Soon... very soon.

Three years after the demise of my Alienware laptop in the sands of Iraq, I have finally talked myself into purchasing a new gaming rig. With the impending launch of StarCraft II just next week, I feel the time has come to reenter the world of PC gaming. I have therefore been learning the joys of selling old stuff on craigslist, ensuring that my rig will not be underpowered for lack of funding.

I'm leaning in the direction of Falcon NW, but any input on who to give my hard-earned cash to would be appreciated. Alienware is, of course, not in the running.

 

Are you buying a laptop? I'll have to search out for some soon, since I'll be going to Canada for university and I'll be needing a computer that I can carry back and forth the Atlantic.

I should start looking around soon, will note anything I come across. I wanted a Packard Bell, but seems they don't sell them in U.S./Canada anymore.

 

No, this time I'm going big. Desktop baby!

 

If you're going desktop, I am assuming you're trying to create a gaming rig? If so, it is "always" better to buy parts and create your own PC.

 

My Dad got a great gaming laptop which he brings on overseas missions with him.

Not sure who made it, but I think it's an Acer.

My current desktop PC was $798 at Costco, and I've been able to run everything I have tried on it.

EDIT: It came sans monitor, of course, as I already had one.

 

Falcon Northwest is phenomenal, I believe. Look into WidowPC... there's a few other boutiques out there, and I can probably dig up their info, if you'd like. I would say go spec out a machine on Falcon Northwest, then go onto Newegg, spec the exact same machine, and see if the price difference is worth not having a warranty.

 

Oh, I will be purchasing an extended warranty on whatever I buy this time. Not making that mistake twice...

Anyway, I'm not a very patient man. So whatever money I'm able to come up with in the next 2-3 weeks is what my budget will be, and if all goes according to plan I should be in a state of computing bliss in about a month. Already sold my TV, trying to find buyers for a rifle scope and a bicycle.

 

Look out if anybody buys both those things at the same time.

 

If you want some insanely good prices, I highly recommend Tiger Direct (http://www.tigerdirect.com/)...either that or New Egg.

I essentially got what Dark Elf got (a rig that lasted me several years with good specs) except I ordered the individual pieces from TD and put them together with total expenditures coming in around $400-$500. It was a couple hundred for the video card and motherboard, then everything else took up the rest (ram, motherboard, sound, power, CPU fan, duo core CPU etc). Quite a bargain.


I really do suggest custom building your rig. It does save you quite a bit. If you don't go crazy on the new gizmos and gadets or buying THE latest graphics card and create a specific budget you should be good. Nvidia cards are the best example. They'll have a new card come out and jack up the price while the previous cards in the series depreciate in value, even though they're almost just as good. Fucking Nvidia.


Also, don't throw away your old monitor, mouse, keyboard, microphone, webcam, etc.....if you avoid re-purchasing these items you can also save some money. Generally my keyboard will last alot longer than any base unit I put together. That or just buy something simple without alot of "extra" features you don't really need. Do you really need TWO 100' monitors? Well....maybe.....


If you're serious about custom building a rig, I highly suggest an SLI capable motherboard with a Radeon or Nvidia (9800+) card with 1GB onboard mem, 4 (6? 8?) GB of SLI ram sticks, 64 bit operating system/motherboard, and one of SoundBlasters newer cards (maybe something in the X-Fi series?). Might also want to look into getting a Quad Core....don't forget to buy an appropriate CPU fan (make sure it's attachment points match those on the motherboard you are buying) and appropriate power source....no need to splurge on a 2,000W power supply if you don't need the extra power (or you don't want a huge ass electric bill).



If you have any further questions, I have a friend who is far better at the hard-ware and technical aspects of PC building than I am whom I can call upon to answer here in this forum, if you so require. I just have to coax him in here with an argument about Radeon vs. Nvidia.

 

Just some general advice regarding building your own system. I've never had the money to buy a prebuilt machine and most of this advice is pretty current as I built a new system a couple months back.

Intel vs AMD, at the moment I'd go AMD without a doubt. The 890FX chipsets will be supporting AMD's new Bulldozer design which will give you some upgrade room in the future should you need it. Six core is nice if you can afford it, but the 955 would be more than sufficient for 98% of games.

Video card, I went ATI. Their 5xxx cards are great value for money, consume fuck all power and put out very little heat. The 5770 (Around 40% faster than the top end 9800), which retails for $180 AU, is enough to play every game bar Metro 2033 at full HD resolution as long as you don't focus on 'FPS' instead of actual gameplay. If you can put up with a fair bit of noise you can probably pick up a 1GB 4870 (performs about the same, bar latest DX support which wont mean anything significant for years yet) for practically nothing. I payed around $100AU for mine which was in mint condition. After that get either an ATI 5850 or 5870 for more performance, Crossfire or SLI are a waste at the moment IMHO...

Apart from that, just get a decent power supply with plenty of watts (650 ish would be fine, I think) and practically any brandname 7200RPM HDD. SSD's aren't very mature just yet and as such I wouldn't risk dropping such a large sum of money into a developing technology. 4 GB of brandname DDR3 RAM is fine as well, don't worry too much about CAS latencies unless you're overclocking. One important thing to remember when looking at the response rate of monitors is that some only tell you the black-to-white times (very fast) and not the g2g or grey to grey times which is much slower. I forget the distinction, but I've used 12ms g2g before and haven't noticed any ghosting.

