, but they're why you're running a computer, nobody boots up just to use Windows.

Lemur
02-08-2006, 14:59
Why does Windows require a fancy 3D card ?
Vista is going to do something OS X has been doing for a few years now -- offload the screen redraws onto the video card. In other words, your GeForce or Radeon will do the transparencies and effects in your folder windows. So even though they say you must have a 3D card, I expect it won't be the 3D part that's being used. More likely the shaders, eh?

I don't know how much efficiency the video card brings to the navigation of windows. Even with hardware acceleration, Finder is a bit of a drugged moose in OS X. Perhaps Ballamer, Gates & Co. will do it better.

Papewaio
02-09-2006, 01:27
It doesn't really matter why they are doing it.

Just based on sales patterns of PCs and the last two windows releases indicates that higher spec machines at lower prices get released... this is because MS wants to sell as many OS's and the manufacturers will want to sell as many machines so they will comply with the new standards... in effect it is like the entire market is one giant bulk purchase discount.

Of course it works much better with competition... like when Sony and MS both have brand new consoles on the market and Xmass is coming... so watch out for the end of this year for Xbox 360 and PS3 to drop in price and/or have value package deals.

So next years January sales should be good for computer gamers. :smile: