New gaming desktop suggestions

[Golfer]

I was approached by a friend of mine who wants to build a screamer system to run Aces High.  He's played on my laptop several times and already addicted so now he's ready to drop the coin on his first big fix.  I'm in the market for an upgrade myself so this will help me as well.

Preferred budget: $1000-1200 flexible to more if the performance warrants it.

Now is your chance to spend someone elses money.  Make us proud!

What would you get?

[Spikes]

With 1 grand you can REALLY go all out...talk to TD.

[Fulmar]

If you're going to get a good Gaming Rig and you want it pre-made, I'd go with TilDeath.  Many users on this forums have used him and have been very happen.

If you want to or are interested in building your own (which I highly promote, its good computer education), that's an entirely different request.

[1701E]

What does the price cover?

-Tower
-Monitor
-Speakers / headset
-Mouse / Keyboard
-Joystick / Rudder

Depending on what is included dictates price on parts.

[Ruler2]

Golfer, I may not exactly be TD, but I can build you a PC if you would like me to.         Does your friend want this to play anything other than AHII? That can tell a lot as to what parts of the PC to focus on.

[Golfer]

Just the tower for a desktop.  Monitor and any other accessories not included in the budget.

I'm specifically looking for something I can tell my buddy "here, buy this" which he'll prefer but gather some intel in the process.

He'd like to play AH, start dabbling with video editing and use it as a home desktop.

[Ruler2]

Just the tower for a desktop.  Monitor and any other accessories not included in the budget.

I'm specifically looking for something I can tell my buddy "here, buy this" which he'll prefer but gather some intel in the process.

He'd like to play AH, start dabbling with video editing and use it as a home desktop.

Ok,that sounds pretty do able, are there any things he prefers over others? Such as AMD vs Intel,Nvidia vs ATI, liquid cooling vs air cooling vs stock cooling?

[nimble]

If he is newish I'd suggest he go with an alienware. You can get a quadcore tower and 2x 512mb graphics cards plus awesome support/warranty(though I've never had to use it) in that price range.

If you want to tell him to "buy this" I'd point him to an alienware aurora.

[Spikes]

Ok,that sounds pretty do able, are there any things he prefers over others? Such as AMD vs Intel,Nvidia vs ATI, liquid cooling vs air cooling vs stock cooling?

Doubtful, probably whatever is best for the situation.
For video editing he'll like a lot of ram...64 bit OS with 4GB ram at least...

[Ruler2]

I do some video editing with my PC,it only has 3.5GB of slow DDR2 400MhZ RAM on a 32-bit OS but it works MUCH better than my old setup,perfectly reasonable compression times,etc...

[Spikes]

My new laptop I wanted dual channel ram so I got 4gb to take advantage of the free 64 bit upgrade...My dad's new laptop has 2gb ram and has noticeable differences in programs...don't have to but I'm just saying.

[68ZooM]

 I custom designed my own computer, now normally i would of built my own but i went with a quad core, so i figured sense this is my first one ill let someone else build for me heres what i designed..

AMD Phenom 4x  2.9 gig per core
Thermatake Cooling for CPU
Coursair ddr2 800mgz  8 total gigs
Asus  M4N72-E, Nvidia N-Force 750a dual 16x PCI Express
2, XFX  GTX 260X  869MB DDR3  SLI Video Cards (Nvidia Chipsets)
Seagate 1 Terabit 10,000rpm  32mbps  Harddrive
LightScribe DVD Writer Burner
Antec Hardcore Gaming Case w/ 700 Watt PSU
XP Pro X64 Bit
Total about $1,023

it came with one video card installed the other one isnt in yet, i am going to SLI it, but as it is now in Aces High im pulling in 220+fps lol man oh man i was a grunting like tim the tool man, i cant wait to install the other card..this system really rocks hard and plays anything out there. Never have had any Issue's.

[Dragon]

This may be a little more than needed, but it does scream.

http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,273558.0.html


There are lots of other "build" threads that can offer more ideas too.

[CAP1]

Just the tower for a desktop.  Monitor and any other accessories not included in the budget.

I'm specifically looking for something I can tell my buddy "here, buy this" which he'll prefer but gather some intel in the process.

He'd like to play AH, start dabbling with video editing and use it as a home desktop.

talk with tildeath.

 he built mine recenty, and there have been 0 problems, even through all of the recent updates. 

helluva nice guy too.

[Grayeagle]

yassir .. TD would be my first choice to hook up with.

The new vid cards out there eat AH for a lite snack .. that '295' NVIDIA card just boggles my mind, over 1G of ram aboard .. I *have* to get one ..it's my dooty

-GE aka Frank