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Help and Support Forums => Technical Support => Topic started by: Dichotomy on December 31, 2006, 02:19:12 PM

Title: Off the shelf System
Post by: Dichotomy on December 31, 2006, 02:19:12 PM
I'm seriously considering buying an off the shelf system this year whose major use will be AH, doing my banking, and generally browsing internet forums.  So, sir Skuzzy, what would you suggest off the shelf for around $1000 to $1200?

OR

What exact componants would you buy to build one?
Title: Off the shelf System
Post by: Helrazr1 on January 02, 2007, 08:10:11 AM
I could build you a seriously kickprettythang machine for that, probably less.  If you'd like do find out more, you can email me @ helrazr1@gmail.com
Title: Off the shelf System
Post by: Schatzi on January 02, 2007, 08:34:56 AM
Dicho, if youre any comfy with plugging computer parts together, id recommend building a system yourself over getting something off the shelf. Youll definitly get more performance for the same money. Also, prebuilt systems often do not have the combinations you need.


Id go and check different web ressources on prices, and then "build" one or two rigs in different price ranges.

A while ago, i had to rebuild my system:

AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3700+,  MMX,  3DNow, ~2.2GHz
Asus A8N E Motherboard (939 socket)
2 x 1024 MB RAM
NVidia GeForce 9600GT - 256 MB (PCIe)


Together with all the details like HDD, DVD etc, i was looking at about 800 EUR. For your set budget, you could probably upgrade both CPU and GC considerably on that. I suggest to start with deciding on a CPU/MB package..... browse the Hardware/Software forum for suggestions. Threads like this one are very informative: http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=191556
Title: Off the shelf System
Post by: Irwink! on January 02, 2007, 02:47:52 PM
A couple of months ago I was faced with either building a new machine or buying one off the shelf. Because of time and other constraints I opted to buy one off the shelf. I looked at various ones and picked up an HP Pavilion 7680 Media Center PC. I didn't really care about the media center aspects although they're pretty cool.

The machine itself has a core two 6300 processor, two 250G sata hd's which can configured for RAID easily if you want. The "downside" is an Nvidia 7300LE graphics card. That said, I use it in AH exclusively, have most graphics options maxed with the exception of animated water and get 75fps (max allowed by my monitor) even with the 60+ processes enabled that were part of the factory installed configuration. I still have a seperate profile for AH but sometimes when I'm in a hurry I'll use the standard profile with all the processes running. The lowest fps I've seen is in the 50's when things are super busy. The graphics card has not been an issue for me. I don't care whether I have bragging rights to the biggest, fastest, coolest card or not. This one works fine on this machine for AH and that's all I care about..

The machine also comes with 2gig DDR2 memory installed expandable to 8gig. There's a bunch of other stuff too. I've heard other's thoughts about HP's. I've heard other peoples' negative comments about just about every off the shelf pc maker out there. It's like all the negative comments you hear about Ford vs. Chevy, Honda vs. Nissan, etc., etc., etc. Whatever. I've owned machines from numerous manufacturers and have no problem with HP's.

Anyway, I got the thing for around $1100. It's alot of bang for the buck if you're opting for off the shelf.
Title: Off the shelf System
Post by: McDeath on January 02, 2007, 02:54:19 PM
not too long ago i got one of these for 1000 at comp usa

Acer Aspire ASE650-U-P9301 Pentium D 930(3.0GHz, Dual Core) 2GB DDR2 300GB Intel GMA 950 Windows XP Media Center

added ~200 $ x1600x 512 mb vid card

runs AH  high res pack at min 75 fps
729 at newegg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16883103031 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16883103031)

cant beat it for the price- tech guy for my business now uses & sells Acer i found out after
Title: Off the shelf System
Post by: Schatzi on January 03, 2007, 03:17:17 PM
Another thing to keep in mind when deciding on "off the shelf" or self built is warranty/troubleshooting.


When building from parts, youre pretty much on your own - that includes making mistakes when connecting/plugging the parts and maybe damage them.
Also, youre responsible yourself that the parts you bought will actually work together.

Off the shelf youll have warranty and tech support you can call when theres something wrong.


It all depends on how technically versed and knowledgable you are.
Title: Off the shelf System
Post by: Schutt on January 04, 2007, 11:41:38 AM
Here is what i think about that.

Note that the anwser to this question is monthly a new one, so if you buy it in february you probably have to recheck components and price.

