Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Beefcake on January 05, 2015, 10:50:08 PM
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Well after 6 years I've decided to put my old gaming rig out to pasture, she's been good but lately has become rather unreliable. I'm looking for help finding a good company that produces decent gaming rigs for around $700 dollars. I know that won't get much but money is tighter than my underwear and I need something less crash-happy than my current rig.
I know some of you will recommend that I build my own but I'm just not comfortable doing that as I destroyed the motherboard on the last PC I tried to upgrade. I just want something I can open the box and go.
Anybody have some recommendations?
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Depending on where you live your best bet would be to go to a local independent computer shop, tell them what you want, what you want to do with it, what your budget is, and see what they can put together for you.
If you can give them specs on what you already have they might even be able to suggest recycling some parts from your current machine but that would certainly negate at least portions of whatever warranty they'd offer. At the least you could recycle keyboard, monitor, mouse, speakers/headset/mike and possibly even optical drives with no loss of warranty.
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+1 to supporting your local indy builder. One good thing is that they (usually) don't fill the computer with crapware like the brand manufacturers do!
If you're uncertain of their quality, get a parts list from them and send it here to be evaluated. Or you can use tools like pcpartpicker's builder (http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/partlist/) to compile a system fitting your budget, let us evaluate it and then go to your local shop with the list to ask for their price and possible suggestions.
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I would call Dell or cyber power. Talk with a sales Rep give them your budget and Tell them the game you want to play. Be sure to get a dedicated video cards.
My second computer was a dell and it played the game quite well with moderate settings and a frame rate of 60. I believe I got it for less than $600 :airplane:
My current machine I got from cyber power and I have been quite happy with it.
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I had great luck with cyberpower PC.
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I had great luck with cyberpower PC.
Dell and cyberpower are great options if you want to spend 100 bucks of your 700 buck budget to the company profit.
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Didn't mind at all! Don't have the time or patience to build one from parts.
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Didn't mind at all! Don't have the time or patience to build one from parts.
I can understand that. But then again if you would have spent 2 hours studying and built your first own computer, you would have saved 100-150 bucks OR MORE on every future computer from that point on.
Learning to build your own is not only savings, it's a future investment!
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Well in regards to local shops, I've had some issues when them in the past and I really don't want to have work done by them. I know it'll cost more money than building it myself, but I really just want to order one out of a box.
I'm looking at Cyberpower right now and they seem to have some good PCs in my price range.
I'm currently looking at this rig which seems pretty decent, what do you guys think?
https://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/Mega_Special_II/
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I'm on a computer I bought new 2 years ago from Best Buy. I called up the local best Buy and asked for their best computer guy who was also a gamer, then I set an appointment with him, went in, pulled up Aces High website and showed him what the game was and told him I would be in the following day to make my purchase from him to let him study the specs. I told him how important the game was to me and that I wanted a system twice as fast, and twice as powerful as the game would demand. The next day I came in and he had 3 options laid out with 3 different price ranges. I reminded him I played Aces High 100 hours a month and I wanted the system to be stout and fast and asked him what he would buy. He pointed to the middle system. I spent about $2400 including a warranty and free service maintenance (clean-up) warranty. I take the tower back to the original guy every 6 months, he checks everything out for free and tidies up stuff I don't even know about.
Sure I could have spent less and yes, at one point you have to trust someone to actually be selling you the right stuff. Now, I've established a relationship with this Best Buy and one particular salesman who knows my name and what I am there for.
My experience with Aces high is unencumbered with anguish and strife from a system that does not work well or that I cannot trust.
I'm not interested in computers, only what they can do for my gaming experience, and that experience is currently only Aces High. I have been following Star Citizen closely and I know I will jump in and give it a go at some point. Even that I am trusting to someone that knows more than me, my friend and squad mate Wiley. At one point I know he will tell me to "Try it now", and I will annoy the crap out of him making him teach me everything he knows. This, depending on how good it is may impact my game time on Aces High, but I will always be in the FSO's (and JG11), if and until it is no more.
