New desktop advice

[Rollins]

Skuzzy, or anyone else who cares to chime in... I have been looking at a new desktop from Alienware, the Area 51 7500 w/ Intel dualcore.  Would this be a good out of the box PC for AH?  The address below is the model I'm looking at.  Thanks in advance for any help!

http://www.alienware.com/product_detail_pages/Area-51_7500/area-51_overview.aspx?SysCode=PC-AREA51-7500-R4&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT

[Krusty]

Hell that's probably twice as much as you need to run AH well. If you like it go for it! Probably won't have any AH-related problems (as long as you ditch Vista and install XP the second you get it)

[Roscoroo]

be shure you go to the "Customize" page and look at what your really getting at that price..

you getting a 7950gt instead of a 8800 , only 1 gb of ram , vista home Basic . notice they want to charge ya to swap it to XP (thats just wrong imo)

"With up to 3 terabytes of storage you'll never have to worry about storage space."   yea only if you pay for it ...


Now alienware makes some great machines ... but there over priced when you compare the basic setup to the same parts in a home build.

[Rollins]

I'd love to do a home build, but it's all Greek to me.  Thanks for the help, but I'm a little lost in general.  All I've gathered in the last month is DONT GET VISTA-lol.  Thx Krusty and tons of others;)

[Rollins]

And thx Rosco-I just don't get any of it...illiterate...well, we can talk history but computers I'm lost lol:)

[The Fugitive]

At this point AH doesn't support SLI graphics, nor does it support that "physx" graphics. OK so YOUR not comfortable with building a box, but how about somebody close? Got a friend whos a geek? how about a local shop? In both cases you could most likely get a good build with a smaller price tag. My son just rebuilt his box, and has pretty much everything that alienware has.... he did go for the 8800 card tho and he did it for $1200. Give a geek $500 to build ya a box, or a shop, will most likely charge a bit more but you'll have more of a warrenty.

Just another option to think about.  Good luck !

[Rollins]

Fugitive, do you mean that if I went with that Alienware pc that AH wouldn't run correctly?

[Roscoroo]

no that alienware pc will run AH great with XP ... we're still in the dark over video drivers to use in vista with a gforce card...

the point Fugitive is making is you could build the same pc for 1200 bucks , and pay a pc geek friend a few bucks to assemble it.

[Gaidin]

Just as an example, I just spent about $950, and built the box I am on now.  Specs follow.

2.6ghz AMD64 X2 proc.
1 gig Corsair Ram
SLI capable board
I went with the 7600 GT nvidia 512vid ram
2x 80 gig WD SATA 3.0 harddrives in RAID 0
Zalman HS/FAN
Gaming Case w/4 fans

granted I did already have XP pro myself, so I didnt have to pay for it.  Still alot cheaper than you will get that AlienWare machine for.  Its like buying a Dell.  You pay double for the name.

[Rollins]

Gotcha-thx guys.  Note to self, spend weekend making geek friends...

[Reschke]

Go check out the system build threads in the Hardware/Software forum. I did the similar setup as that for just over $1700 once you count case and power supply but went with 2GB of RAM instead of 1 and used XP.

If you have $4k to drop on a system then go local to you and get it done there. They need the business and they at least will help you out instead of having to wait on Alienware and get some screwed up looking proprietary case.

[Skuzzy]

Originally posted by The Fugitive
At this point AH doesn't support SLI graphics,.....

Actually, NVidia has an SLI profile for Aces High II.  I wish they would have talked to us about it, as some of the choices they made are not the best for the game, but at least there is a profile.

[Blackwulf]

Hey Skuzzy, clue me in, I am running 2 7900gs' in SLI, and I don't seem to be having any trouble with it so far.
But, if I can do better I will make a custom profile on your recommends.

Blackwulf

[fjaloma]

Originally posted by EndofSilence
Skuzzy, or anyone else who cares to chime in... I have been looking at a new desktop from Alienware, the Area 51 7500 w/ Intel dualcore.  Would this be a good out of the box PC for AH?  The address below is the model I'm looking at.  Thanks in advance for any help!

I too have been looking at Alienware. Their claim to fame is the quality of their components. High end video, no cheap memory etc. They use video cards that cost as much as an entire system from Dell or HP (if you want one) for example. I've just written them asking them what systems may be best suited for what I do.  AH seems to be the most demanding considering the need for heavy CPU number crunching, video processing AND internet connectivity.  I'll let you know what they say.

As for building your own system, don't freak out.  There are companies near you that can do this for you.  For example, there's a company near me called Data Doctors. They specialize in home PC repair, data recovery etc. In talking to them, I found out they will build a system of my choosing for me. Any processor, any video card, any amount of memory etc. If I don't know what to pick, they will make suggestions and then build it.  You can get a great system between $800-1500.  Consider this.

[AKDogg]

lol, I configured my dream machine there and it cost 12002.00,lol