When your tight on the money or have fun screwing together the hardware and tinkering on your computer till it works go ahead and build yourself. But you need to know that then your on yourself (apart from helpfull forum posts which can help with the theory but cant fix your stuff). That also means that you want to calculate 100 or 200$ below your max budget to make up for stuff you break or that doesnt work.

Otherwise, if you want to do it the save way it has a big advantage to get 2 year full waranty & phone support, where they guarantee you a working comp within 3 days of trouble. If you dont have a second computer in the house, need the comp for dayly work or dont want to wait 2 weeks for your motherboard to comeback after you did return it your better off biting the bullet and looking for a preconfigured system.

I think any bigger vendor which offers you full support (that is guarantee to get the thing running within 3-5 days if you happen to run into trouble) is probably good enough if he provides an kombination of components that meet your requirement. Especially, dont make any allowences on the processor or graphic board side.

When you take a prebuild system it must include all you want right away, buying one and then adding a diffrent graphic card doesnt do it since then you dont have the 2 year warranty on the graphic card on top that any trouble the graphic card causes is no longer coverd by the warranty for the rest of the computer.

Dell and some other of the big companies often use non standard components, which makes it expensive to replace a burnt power supply and hard to upgrade by throwing away the stuff and keeping the case. No big deal though.

I checked HP website, and for 1200$ it gives me the following:

Operating System      Genuine Windows XP Professional  
Processor            Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo processor E6400 (2.13GHz)
Memory                      2GB DDR2-667MHz dual channel SDRAM (2x1024)
Hard Drive                  250GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
Graphics Card            256MB NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT, HD , TV-out, 2 DVI
Sound Card                Integrated 7.1 channel sound w/front audio ports
Keyboard and Mouse HP Multimedia Keyboard, HP Optical Mouse


Primary CD/DVD Drive LightScribe 16X DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive
Front Productivity Ports 15-in-1 memory card reader, 3 USB, 1394, audio
TV & Entertainment Experience No TV Tuner w/remote control
Productivity Software Microsoft(R) Works 8.0/Money 2006/MSN Encarta Plus
Security Software Norton Internet Security(TM) 2007 - 15 Months
   

My guess would be that is good enough for AH2, but looks on the expensive side. I only want to put it as example for a prebuild system that fits into the price range and runs AH2 hopefully, the missing sound card of course is a minus. Also you have to throw away the norton.

What i would want, no matter if prebuild or not, is

Everything else is up to your personal preferences, Soundcard is nice, power supply should be big enough, DVD burner is good.
Onboard Graphics or the budget graphic cards are to avoid like the pleague. Radeon 200&300, nvidea 7200,nvidea 7500, Radeon X1400 are really not good enough.

Also remember you need an Licence of windows with it.

ciao schutt
Title: Off the shelf System
Post by: Dichotomy on January 07, 2007, 12:45:22 PM
thanks Schutt
Title: Off the shelf System
Post by: Apeking on January 07, 2007, 02:26:13 PM
(a decent core duo with all the trimmings)
"My guess would be that is good enough for AH2"

I play the game with a 1.2ghz Duron, a Geforce FX5200, and 384mb of memory. It's an old computer that I have upgraded myself over the years (it started off as a Cyrix 6x86, and only the keyboard, speakers, and floppy drive remain).

This setup runs Aces High with 512x512 textures, detail sliders in the middle, at about 25-31fps, and only stutters at the point when bombers catch fire or there is an enormous furball. So the Core Duo above would be more than enough. I would value a solid steady fast internet connection more than a blazing fast machine for Aces High.
Title: Off the shelf System
Post by: SkyGnome on January 07, 2007, 09:00:09 PM
Quote
Originally posted by Schutt
Here is what i think about that.

.....
ciao schutt


Good suggestion, but I'd ditch the second gig of RAM, if AH is the most severe use for the machine, and I'd skip XP Pro and go with Home unless you know for sure that Pro has a feature that you need.   Pump all that dough into a faster graphics card (256M on the card is fine, but go NV 7900 or Radeon 1950 or some such).  Doing this will give you +50% or so minimum frame rates at any high res setting.  Probably have to go somewhere besides HP to get this, though.
Title: Off the shelf System
Post by: Monster0 on January 08, 2007, 12:38:55 AM
As long as a certified tech installs the vc on the machine you will still be covered.  You can purchase a prebuilt system and have the store you purchased from install the new video card for you.  Many stores claim that if you open the case it voids the warranty.  That is not true and call the vendor to double check yourself.   Many retail stores will sell their warranty on pc's with false claims.
Title: Off the shelf System
Post by: Clutz on January 09, 2007, 05:34:07 AM
Buy a computer on eBay. They got guys that all they do is build and sell computers for not much more than the components would cost you from newegg if you built it your self. I bought an eBay computer about 4 years ago, and haven't regretted it at all. Actually, when I added up what the components would have cost me, it was cheaper to let him build it and I got a 90 day warranty to boot. I did have a DVD drive go out, but that was easy to replace. Make sure you weigh in their reputation and there warranty. Many of them will let you add an upgrade for a video card, or swap a hard drive for more ram, etc etc.