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Brother in law bought this one. He is happy with the computer, and the service. Runs AH with almost everything turned on with out an issue.
http://www.digitalstormonline.com/vanquish-ii.asp
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I'm on a computer I bought new 2 years ago from Best Buy. I called up the local best Buy and asked for their best computer guy who was also a gamer, then I set an appointment with him, went in, pulled up Aces High website and showed him what the game was and told him I would be in the following day to make my purchase from him to let him study the specs. I told him how important the game was to me and that I wanted a system twice as fast, and twice as powerful as the game would demand. The next day I came in and he had 3 options laid out with 3 different price ranges. I reminded him I played Aces High 100 hours a month and I wanted the system to be stout and fast and asked him what he would buy. He pointed to the middle system. I spent about $2400 including a warranty and free service maintenance (clean-up) warranty. I take the tower back to the original guy every 6 months, he checks everything out for free and tidies up stuff I don't even know about.
Sure I could have spent less and yes, at one point you have to trust someone to actually be selling you the right stuff. Now, I've established a relationship with this Best Buy and one particular salesman who knows my name and what I am there for.
My experience with Aces high is unencumbered with anguish and strife from a system that does not work well or that I cannot trust.
I'm not interested in computers, only what they can do for my gaming experience, and that experience is currently only Aces High. I have been following Star Citizen closely and I know I will jump in and give it a go at some point. Even that I am trusting to someone that knows more than me, my friend and squad mate Wiley. At one point I know he will tell me to "Try it now", and I will annoy the crap out of him making him teach me everything he knows. This, depending on how good it is may impact my game time on Aces High, but I will always be in the FSO's (and JG11), if and until it is no more.
Olde school customer service, good stuff.
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Here's what I'd do:
Dell Inspiron Desktop 3000. ($530. Has an i5-4460, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB hard disk, case, kb, mouse, Windows 8.1, DVD+/-RW drive.)
500W ATX12V power supply. (20+4 pin style, Seasonic, Antec, Thermaltake, or Corsair, 4 star rating or above, from Newegg.com, $60, to beef up the power.)
NVidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti graphics card. ($120-$145 depending on brand from Newegg.com.)
total about $725
I don't think that you can beat the performance/price of this setup by building it yourself.
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Here's what I'd do:
Dell Inspiron Desktop 3000. ($530. Has an i5-4460, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB hard disk, case, kb, mouse, Windows 8.1, DVD+/-RW drive.)
500W ATX12V power supply. (20+4 pin style, Seasonic, Antec, Thermaltake, or Corsair, 4 star rating or above, from Newegg.com, $60, to beef up the power.)
NVidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti graphics card. ($120-$145 depending on brand from Newegg.com.)
total about $725
I don't think that you can beat the performance/price of this setup by building it yourself.
There are several downsides to the Dell.
The upgrade path is probably limited. It can't be overclocked - the proprietary Dell bios is locked down and stripped. It will have very limited features and all components are cheapest of cheap you can find. For about the same money you can do a home build that has actual quality off the shelf components with no Dell bloatware preinstalled. You're going to spend half a day just removing all the Dell junk off that computer.
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There are several downsides to the Dell.
The upgrade path is probably limited. It can't be overclocked - the proprietary Dell bios is locked down and stripped. It will have very limited features and all components are cheapest of cheap you can find.
I have almost never upgraded a computer. By the time it needs upgrading, I have always wanted to upgrade pretty much everything (cpu, memory, bus speed, slot types, new connector types, etc.) and so just got a new system (at $500) and used the several-years-older one (now worth maybe $100) as a media machine or gave it away to friends or relatives. Upgradability isn't bad, but it does come at a price. It depends if that price is worth it. I wouldn't spend an extra $100 for upgradability on a system that costs $500.
For about the same money you can do a home build that has actual quality off the shelf components with no Dell bloatware preinstalled.
