ZombieBlue

Well, my birthday's coming up soon, and with some luck and charmful working, i may raise and or get a new desktop, and i wanted your decision on which one to buy. Really, I just want to game and do light internet browsing. I was thinking about something by Alienware, which my friend uses and it kicks ass. I could hope for Area-51 ALX, but my hopes are way too high for that. Alienware Desktops - Custom Gaming Desktop Computers
I don't know of any other goods ones, but really, the highest i could POSSIBLY get is 3000 dollars, and that's extremely pushing it. I might be able to get a Area-51 desktop, but im nervous about Alienware because it seems i would have to install a bunch of upgrades to get it at top condition. Any other suggestions would be appreciated, ideas?

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Platy

Build your own. I'm sure abc will point you in the right direction to make a top-class gaming PC.

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pantstofry

3000? damn, you're lucky...

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to apologize for my lime green comic sans, here is some sexiiii

Platy

Fixed.

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pantstofry

my friend got a new exhaust system, new sound system, new iphone, and various other parts for his car... after labor, it totaled close to 5 grand... all from his 'rents.

-_-;

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to apologize for my lime green comic sans, here is some sexiiii

ZombieBlue

Spoilt? Hell yeah, lol. I make up for it in respect and good grades, considering im goddam 12, I have no knowledge of how to make a computer, and im too scared to build. One myself so im just buying the area 51 standard, if you add Starcraft 2, black ops, rift, the recommened alienware mouse, keyboard, and monitor, and a surge cable/cord, blah blah blah, it totaled out to exactly 3000. Am I a pcfag now? ( I'm buying it in march)
Edit: fuck you iPhone 4 autospell. -.- u jelly?

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GhostHands

real pcfags don't buy alienware.

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Dante

Do not buy a prebuilt. Even if you have to pay someone to assemble it you'll get a much better deal if you buy it in bits.

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Fandom Ruck

You could get an Alienware spec desktop for half the price if you got the parts yourself & paid someone to put it together.
^

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ZombieBlue

I sad.

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abc

So... a $1127 iBUYPOWER gets you an i7 960 and GTX 460. Corsair PSU, Thermaltake case, Corsair H50 CPU cooler, 1600MHz RAM etc

That leaves you $1900 to squander on SLI GTX 580 (two of the fastest video cards in the world) a few terabytes of RAID 1 storage, a massive Intel SSD, 12GB of RAM, monumental corsair PSU etc. This will make a 3k alienware look like a errr something very very bad. Normally I'd use "alienware" when I need a word to describe something very bad...


Seriously what the hell though. $1127 for a fully fledged i7 system with no compromises at all? nice. Take a $1127 system and save your parents a tidy sum. Go for a nicer meal than usually would (I'll assume that if you have an iPhone at 12 then you are mature enough to enjoy a nice meal out without wanting a toy to come with the meal :L )

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"I don't like new Linkin Park, I don't like old Linkin Park... I JUST LIKE LINKIN PARK"

COD owner - COD expansion pack owner - COD2 owner - COD2: BRO player - COD3 owner - COD4 owner - COD:WaW owner - COD: MW2 owner - COD: BO owner

This is getting repetitive.

ZombieBlue

Ah.
Which would be better for harddrive?
A 2TB - SATA-II, 3Gb/s, 7,200RPM, 64MB Cache HDD ,
or a 2TB RAID 0 (2x 1TB SATA-II, 7,200 RPM, 32MB Cache HDDs) ?

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abc

normal = errr a normal HDD

RAID 0 = Two (or more) HDDs wired together for speed. The catch: ONLY improves the loading time of massive files, like maps or opening a long movie to edit. i.e. the extra speed is only useful for 5 seconds every 10 minutes (say loading a map between rounds) Theoretically you're more likely to have a HDD fail, and if it does you lose everything. However buy a good brand and it'll last a very long time.

RAID 1 = Two (or more) HDDs wired together for reliability. Does nothing for speed but it creates a perfect backup in real time. If one HDD fails then you just unplug it and the other one will carry on and you still have everything, no need to install OS or software again. No need to use backup programs.


Usually brand and model is more important than whether you're going to "RAID" or not. E.g. I'd rather have the reliability and shear pace of a Samsung F3 (pretty much the best price/performance/reliability HDD out there) than wiring up two cheaper/slower/less-reliable HDDs in a RAID setup.

The "in" thing to do at the moment is to have a good brand large drive for photos/music etc (say a 1TB Samsung F3 - $50) and a super-fast "SSD" drive to load all the programs and OS really quickly (say an Intel X25 M, 80GB - $250)


It's all a bit silly really. All this RAID 0 or SSD stuff - spending hundreds to make the computer turn on 20 seconds faster. You're better off A) just keeping your money and having a bigger bank balance which makes you feel better or B) If you have to spend it, then spend it on something which makes more of a difference such as a surround sound setup for music, high quality monitor or a gaming mouse.#


This btw is sarcasm, it's just not worth it. Do not spend anywhere near 3k just because that's the max budget.

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"I don't like new Linkin Park, I don't like old Linkin Park... I JUST LIKE LINKIN PARK"

COD owner - COD expansion pack owner - COD2 owner - COD2: BRO player - COD3 owner - COD4 owner - COD:WaW owner - COD: MW2 owner - COD: BO owner

This is getting repetitive.