My computer is a piece of crap

[russellb6666]

I need a new pc I was looking at this one tell me why this is a bad choice and what a better one would be. My budget is $1500-$2000 USD and I'm looking for a gaming/ multimedia machine that I could hook my HDTV up to and retire the huge CRT I use now.

[Mr Bean]

1. It's overpriced by about 400 dollars for what your getting.
2. It's an HP not a company know for putting together great gaming machines.
3. Amazon is not exactly the best website for computer parts, you can find deals but they are tougher to find. Newegg is easier to use both for part hunting and full PC's even if there full PC's have less selection.

Six gigs is about the most any PC game today is going to stress and they are still being built with four gigs of ram max in mind, so buying six or eight future proofs you to an extent but eight is pushing it ten is meaningless unless you intend to do more professional things like large video editing projects or 3d work.

[Forgothrax]

If you're at least somewhat tech savvy (or have a friend who is and can be bribed), you're better off just buying components separately and putting them together yourself. $1500 will get you a lot of machine if you plot things out properly.

[Skgoa]

My budget is $1500-$2000 USD

The problem is that - due to the nature of human perception and market factors - you get diminishing returns north of aprox. USD1000. I.e. you just won't see that much of a difference right now and your computer will still be obsolete almost as fast. So you are better of only getting a good (instead of a very very good) pc and upgrading in a couple of years.

[Starglider]

The problem is that - due to the nature of human perception and market factors - you get diminishing returns north of aprox. USD1000. I.e. you just won't see that much of a difference right now and your computer will still be obsolete almost as fast.

Adding a solid state drive as the OS / programs drive makes a very noticable difference to load times, for programs and game levels. The linked machine doesn't have one but the stated budget is easily sufficient to include one.

[Skgoa]

So? You also get a very noticable difference when you don't buy a PSU; I have not made any statement about specific parts. The rule of thumb remains true: try to stay below four digits or you will kick yourself in the butt a year later.

[Starglider]

The rule of thumb remains true: try to stay below four digits or you will kick yourself in the butt a year later.

Only if obsolesence bothers you and you aren't willing/able to just spend the same amount replacing it. Besides, switching computers is a significant hassle, so it may be worth it in time terms to spend a little more to get one that lasts three/four years instead of two. If the original poster meant that his computing budget is $600/year, then getting a nice $1800 machine and keeping it for three years will be a better experience than buying and setting up a new $600 crapbox every year. Personally I spent five figures on my main machine about a year ago and I'm still completely happy with it; I spend a lot more time computing than I do driving and computers are very cheap compared to cars, so why not invest a quality computing experience?

[Mr Bean]

Also Skgoa I don't know if your aware but it's been a solid four years now when spending 1500$ results in a computer that three years later can still stay with a brand new 1500$ computer. It's been awhile since the new ATI or Nvidia card offered 40% or more performance gains over the last generation, to date GPU technology has slowed to the point it's 15%-20% gains at most. And even then that's mostly reflected in SLI setups.

Until just this year with Battlefield 3 I have friends who own Nvidia 8800 GT's which could play every game out there smoothly with most or all of the features turned on except perhaps Anti-Aliasing in most resolutions. And that was a card released for 200$ MRSP most places that lasted four solid years and was a mid-range part to boot. Likewise a Core 2 Duo like the Wolfdale 45mm processors also release in 2008 still work just fine, in fact if you have a Core 2 Duo of 2.6 to 3.2 ghtz you would see a massive upgrade after four years from an new midrange GPU like the Nvidia 560 or ATI 4850.

We are past the days of the jumps, especially now with the Core I-7's and Core I-5's it's going to be at least another four years before I think my 2600K+ is in need of an upgrade. The only change out from my 6970 might be a new video card in two and a half years and even that might get pushed back considering the fact that the Vid card makers are skipping a cycle of new latest and greatest cards.

[Phantasee]

@Starglider: is your computer liquid-cooled with the tears of orphans or something?

[Mr Bean]

@Starglider: is your computer liquid-cooled with the tears of orphans or something?

