[AsheMan]

I own a four year old computer system and the newest games are starting to have recommended specs above my computer. A lot of the games I currently play need to have the settings turned down for performance reasons. I'm finally ready to buy a new computer and quite honestly there is no chance in hell that I could build my own.

My question for you guys; Are there any decent computer stores/sites that will build a custom machine without charging an insane amount?

I messed around on the major sites like Dell and a decent computer there costs 3-4 grand. I'm hoping to stay in a budget of around $1500-$2000.

My previous computer, which I've been happy with and has lasted me for quite a long time, was built through a local computer store. I was able to go to there website, pick out all the pieces, they built it, and I picked it up. Unfortunately they no longer offer this service but that's the kind of thing I'm looking for.

[Renekal]

avadirect.com perhaps? or build it yourself?

[rabb1t]

Did you look at the stickied vendor recommendation thread?

If the builds you did were 3-4k they would be that way on all the sites. Vendors have markup that ranges between 30-40%, so the total will only vary slightly when you choose similar parts.

For that total you need to pick out what we would recommend in parts that would be around $1400 total. Something like my "Pika" system should total out at around 1.5k at a system builder site.

[rhagz]

I'm not sure how you get 'decent' and 3-4 grand at Dell. Granted, they are a bit pricier than homemade but you can build a solid machine for around $2,000. The key is to go with basic video and add your own card in at home.

Hell, if you want I will build you a machine for 2 grand that will be mega awesome. You just don't get service and support and only manf. warranties.

[Greyrhubarb]

Another idea you may want to check out is Craigslist.com. In my area (Phoenix) there are LOTS of people selling totally decent gaming machines for VERY reasonable prices. If you see someone selling one and your not sure if it's good or not you can just link it here and I'm sure some of these good-hearted experts can tell you if it's a good deal or not. On top of that, you will typically be able to talk the person down on pricing (dicker lol) and get an even better deal. You should be able to pick it up same day as well, so if you have patience like I do then that is a good feature.

If nothing else, it can't hurt to look.
Rhubarb

[AsheMan]

Thanks rabb1t. I had overlooked that sticky. Thank you rhagz for the offer. And thank you Grey. I had not thought about checking Craig's List. I have a lot of investigating and pondering to do.

One thing rhagz had mentioned and you guys might be able to help out with, what's a decent parts list I should be shooting for if I am building a fairly nice gaming PC? The ibuypower and avadirect sites had a lot more choices and better pricing than Dell but I don't exactly know what I should be picking and choosing. I basically just go by the price and the little knowledge I have to try and figure out the optimum pieces for my budget.

*edit* I just noticed Evilsofa's Suggestion sticky. I'll give that a read in regards to parts, but I do notice there are newer things that he does not have listed (quad cores, etc).

[rhagz]

If you want the latest and greatest

A Yorkfield Quad Core, DDR3 RAM, an X38 motherboard, a 9800GTX video card. That would be the meat of the system. The rest is just random harddrives and DVD burners and a case and a power supply.

[rabb1t]

You could probably also just ask one of us to do the build for you. Since there are only like a dozen of us who post here and we all know each other I'm sure any one of us would be trustworthy enough to do your build.

You wouldn't be likely to get 24/7 phone tech support though.

[rhagz]

Yeah that was my offer since that's what I do.. but I try to avoid advertising on random forums. BUt if you are really afraid to build your own machine I can assemble one, burn/stress test it and ship it to you. I don't do support though. :P

[evilsofa]

Originally Posted by AsheMan

*edit* I just noticed Evilsofa's Suggestion sticky. I'll give that a read in regards to parts, but I do notice there are newer things that he does not have listed (quad cores, etc).

I haven't edited it lately, sorry! I'm tending back to just writing up custom builds in replies to posts.

I am ignoring quad-cores because they do very little better than dual-cores for gaming. When the dual-cores came out, that was huge because game devs found it very easy to split sound, physics and other secondary tasks to the second core.

However, splitting a single task to multiple cores has proven to be very difficult, probably too difficult for all but the very biggest budget games. Only a handful of games currently claim to utilize more than 2 cores, and they all either do it poorly or fake it. Quad-core is mainly utilized by Photoshop.

For dual-core CPUs, the E6550, E6750 and E6850 line is just now being replaced by the E8200, E8400 and E8500 line. The E8200 is enough CPU for gaming; more than that is wasted because your video card determines how fast your game plays. Just waiting for the retail version of the E8200 to come out now.

DDR3 RAM is the same speed for gaming as DDR2 RAM right now and costs 6 times as much, so it's a waste.

[Fozzik]

Not to derail too much...but did they fix the thermal diode issues on the E8xxx chips yet?

[Enscheff]

I got a PC built by Avadirect.com and have had nothing but good experiences with the system. I am no PC expert, but here is what I would do if I were going to buy a PC today:

I would go on Avadirect.com, select Barebone Systems, Core 2 Duo, and then PC BAREBONE, Core™2 SLI™ DDR2 Performance Barebone Kit.