Can you put together a list of the following that adds up to $530 or less?
motherboard
i5-4460
8GB Dual Channel DDR3 1600MHz
1 TB 7200 rpm HD
300 W PSU
case
keyboard
mouse
Windows 8.1
DVD+/-RW drive
As for quality, I bought my first Dell when it was called "PC's Limited" in 1985. I (or my company) have bought hundreds of Dells over the subsequent 30 years, some for home use and most for business use running 24 hours a day, and some of them running mission-critical equipment 24 hours a day where even one hang or failure of the computer results in the loss of up to $35,000 of product. Not only are those computers run for 24 hours a day, but they are run that way for, in some cases, more than 5 years that way without any replacements. Out of those thousands of computer-years of Dell use, I have had so few failures that I can only recall about five machines failing. There might be more than that, but they are just so rare that it is almost nothing.
Can you buy a better keyboard or mouse, or a case that costs you more money? Sure. Does it add reliability? Apparently not.
You're going to spend half a day just removing all the Dell junk off that computer.
A wild exaggeration in two ways. You don't need to remove much of anything at all, and if you choose to do so, pressing an "uninstall" button isn't much effort.
I understand that you prefer "build it yourself" machines. There is nothing wrong with that. I will likely have my daughters do that when they are old enough. But you wildly misrepresent Dells. I am giving you (and have given you before) information and statistics from thousands of machine-years of use of Dells spanning decades. That data is statistically very solid.
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Just listing components is not enough because I wouldn't probably buy any of the components used in that Dell due to their inferior quality. Cheap is cheap. I wouldn't accept the keyboard or the mouse even. What good does it do to you to get something ultra cheap and then not be satisfied with it?
I have seen and even used many Dell boxes due to my work. I can't say I was very impressed with them. There can be nasty surprises - for example I remember one customer who had a dell desktop. It was very quiet - you couldn't even hear it run. Except when we started to run software on it and the cpu actually started working, after 30 seconds the box started to literally sound like a hoover. Huge vacuuming roar that made us raise our voices in the office. The same effect would happen during gaming and I would certainly be a very unhappy camper if it did.
IMO the best way is to skip the ready built boxes completely, they always contain huge compromises due to cost savings. The hard drive may be a super slow 10 year old model for example. Mobo may be totally gimped in a way that actually makes the whole system work subpar - lack usb3, sata6, pci-e 3 etc. features that are found in every new board that I would choose.
Sure it ends up costing a couple hundred bucks more easily than the gimped mass production box - but it's well worth the price when you get the use experience.
The one place where Dell beats home build in a big way is the price of the OS. If you don't own one already this makes easily 100 bucks difference alone.
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Yes, you can always pay more for something more fancy.
But I don't think that you can beat the $500 Dell on performance/price.
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Yes, you can always pay more for something more fancy.
But I don't think that you can beat the $500 Dell on performance/price.
I disagree. First, it's not a $500 computer after the necessary modifications. Second, here's what pcpartpicker gave with similar values with not even the cheapest alternatives. As you can see, the price would be about the same but with plenty of alternatives to choose from.
PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/PqwcFT
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/PqwcFT/by_merchant/
CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($179.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($50.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill AEGIS 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($65.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.24 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Superclocked Video Card ($119.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Thermaltake VL80001W2Z ATX Mid Tower Case ($24.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 620W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($54.99 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSC0B DVD/CD Writer ($15.00 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 - 64-bit (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ OutletPC)
Keyboard: Rosewill RK-101 Wired Standard Keyboard ($6.99 @ Amazon)
Mouse: Gear Head MP1600RU Wired Optical Mouse ($4.19 @ Mwave)
Total: $662.32
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-13 05:51 EST-0500
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I disagree. First, it's not a $500 computer after the necessary modifications. Second, here's what pcpartpicker gave with similar values with not even the cheapest alternatives. As you can see, the price would be about the same but with plenty of alternatives to choose from.
PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/PqwcFT
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/PqwcFT/by_merchant/
CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($179.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($50.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill AEGIS 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($65.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.24 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Superclocked Video Card ($119.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Thermaltake VL80001W2Z ATX Mid Tower Case ($24.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 620W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($54.99 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSC0B DVD/CD Writer ($15.00 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 - 64-bit (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ OutletPC)
Keyboard: Rosewill RK-101 Wired Standard Keyboard ($6.99 @ Amazon)
Mouse: Gear Head MP1600RU Wired Optical Mouse ($4.19 @ Mwave)
Total: $662.32
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-13 05:51 EST-0500
OK -- that is as good a price. :aok
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I would change Bizmans list a bit however, especially with the mouse. A good laser mouse is well worth the extra few bucks, you won't need a mouse pad and it tracks perfectly on any table surface. Nothing sucks more than to miss your shot because your mouse warps all over or you hand gets stuck to the side of the mouse pad.
