Is this the last hurrah for anyone's computer?

[Digby Tatham Warter]

Unfortunately, the next day after I placed my order, the company called to tell me that they could not start because they were back ordered on the Nividia G295GTX 2x 1.7 gig graphics card I specified. I guess this is the hottest card on the market right now, so they are in high demand. They were supposed to be in this last week, but they did not come.

I checked with two other on-line builders thinking I would cancel my order and go with somebody else, but they were in the same boat because all of them use EVGA as their source.

Of course they said to check back next week, but who knows if they will even get the cards in then. Regardless, there's no way I'll have my new rig before the game comes out--probably at least a week after.

So, to all of you who will start playing next week---have fun with the new game. I'll just bide my time reading all the cheers and huzzahs plus all the moans, groans, rants, and usual fanboy whining.

That' s a very high end GPU, do you really need that much grunt, and is the rest of the PC up to the same mark? Mainly I mean the CPU will have to be very expensive to properly pull a GPU like that, and if it isn't, then it will be waste won't it?.

Unless your trying to run 2 26" monitors or something, did you not consider buying something cheaper that they had in stock, that would still more than do the job?

I played the demo, fully maxed @1680x1050 with a just a humble ATi4870 512DDR, and their are at least 2 other Nvidia GPU's that are faster than mine, and cheaper than the monster you are waitng for.

Anyway, sounds like a monster rig you are after, and good luck to you with which ever route you take.

[Polemists]

I personally always make horrible decisions when buying a pc on a budget. Joys of life.

Someday soon though I am going to try and find a pc that actually lasts me for two years

[Sir Beane]

I personally always make horrible decisions when buying a pc on a budget. Joys of life.

Someday soon though I am going to try and find a pc that actually lasts me for two years

I used to be pretty good at making horrible decisions, but this time things seem to have worked out. I finally have a PC that can play the latest games being released.

[Polemists]

So basically everyone, if you are buying a new pc, go harass beanie and ask him his model and where he bought it

[Dead Guy]

I'm buying an intel core i7 920 and 6gigs of DDR3 today. I'm hoping my old GeForce 8800 GT will cut it for a while longer...

[Greyblades]

The 8800GT isn't old, you will probably have about another year with it not screwing up at least.

[Polemists]

I want the geforce 10000 where is it?

[Dead Guy]

I guess it's not that old, I bought it when it was fairly new about 1.5 years ago I think. Was pretty good bang for the buck. But my 3600+ AMD isn't good enough anymore... GTA IV looks hilarious, or rather tragic I guess. It lags like crazy and there are no buildings and no ground :p Love spending 50€ on a game and not even being able to play it at the lowest settings.

[Freedom Onanist]

Don't want to bump myself and all that, but...

Has anyone got any idea why it works on windows 7 (on ultra) and not xp? All the latest drivers loaded on xp etc... A quirk of the demo?

[Greyblades]

Well if you have the 8800gt (like i do) its not that that is causing troubles on GTA 4 its your cpu.

^^I know its not very helpful but my advice would be to dig out an old game and play it for the next 2 days. If your lucky the full game will not be affected in the way that the demo is.

[Grapeshot]

The oldest parts of my current computer are Jurassic. The chassis, PSU and graphics card (Radeon 9700) are six years old. So it's way past time to build a new one from the bottom up.

I ordered my components almost a month ago (planning on having a running system in time for the demo) but just as in Forward Observers case the delivery date on the graphics card slipped, and then it slipped again. The latest word is that it'll be in tomorrow.

Well, eventually I'll have a Core i7 920 on an Asus X58 mobo with 3x1024MB DDR3 (1333MHz) and a Sapphire Radeon HD 4870 1GB. All living happily ever after in my new black Lian Li PC-B25 chassis.

If I can assemble tomorrow evening I'm still on schedule to be able to play my pre ordered copy of ETW on release day.

[Subotan]

I have a 2.39 Ghz Dual Processor, 1.5 Gb of RAM and an Nvidia Geforce 7600 GT. Is it worth me upgrading my graphics guard/processor, considering it runs Okish on medium (I could probaby spend about £400 on upgrading)

[Lemur]

The graphics card is definitely your weak link, as well as the RAM No need to spend £400, however. A good 2 gigs of DDR2 RAM should cost you somewhere around $60, and a nice ATI card that can handle the game (say, the 4850) should be somewhere around $160. If you must have Nvidia, the 9800 GTX will set you back about $200.

[Doug-Thompson]

Double post

[Doug-Thompson]

This is going to be interesting.

The processor requirement (2.4 Intel) is the same minimum requirement for "Mass Effect," a game I can play on my 2.0 Athlon machine. That one has fast-paced shooter elements to it. It's a little jerkier than most people would like, but I bet I'll get by in Total War battles.

My motherboard's gone as far as it can go for upgrades. Anything further will require a new computer, as a practical matter. So, assuming I can play this version of Total War, I'm pleased. I won't have to break for a new machine for a while.

