New Computer

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By then the stuff I'll be buying will be a year out of date, but I'm sure it will play everything very nicely.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

**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

Originally Posted by TosaInu

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 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.