That should give you an idea, sick of this shit fucking keyboard on this laptop so I won't type too much more.

For the record, my current system is this, all at stock speeds:
AMD Athlon II 240 CPU
Cheapo Gigabyte motherboard
4GB low-latency G.Skill Ripjaws (DDR3)
Radeon 4870 1GB
Ancient BenQ LCD, native res of 1280x1024

And I've been able to play every game at max settings incl. AA, namely:
Dragon Age
Mass Effect 1/2
The Witcher
Assassins Creed 1/2 (more like Ass Creed, blech)
Oblivion - heavily modded
Morrowind - Stupidly modded

Not to mention a couple of others.

 

Hmmm.....I was seriously considering getting a 9800....but Radeon still seems to ouclass Nvidia for bang for your buck for the last few years. The problem is, I'm afraid that if I shove a ATI in my Nvidia motherboard it'll explode. I wouldn't put it past Nvidia to cause other cards to run slow-as-fuck in order to achieve product security. They already do for certain video games that are 'Nvidia-ized', so I've heard.


What are the reasons you don't like SLI, if you don't mind typing out an explanation on your laptop keyboard again? I've always been under-informed when it came to the SLI concept.

 

The key here is to note that, although the performance difference was about %5+ the last time I checked, NVidia stuff work better with NVidia/Intel, and ATI cards work better with AMD.

 

Just buy this today. It's a one day deal, so act quickly.

 

Maybe four odd generations ago, but since then it's around equal. Even ATI on an Nvidia-based motherboard is fine as far as I can recall, though you wont be getting crossfire support any time soon. AMD ATI on Intel, nvidia on AMD etc has never made a difference, back in the P4 days nvidia (who traditionally make chipsets for intel) used to gimp some motherboards so that they'd only run an nvidia card properly. Hasn't happened in some time now.

I dislike SLI/Crossfire for a couple of reasons, namely price vs performance. When you add another card it doesn't double performance as you'd expect, instead it's typically an increase of around 50%. The new ATI cards (esp. the 5770) can get very close to 100% increase in some cases, but it's still not perfect and for the amount you pay there's almost always a comparable single card (eg 5850). Don't get me started on driver issues and whatnot.

About the only time I'd consider it is if I already had a single card with a new generation about to be released and I needed a cheap upgrade. Because you're limited to the exact same card in most cases, it's only really worth it if you're paying an amount for the second proportional to the performance gain you get back out of it.

 

From what I've gathered, most people prefer a single high-end card to the SLI/Crossfire setups. Apparently the associated cost and technical hassles aren't worth the performance boost. I'll probably end up going with nVidia graphics, since I'll probably want to try out the whole stereoscopic 3d thing at some point.

Anyway, I've considered the 'build-it-yourself' option and concluded that it's not the option for me. I'd rather not have a love/hate relationship with my new pc, and if I have an issue I'd rather just call tech support than spend hours researching and troubleshooting. And when I call tech support, I'd rather not talk to Samir in India with his list of canned answers. That's a big reason I'm leaning toward Falcon NW: they don't outsource anything, so their tech support is in-house. So yeah, I'm willing to spend good money to minimize headache.

 

As a person who has gotten two desktop rigs from Falcon Northwest, I can assure you that they are of quality construction and parts. I was quite impressed with the whole package, and this is coming from a guy who used to build his own.

It is correct that building your own computer saves you money, but what it does not save you is time and hassle. This same sort of advice can be given for everything. Sure, it's cheaper to change your own oil, or re-roof your own house, but if you lack the expertise, time, skill, or tools then it is often better to have it done elsewhere or by other people. Falcon is probably one of the most expensive custom jobs you can get, but it's been worth the cash for me every time.

The customer service is also pretty good, though the 1-2 times I've called they ended up being so busy I got a call the next day instead of talking to someone immediately. Still preferable to some Indian-speaking man however.

 

I guess that's where we're different then, I hate relying on other people to the point where if I don't know how to do something, I'll learn first. No point in paying for what you can do yourself.

Building a PC is pretty trivial anyway, once you have the components you just slot them in and install Windows (if that's what you're using, I'll assume so). Install drivers after that and you're set. That's basically all the prebuilt companies do bar providing tech support.

Honestly, it doesn't take hours to diagnose and fix a problem. Often a very quick google search will do it if you can't figure it out on your own. A lot of the problems you will have are probably the type you wouldn't bother calling tech support for anyway.

That being said, if you want a warranty then best of luck. All I can suggest is to get a Hardcore PC because liquid submerged is cool (literally). Don't bother getting a screen/mouse/keyboard with it though.

 

Well, everything is coming together nicely. I've found a local computer shop that does custom gaming rigs where I can get the customer service I want without the heavy price tag and lengthy build time of Falcon NW. Also I was able to liquidate enough assets that I should be ready to buy tomorrow, which is payday.

So the only question now is this: Where to begin with the games?

 

I'd say start with games from 2000, and work up.