I'm not planning on buying a new computer until Windows 7 comes out anyway. I've heard that Vista with service packs is fine, but I get a new machine when every other time Microsoft comes out with a new OS. I had a Windows 95 machine until Windows XP came out, for instance. I don't even remember what I had before Windows 95, but it wasn't the original version of Windows.

[Forward Observer]

That' s a very high end GPU, do you really need that much grunt, and is the rest of the PC up to the same mark? Mainly I mean the CPU will have to be very expensive to properly pull a GPU like that, and if it isn't, then it will be waste won't it?.

Unless your trying to run 2 26" monitors or something, did you not consider buying something cheaper that they had in stock, that would still more than do the job?

I played the demo, fully maxed @1680x1050 with a just a humble ATi4870 512DDR, and their are at least 2 other Nvidia GPU's that are faster than mine, and cheaper than the monster you are waitng for.

Anyway, sounds like a monster rig you are after, and good luck to you with which ever route you take.

This is the first custom rig I have ever ordered, and since I have held off buying a new PC for almost 5 years, I figured I could splurge. Previously I have alway gone with cheap refurbished pre-built name brands and then simply upgraded the GPU as needed. My current P4 3.2 gig rig is just old enough that it is AGP based, so I hit my ceiling on GPU upgrades some time ago.

I purposely configured my new rig to handle just about any game available now, and hopefully as far in the future as possible, while being able to play them on the highest graphic settings.

Here are the specs:

Case: Thermaltake Spedo Full tower
PSU: 800 watt quad SLI ready
MB: Asus P6T Intel X58 chipset 3 way SLI or Crossfire support
CPU: Intel i7-940 2.93 GHz (which is suppose to over-clock pretty well)
Cooling: Asetek Liquid CPU cooling system
Memory: 6GB DDR3/1600Mhz Corsair
Video: NVIDIA GeForce GTX295 X2 1.7GB 16X PCIe Video Card
Hard drive: 1 terabyte SATA II/ 7200rpm
Optical drives 2 LG 20X double layer DVD+-R/RW--one with lightscribe
Thermal Display: Xion color LCD thermal control panel
OS: Windows Vista home Premium 64 bit with 60 day trial of Windows office

The new i7 series GPU's should match up to this card very nicely from what I have read.

Oh, and believe it or not, I am paying about $200 less to have this built than I would if I had ordered all the parts seperately from Newegg and put it together myself--plus I get 3 free games and a 3 year warranty.

I also just purchased a new 24 inch wide screen monitor to go with my new rig, so I want to further insure that I can play everything in its 1920 X 1200 native resolution and never worry about frame rates.

No more slide shows for me!

If prices continue to drop, I may go for an even larger format monitor sometime in the future.

Cheers

[Nelson]

Good for you, FO!

Let us now know this bad boy works out.

[Polemists]

That is a monster pc.

Yes I suppose as economy falls at least pc part prices become cheaper lol

[ICantSpellDawg]

I'm in a decent boat - my pc crapped out on me, forcing my hand to get an insane machine. I'm thinking Quad Core, 8 Gigs Ram, two Nvidea cards (not sure yet which), 24' Monitor, etc.

Any tips on good stores to buy from? Circuit city is way to expensive even in liquidation.

[Polemists]

I don't know, I almost think your better off buying from a small local custom built pc shop with a warranty.

I mean best buy and dell can get you a custom built good gaming rig, but you have to wait for it.

[Dead Guy]

I'm in a decent boat - my pc crapped out on me, forcing my hand to get an insane machine. I'm thinking Quad Core, 8 Gigs Ram, two Nvidea cards (not sure yet which), 24' Monitor, etc.

Any tips on good stores to buy from? Circuit city is way to expensive even in liquidation.

24 feet monitor!?!? Gods below!

[Greyblades]

Um thats 24 inches deadguy. Mc Guff ' is for feet and " is for inches, just clearing that up.

[Ygfbv]

I'm in a decent boat - my pc crapped out on me, forcing my hand to get an insane machine. I'm thinking Quad Core, 8 Gigs Ram, two Nvidea cards (not sure yet which), 24' Monitor, etc.

Any tips on good stores to buy from? Circuit city is way to expensive even in liquidation.

Quite easy to build a rig yourself, and NVIDIA isn't worth it atm; considering the 4970s are coming soon , and that the 4870x2 has been out for awhile you'd be better off going ATI.

8 gigs of ram isn't worth it, even with 64bit vista, neither are current gen quads. You'd be better off going with 2-4 gigs of ram, a decent C2D as they're dirt cheap now, and 4870xfire. (or a 4870x2)


just my

[Polemists]

It depends who you are, I've never found building a rig easy.

Though I do think your better off going to a local pc fix it shop or pc custom shop. It will cost you less, and they are usually a bunch of gamer geeks so they can help you put together a pc for gaming. (Plus they don't have goofy sales deals or sales pushes like Best buy does.)

[Dead Guy]

Um thats 24 inches deadguy. Mc Guff ' is for feet and " is for inches, just clearing that up.

Attempt at humor ;)

[Forward Observer]

You might want to check out some of the on-line custom shops like either Cyberpower of Ibuypower.
These are guys that have the big two page color adverts in every issue of PCGamer.