Then select the following parts (straight off Rabb1t's suggestions):

COOLERMASTER, Centurion 5 Black/Blue Mid-Tower Computer Case, ATX, No PSU
CORSAIR, CMPSU-520HX HX Series Modular Power Supply, 520W
ASUS, P5N-D, LGA775, nForce 750i SLI, 1333MHz FSB
INTEL, Core™ 2 Duo E8400 Dual-Core, 3.0GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 6MB L2Cache
G.SKILL, 4GB (2 x 2GB) PC2-6400 DDR2 800MHz
eVGA, e-GeForce 8800GT Superclocked 650MHz, 512MB GDDR3 1900MHz,
WESTERN DIGITAL, 320GB WD Caviar® SE16 (WD3200AAKS), SATA 300MB/s, 7200 RPM, 16MB cache
CREATIVE, Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeGamer, 7.1 channels, 24-bit 96KHz, PCI
MICROSOFT, Windows Vista Home Premium Edition 64-bit, OEM

Also pick whatever DVD/CD drive I wanted for another $50-100.

Total: $1240.92 before shipping and no disc drive.

I would hit purchase and then pick up an Acer 22" monitor for ~$200-$250. If you feel comforatable enough to pump up the price a bit more, you could jump up to the the 8800GTS 512MB for another $100 or so.

[AsheMan]

Are there any kind of conflicts if I get a CPU that uses DDR2 memory but a vidcard that has DDR3?

[rhagz]

No, they don't affect each other at all.

[rabb1t]

The Evga 750i finally came out; '750i SLI FTW'. A touch more expensive than other 750i boards, but skimming the Evga forums I guess it's designed to heavily OC and there were a few posts that it solved some compatibility issues that the 780i chipset had. (I don't know if those were fixable by bios or what. Didn't read too much into it as I'd not heard about any issues before with the 780i.)

[evilsofa]

I edited my suggestions sticky, and wrote up a $1700 build and a $960 build. I gave Dell a whirl and a system sort of similar to my $1700 build but without a monitor ran about $1900; putting a Doublesight on that would bring the total to $2600. My $960 system was more difficult to configure on Dell, and with a similar monitor went up to $1600.

Avadirect did little better, configuring a system more like my $1700 build but without a monitor (they don't have anything like a 26") for $1800, so putting a Doublesight on that would be $2500. Something like my $960 build was $1600.

Seems like Dell and Avadirect aren't really all that much apart in price, though the resulting computers were rather different. It was kind of cheating to put the Doublesight on the more expensive vendor builds, but neither vendor had anything like it; Dell would have taken it to $2800 with a 27" S-PVA monitor, while Avadirect didn't even have anything between 24" and 30".

[rhagz]

Why are you recommending a Doublesight monitor anyway? O.o

[evilsofa]

Originally Posted by rhagz

Why are you recommending a Doublesight monitor anyway? O.o

It's a 26" H-IPS panel with less than 1 frame of lag (that's TN speeds), better color quality than the best VA panels, and near perfect viewing angles, for only $700. It's essentially the NEC 2690wuxi without the special purple tinting and fancy-dancy hardware calibration features. It's the best deal in the monitor market today.

[AsheMan]

evilsofa, if you were to do a build through avadirect.com with a budget focus of $1500-$2000, what would you get? I want a beefy gaming machine and do not need a monitor.

[evilsofa]

I went here:

http://www.avadirect.com/product_det....asp?PRID=9528

And configured it like this:

GAMING PC, Core 2 DDR2 Gaming System $1553.72 UPDATE $1553.72
# INTEL, Core™ 2 Duo E8400 Dual-Core, 3.0GHz, 1333MHz FSB, 6MB L2 Cache, 45nm, 65W, EM64T EIST VT XD, Retail
# SERVICE, No CPU Overclocking
# GIGABYTE, GA-P35-DS3L, LGA775, Intel P35, 1333MHz FSB, DDR2-1066 8GB /4, PCIe x16, SATA 3Gb/s /4, HDA, GbLAN, ATX, Retail
# G.SKILL, 4GB (2 x 2GB) PC2-6400 DDR2 800MHz CL5 (5-5-5-15) SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC
# XFX, GeForce® 9800 GTX 675MHz, 512MB GDDR3 2200MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, DVI /2, HDTV/S-Video Out, Retail
# SERVICE, No GPU Overclocking
# SEAGATE, 320GB Barracuda 7200.10, SATA II 300MB/s, 7200-RPM, 16MB cache
# RAID, No RAID, Independent HDD Drives
# MITSUMI, Black Internal 1.44MB 3.5" Floppy Drive
# SAMSUNG, Super-WriteMaster™ SH-S203B Black 20x DVD±R/RW Dual-Layer Burner, SATA, w/ Software, OEM
# ANTEC, Performance One P182 Black Mid-Tower Case, ATX, No PSU, Steel/Plastic
# CUSTOM WIRING, Standard Wiring with Round Cables
# CORSAIR, CMPSU-520HX HX Series Modular Power Supply, 520W, 80 PLUS®,24-pin ATX12V EPS12V, Triple +12V, Multi-GPU Ready
# MICROSOFT, Windows Vista Home Premium Edition 64-bit, OEM
# SERVICE, OEM System Recovery (both secure HDD partition and bootable CD/DVD)
# SERVICE, System Binder
# ESET, NOD32® Antivirus™ V3.0, 1 User, Retail
# GAMING PC, Silver Warranty Package (3 Year Limited Parts, 3 Year Labor Warranty)
# SERVICE, Standard Shipping (UPS, DHL, or Fedex)

That actually looks pretty good to me.