You might wind up with a much better system for the money than you would get from Dell if you do it this way, only you won't get the service down the road like you would from Dell. It is a bit risky on the long haul but, you play this AH and I'm sure you need all the computer you can get.
:)

EDIT: I just looked at this briefly on eBay and it blows a 1200.00 HP away if you ask me. Says it has a 3 year warranty. Just an idea mind you! Shop around!
http://cgi.ebay.com/INTEL-CORE-2-DUO-E6600-DUAL-CORE-4GB-DDR-2_W0QQitemZ300066158693QQihZ020QQcategoryZ140076QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem (http://cgi.ebay.com/INTEL-CORE-2-DUO-E6600-DUAL-CORE-4GB-DDR-2_W0QQitemZ300066158693QQihZ020QQcategoryZ140076QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem)
Title: Off the shelf System
Post by: Schutt on January 09, 2007, 11:57:18 AM
Nice to see that a post i made me some work with is actually read, i already thought its dead and i have hit an already anwserd question.

AH2 can run with a lower spec system, that is true, but Dichtomy specifically asked for a System for around 1000-1200$. The HP system i listed is for sure not the cheapest one, its probably not to hard to find a cheaper deal with similar components. If its supposed to be ~1100$ for the system i would go for conroe 2 though, no matter if a slower / cheaper processor could run ah2 in its current version as well. If it was ment to be 1100 with display,printer & scanner then of course a conroe wont fit and a cheaper processor & less RAM would be good.

Getting Windows XP home would be good as well, i had pro in there because at HP the alternative was to get the media center edition.

1 GB of ram and getting a 6300 instead of the 6400 can also be done to reduce costs, maybe buy a sound card instead where th 50$ of the sound card leave some money to buy Flowers and a Parfume for the Misses, to counter all the pc expenses. Makes no sense to spend more money for spending so much money but probably works nevertheless.

You can also put in a better vid card, i usually try to build with CPU price, RAM price, GFX Price more or less equal. Until now i found out that i end up that way in the end eaven if i start with other aspects. In this case, its CPU 210, RAM 190, GFX 140. Using a 6300, which i would have also taken but is just not in the example, and 1 GB RAM as SkyGnome notes, i end up at 160 / 100 / 140. Putting it short on the ram side and shows that there is some room for a better graphic board.

You dont use the warranty for opening the case, but when you plug in a diffrent graphic card and this leads to trouble in any way its not coverd by the additional service the vendor of the pc offers. On most prebuild systems the components are planed to work together, mostly the powersupply is not big enough to support a hot graphic card if the system wasnt already equipped with one. Likewise it might not fit or not work correctly either, and the 6 month warranty might still cover it but the 3 year replace in 3 work days guaranty no longer covers it.

I would stay away from custom build systems from people you dont know that are not regular shops. Big internet shop, lokal hardware store, system builder company or self build... all fine. But all the ebay offerings that are from home builder / one man garage cant cover 3 year warranty or guaranty a 3 work day reaction time. 90 days is less than 8.5 % of 3 years.
Title: Off the shelf System
Post by: 38ruk on January 10, 2007, 09:44:23 PM
Thera are a few places that will let you pick the hardware and then put it all together for you , cybermax is just one of many that come to mind . good luck

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/?gclid=CK3b_pS514kCFQGPWAod7Scs9w
Title: Off the shelf System
Post by: Reschke on January 12, 2007, 01:37:05 PM
On that eBay system they are skimping on the RAM when for just a few bucks more you can toss in RAM that will allow your system to run at peak performance. Don't go with PC5400 DDR2 when you would like something that will run at the full bus speed with the 1066 FSB on the board and the processor.
Title: Off the shelf System
Post by: Dichotomy on January 12, 2007, 02:04:40 PM
great answers.. you've given me plenty to ponder

Thanks for the links :aok