I ordered mine from Cyberpower because at the time they were a bit cheaper than Ibuypower. These guys are competitors of each other so it doesn't hurt to check both to see which has the best special running.

They mainly aim at the gamer market, but they also have all price ranges and many that are quite affordable. Their pre-configured units are priced the best, but even these can be customized if you want to upgrade a bit.

They offer a choice of either AMD or Intel based CPU's and of course a choice of either Nvidia or ATI cards. They have custom units priced as low as $550 not including shipping.

The rig I listed is costing $2070 as configured--including 3 free games and 2nd day FedEX delivery.
In addition I get a 3 year warranty and lifetime labor and phone support.

To order all the parts at NewEgg would cost me $2282 and all I get are varying warranties on a dozen parts which I still have to put it together and pray that it works. The old idea that one could build cheaper than buy is just not true in many cases now.

Since these guys buy their components at wholesale and in bulk they actually do pass some of the savings on to you, but you are still getting a PC that is totally upgradeable as if you built it yourself--plus it will have a plain vanilla version of Windows installed with none of that adware crap and other sludge that companies like Dell and HP like stick in their version of the OS.

If you want to check out their customer satisfaction levels you can go this site which rates just about anybody selling electronics, cameras, and even watches on-line.

http://www.resellerratings.com/

With literally 1000's of customer reviews both companies ranked about 83%. Companies like Alienware and Digitalstorm rank about 90%, but even though their customer satisfaction level is a few percentage points higher you are also going to pay about 40 to 70% more for the same stuff from these guys because of their name.

While one might think that 83% customer satisfaction is not great, consider that the big name brand companies like Dell and Hewlett Packard score 24% and 17% respectively. All of these scores are skewed slightly on the low side anyway since a customer that has had a bad experience is more likely to post a review than one who was satisfied---it's simply human nature.


By the way, I also went to Alienware's site and put the same components together as my build (or as close as I could given Alienware's selection) ---and their cost for essentially the same unit minus liquid cooling was $3700. They even doubled the shipping charges for 2nd day air with FedEx.

Digitalstorm was a bit better since they came in at $2800 for almost the same build.

It just didn't make sense to pay that much extra for a name and 7 or 8% higher customer satisfaction.

Cheers

[Lemur]

I'll second ibuypower as a good source. They sell high-end gear for scary cheap. I priced out my gaming ideal at NewEgg and then at ibuypower, and it came out 10% cheaper from the builder than if I did it myself. Also, they allow you to buy without an OS, so if you have a legitimate copy of Windows you aren't forced to buy another, which is very polite of them. Most builders will not sell you a PC without an OS.

The main downside of ibuypower is that they sell a lot of hideous cases. If you're very, very lucky you can find something that doesn't have dragon eyes or leopard stripes or giant twirling glow-sticks for fans.

-edit-

And I hate to sound like a broken record, but don't restrict yourself to only thinking about Nvidia. ATI has the best stuff in a price/performance sense right now. Also, their cards run cooler and draw less power, always a good thing. The world of graphics is constantly changing, so it's not helpful to ignore either of the big two makers; you gotta keep up and see who's got the best bang for the buck. It changes from quarter to quarter.

[Forward Observer]

I totally agree about the gaudy case selections these guys have, but I guess they must appeal to some--maybe all the Nascar fans--ha,ha! Fortunately, I found one that is basically solid black with brushed silver metal accents. The case I picked also got good a good reviews at a couple of on-line tech sites--- including the one mentioned next.

For all component selections, I spent a lot of time at review sites like Toms Hardware for reference.

As far as graphic cards, Toms publishes a card ranking guide just about every month. Rather than
indepth reviews filled with graphs and spec listings, which they also do, this ranking guide is a simple concise gathering of the major cards at all levels. They just have a few appropriate remarks and then make a recommendation in each price range. The also look at performance versus cost because sometimes the fastest card is really not the best value.

Cheers

[Polemists]

One thing to remeber, to those of you looking.

Make sure you know what your looking for when you go to these sites.

(Insert I am not a tech guru) but I am a shopper.

These sites, sell the towers. Only the tower. Now you can add everything else in but it costs more.

If you already have a monitor, keyboard, speakers, that's great. Yet if you need to get a whole package, your going to end up with about 500-1000 more then you first thought.

So while 2000 for a kick ass rig may look great, you are only getting a stripped down tower. Most of which rarely include anything pratical like a floopy disk drive or usb drive port.

If your going to tower to tower, these sites are great but if your looking for a full set up they charge outrageous amounts for monitors, keyboards, and gear you don't really need. Just my two cents.

Further notice, while I"m sure there are many good reports of Ibuy, they also have a 4 page forum thread rant against there Customer Support you may want to read before buying.

[Subotan]

The graphics card is definitely your weak link, as well as the RAM No need to spend £400, however. A good 2 gigs of DDR2 RAM should cost you somewhere around $60, and a nice ATI card that can handle the game (say, the 4850) should be somewhere around $160. If you must have Nvidia, the 9800 GTX will set you back about $200.

Well, I followed your advice, and went for the Radeon. I hope it works...