@Phantasee, do those orphan tears have an improved cooling effect than regular old distillate water mixed with Propylene Glycol and Methy paraben? I'm all for cutting an extra degree centigrade off my water cooling rig and I've heard some liquids have better thermal characteristics than anti-freeze type liquids.

@Phantsee, do I have to purify or boil the Orphan Tears first? I'd imagine that collecting them off the grimy cheeks of street urchins or from those kept inunderstaffed and poorly maintained orphanages would introduce all sorts of impurities that would reduce thermal effectiveness.

[Starglider]

@Starglider: is your computer liquid-cooled with the tears of orphans or something?

My main computer looks like this;



That was before I put six GPUs in it; it now has eight passive water cooling towers hanging off it. It is quite ridiculous for web browsing;



but it's excellent for developing Bayesian market modelling algorithms. So yes clearly for many users a $1000 arbitrary price cap makes no sense.

[Zaune]

Might want to budget for a few cable ties there, mate...

[Skgoa]

Starglider, we have been over this before: you are not remotely a normal user.


And regarding the speed at which computing power increases: a slower rate actually reinforces my argument. Most "normal" people simply wouldn't know how to fully utilize a computer that costs $1800 and there is not as much pressure to "keep up" as one would think. Hence my mentioning market factors. If he spends $1000 now and then $800 in two years to upgrade to a better CPU, GPU and more RAM, he is still going to be able to play EVERY game out there right now on very high settings and he is going to be able to play the games that come out in two years (or later) on higher settings than if he had spend $1800 now.
And if he finds out he has to spend $1200 now to get the computer he needs, then that is fine, too. But going into the market with the attitude of "I have this much money, how much computer can I exchange it for?" is not a good strategy, IMHO.

[russellb6666]

Right now the computer I'm on is a P4 gateway I received in 2002 as a birthday gift the only upgrade I've done is replace the 40 GB HD with a 320 GB HD everything else is stock machine. If its really more cost effective to build a PC that'd be cool, but I am lazy as all hell so, if I could find a premade computer that doesn't suck that bad I'm more for that, although whichever would net me an awesomer computer for less money would be ideal. Potential parts lists would be cool too but if I'm asking too much I'll stfu

[*]sorry if I'm rambling, kinda drunk my life aggravates me right now, my bad

[Stofsk]

It's marginally cost effective, but you can make it like a weekend project. That's what I'm doing, I'm currently shopping for components to build my own computer. It's just so that I have something to do really, as i could just get the guys to build it for me for a slight increase to the cost.

Here's a link that goes through the assembly step-by-step: http://arstechnica.com/ask-ars/2011/04/ ... rt-i.ars/1

Also I don't know where you'd go to buy your parts and shit. I live in a different country so I can't help you there.

[Skgoa]

I went to newegg to check whether american prices were different from what we pay in europe and got the idea to just list what I would buy right now. (Well, representative picks without in-depth analysis.)

Intel Core i5-2500: $209.99
MSI P67A-G43 (B3): $124.99
Radeon HD 6870: $179.99
Intel 320 Series SSDSA2CW120G3K5 2.5" 120GB: $218.99
Seagate Barracuda Green ST2000DL003 2TB: $79.99
CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1866 (PC3 15000): $79.99

Thats almost $900. If you add the case and PSU (I wouldn't need new ones) this adds up to aprox. $1000, so what exactly would I spend an additional $500 on?

[salm]

You don´t the expensive vengaeance 1866 RAM because the Sandy Bridge CPUs only support 1333 RAM. You can use 1600 without problems but the perfomance increase is minimal.

It´s more important to get the K Version of the CPU that is the i5-2500K because the non K Version can not be overclocked. And the K version is only 10 or so bucks more expensive.

It might make sense to get a i7 2600k instead of the 2500.

[Mr Bean]

I'd pay extra for the I7 2600k instead, and you left off a cooling solution and going with stock Intel cooling on something which as much headroom as an I-7 is a mistake. Either get a nice 40$ aftermarket heat-sink solution or get a little more fancy for Corsair H70, IE one of the aftermarket all in one water cooling systems becoming popular now for another 70$.
You also left the OS cost off your list Skoga which is another 120$

So of the extra 500$ you've tacked on another $160-190$ and at that point I'd spend the other 300$ on a very nice second monitor but then I'm to the point where I can't even imagine things without a second monitor.