Small things but can make a world of difference. Sometimes it's just smart to pay more.
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I would change Bizmans list a bit however, especially with the mouse. A good laser mouse is well worth the extra few bucks, you won't need a mouse pad and it tracks perfectly on any table surface. Nothing sucks more than to miss your shot because your mouse warps all over or you hand gets stuck to the side of the mouse pad.
Small things but can make a world of difference. Sometimes it's just smart to pay more.
Before getting more suggestions of making the list better I'd want to stress out that it was made only to prove that a computer similar to a modified Dell can be built for the same price. Or has Dell started to include a laser mouse into their packages?
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Or has Dell started to include a laser mouse into their packages?
They do, but those sorts of things are only small changes in price.
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Before getting more suggestions of making the list better I'd want to stress out that it was made only to prove that a computer similar to a modified Dell can be built for the same price. Or has Dell started to include a laser mouse into their packages?
I know, I was just pointing out that the low price is by no means the goal to end all goals. One must see how much bang for buck you get. Sometimes you pay 20 bucks more but get '100 bucks worth more' performance.
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They do, but those sorts of things are only small changes in price.
Actually, I misunderstood. I thought you meant optical mouse. They are optical, but not with a laser.
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Personally I would invest more into Graphics than other component.
intel I5
8gb ram
quality power supply
as good graphics as you can afford.
AH3 will eventually come out , and will gain much more on good graphics card.
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Personally I would invest more into Graphics than other component.
intel I5
8gb ram
quality power supply
as good graphics as you can afford.
AH3 will eventually come out , and will gain much more on good graphics card.
Agreed. Even a Pentium G CPU (overclocked) goes a long way on games if you have a decent graphics card. There used to be a Pentium + motherboard bundle for 120 bucks on Amazon, that made basically a sub 500 dollar gaming machine capable of playing most current games with decent performance.
The Pentium cpu:s lack many features that the i-series have so they suck on multimedia etc. tasks but on games they run surprisingly well.
http://www.overclockersclub.com/guides/intel_pentium_g3258_oc_guide/
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Well in regards to local shops, I've had some issues when them in the past and I really don't want to have work done by them. I know it'll cost more money than building it myself, but I really just want to order one out of a box.
I'm looking at Cyberpower right now and they seem to have some good PCs in my price range.
I'm currently looking at this rig which seems pretty decent, what do you guys think?
https://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/Mega_Special_II/
I looked at your choice and my suggestion would be to upgrade the video card selection! I would pick the 2 gig version at the very least and actually I would look to save in some other places and get a much better card! The 970 Gforce would be my choice but I guess it depends on what you do on the comp and your needs.
I'm not sure if the monitor and KB/mouse are included but do you really need those? Maybe drop down the size of the HHD,you can get memory sticks and external drives for cheap so do you re\ally need 2TB of storage?
The I would next consider cooling,is it worth the extra $$$ for water cooling when a good heatsink and fan will do?
The lastly have you looked at price matching? Most online places will price match and if you can prove that a certain component is cheaper at say newegg then a good suppler will match it for the sale. You can do this with NCIX,if you live in US use their dot com site,they price match,have OS's and will assemble for a nominal fee if you purchase an OS with the system.
They even have topnotch customer service,just call them and you can talk with a person who speaks and understand our language..... :O
Of course there are plenty of others here who can advise you much better than I can.
:salute
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Most modern processors can be 'almost' equally cooled using after-marked air-cooling.
There is another thread about this in this forum.
Personally I have a 12 cm fan with a big cooling tower attached, do not forget to use quality cooling paste.
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Here's a Tomshardware review of the 75 dollar Pentium: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pentium-g3258-overclocking-performance,3849-17.html