That's a 25.5 Asus monitor on the left and a Sony 32 LED TV on the right as my primary. I'd have gone bigger but I'm running out of room on this monitor setup.

[Starglider]

So of the extra 500$ you've tacked on another $160-190$ and at that point I'd spend the other 300$ on a very nice second monitor but then I'm to the point where I can't even imagine things without a second monitor. That's a 25.5 Asus monitor on the left and a Sony 32 LED TV on the right as my primary. I'd have gone bigger but I'm running out of room on this monitor setup.

A single 2560 x 1600 is more useful than two 1080P displays, since you can use all the area for a single app or game without spanning, and at a similar price if you're going for comparable quality. Personally I find the DPI of a 32" 1080p annoyingly low for programming - thus I have U3011s as the central display at home and in the office - but for a gaming machine it's probably fine. Admittedly not relevant in this case as he already has his preferred display.

[Mr Bean]

A single 2560 x 1600 is more useful than two 1080P displays, since you can use all the area for a single app or game without spanning, and at a similar price if you're going for comparable quality. Personally I find the DPI of a 32" 1080p annoyingly low for programming - thus I have U3011s as the central display at home and in the office - but for a gaming machine it's probably fine. Admittedly not relevant in this case as he already has his preferred display.

Yes but the step from 1080P to 2560x1600 for games is prohibitive and while my main 32 incher is for gaming which it does well while I use my Asus 25.5 for reading and displaying of movies and text. I got the 32 because the best monitors I could find all top out at around 26 inches which is just not enough raw desktop space for some of the editing I do where 2560x1600 on a 23 inch is much less useful than 1920x1080 which has ten extra inches of display space. I tried a 40 inch but it was simply to big for the space and they don't make 36 in any quality technology.

And the point is even if he has his preferred display he could benefit from a second.

[Stofsk]

It might make sense to get a i7 2600k instead of the 2500.

Why get an i7 when he can get an i5 2600K for cheaper and only marginally less performance? Unless he can't actually get the i5. (I can't seem to find it on newegg)

[Stofsk]

It might make sense to get a i7 2600k instead of the 2500.

Why get an i7 when he can get an i5 2600K for cheaper and only marginally less performance? Unless he can't actually get the i5. (I can't seem to find it on newegg)

Ghetto edit: doh I meant the i5 2500K, that was a typo.

[Starglider]

Yes but the step from 1080P to 2560x1600 for games is prohibitive

I think we're almost over that hump. A 6970 or GTX 580 is overkill on 1080p for everything but a tiny handful of ridiculously shader-intensive games. Although to be fair that is partly because of the massive drag that having to be portable to six year old console hardware is imposing on games development now. 2560 x 1600 gives the 6970 a serious challenge and makes the 6990 useful rather than a space heater.

where 2560x1600 on a 23 inch is much less useful than 1920x1080 which has ten extra inches of display space.

Can you get those outside of specialist medical / CAD displays? The smallest consumer 2560x1600 screen I've seen so far is 27". It's a little annoying that the DPI of phone or even tablet screens isn't available for larger displays; hopefully 2560x1600 will make its way down to the 24-21" area soon, and 30" screens can move on to QuadFullHD. Then all the enthusiasts can all upgrade to petaflop class graphics cards and further subsidise the cost of GPGPU hardware for AI researchers.

[The Yosemite Bear]

hmmm, can we make starglider host a multi-user sci-fi game that takes galactic drift and other gravitational things into account?

mines a shitty sith HELL Dell machine that I bought 4 years ago after my previous machine died... (power supply failure fried MOBO and well everything)

I think mine uses the local squirrel population and exercise wheels for power...

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Dude, Starglider, that's not a computer, it's a Mad Scientist's Battlestation. Holy fucking shit, this is reddit worthy!