PC prices and misconceptions.

[Wicky_42]

is it too much for this generation to tinker with the machines of this age?

This really can't be emphasized enough. Unless you're over 50 then the apart from specific cases I don't buy the "I'm not good with computers" bit. The inner workings of computers are extremely complex and beyond even most computer geeks, but just knowing what the basic parts do and sticking them together? It helps to have a geek friend help you alone at the start but once you get the hang of it it's not really that hard. Plus computers are so persistant in todays world that it's useful to have a basic understanding of them.

Now it can be extremely confusing with all the different parts out there that may or may not work together, but any good computer store that lets you pick parts online (like Newegg, or for Western Canada I personally like Memory Express) they won't list you anything that isn't compatable. So start off by picking a motherboard or the CPU, and the rest of the parts available in the drop down boxes will all be compatable.

Hah, thanks for noticing - I was proud of that line

It always exasperates me when perfectly sensible people give up the moment their computer glitches - not just giving up, but refusing to even try and sort it! I mean, they're perfectly happy to Google inane stuff, but don't realise that simply searching for whatever's wrong will more often than not yield a fix with just 5 mins of reading :/

Oh, and ALL PCs aught to have 'Problem? Step 1: turn it off and on again' written in bold letters across the default desktop. Even my techno-inept mother has learnt that, and yet my sister refuses to do something so basic because 'trying to fix anything technical is geeky' or something. Actually, if the general populace new the restorative power of 'restart', tech support might suddenly hit it's own great depression...

 

[Laughing Man]

I also have a PS3 of that description.
I lost count of the amount of times it has frozen over the past year's I have owned it.
It's just personal experience translated into sweeping generalisations.

It's valid because you have experienced it but it was more the conclusions that you reached that annoyed me. It doesn't crash or freeze because it is being pushed beyond it's limits any more than a PC will crash because you try to run a game that it's GPU can't handle. Crashes and freezes are a result of overheating and poor power supply very rarely is it as a result of trying to push the hardware to do what it can't do.

But everyone really should listen to this man of wisdom -- Laughing Man, I mean. (I'm not being sarcastic btw).

Thanks dude!

I'm surprised I haven't seen one particular logical arguement spring up form the depths of this 'discussion' yet.
Nobody has yet mentioned that PC's do a hell of a lot more than consoles, as they aren't games consoles.

Now I think I need to qualify what I am discussing here. I have specifically tried to ignore a number of factors. Specifically I have looked at one thing and one thing only the PC / Consoles ability to play games and by play games I mean play a game in a fashion that is enjoyable. That's why I haven't debate the PCs multi function capabilities, the quality of the graphics vs the consoles, resolution, mods anything like that. Can the device in question play a modern game in a fashion that is enjoyable.

So here's the bang for the buck, as a pure gaming device a PC will always be more expensive than a console however as a device doing what it can do the PC as a whole will always work out as better value than the console.

a) Xbox: 2001-2006. GameCube: 2002-2007 (in EU)
b) Explain how my 2003-era pre-built and cheap jalopy is able to run Portal and TrackMania United Forever? And that wasn't even a decent gaming rig.

a). What part of selective information did you not understand? You highlight two defunct consoles but chose to ignore the PS2 which is still out there and still getting new games. You chose to miss the Xbox 360 which was five last month and has no replacement announced as yet, you chose to ignore the Ps3 which is expected to have a shelf life of ten years

b).Uh two games released in 2007 not exactly making a strong point are we besides Portal is based on the source engine you could run that game half decently on a fridge. Take a game released this year and run it on a PC that was built five years ago and has had zero upgrades, it's a simple challenge.

Just in case you don't know here's some multi format games from this year

NFS HP
BFBC2
Black Ops
New Vegas
Just Cause 2

Now try running any of them on a PC with a 7 series Nvidia card with a P4 CPU running Windows XP and more than likely 2 gig of RAM.

 

[jamesworkshop]

[NFS HP
BFBC2
Black Ops
New Vegas
Just Cause 2

Now try running any of them on a PC with a 7 series Nvidia card with a P4 CPU running Windows XP and more than likely 2 gig of RAM.

Gonna have to point out that the pentium 4 is actually 10 years old a better example would be a Athlon 64 x2 (2005)

 

[Laughing Man]

Gonna have to point out that the pentium 4 is actually 10 years old

Indeed it is but I am gonna have to point out that five years ago all you had was the late gen P4s and the Athlon 64, the Core 2 Duo was another 6 months away and the Phenom was another year and a half away. So if you want replace P4 with whatever Athlon takes your fancy but the result is the same a PC that will not play any of the games I listed in even a half acceptable way.

 

[jamesworkshop]

Gonna have to point out that the pentium 4 is actually 10 years old

Indeed it is but I am gonna have to point out that five years ago all you had was the late gen P4s and the Athlon 64, the Core 2 Duo was another 6 months away and the Phenom was another year and a half away. So if you want replace P4 with whatever Athlon takes your fancy but the result is the same a PC that will not play any of the games I listed in even a half acceptable way.

aside from just cause which required Vista/7 and the fact that x2 wipe the floor with P4 espcially if you takes ones made in 2000 into account and yes a 7 series card is more than enought for those games


http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-10-04-fallout-new-vegas-pc-specs-revealed
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=228688
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Call-of-Duty-Black-Ops-Minimum-PC-Requirements-Revealed-161866.shtml
http://www.needforspeed.com/post/need-speed-hot-pursuit-minimum-pc-specs

x2 competed quite happily with core 2 I know because I played crysis on one including a 7 series graphics card which again with competed with Ati x1900 series. 1024x768 on my monitor of the time

I mean really the PS3 could not keep a standard framerate on Black ops even at 960x544 not excatly consider a challenging resolution on PC at the time which took the more standard route of 1280x1024 as the frame buffer even the more accomplished 360 version still could not reach 720p

you could have plenty of leeway if we took the PS3 release date of November 11, 2006 into account rather than limiting ourselves to only 2005 and 360 US/CA November 16, 2005

 

[Atmos Duality]

The very first time I built my custom rig, it took me maybe 2 hours total to assemble it, and one of those was spent waiting for Windows 98 to install.

That was back in the screwdriver-IDE/Jumper days; today, there are snap-together cases with slide racks that fit together like Legos, and motherboards with colored-"can't fuck it up because it only fits one way"-cables.

Not only are you dodging the massive retail markup, you often get access to component-specific warranties that don't force you through the anus of technical depravity that is retail-store-warranty claims.

Plus, there's that's intangible, but oh-so-good sense of accomplishment.
You aren't getting married to any particular brand-name either, so no pre-loaded crapware to deal with either. No overpriced, overhyped second-rate graphics cards that offer "Blazing fast speeds!" but are often just well-marketed junk you can't be rid of without voiding your warranty.

If you can't afford to take 2-3 hours out of your life every 3-5 years, then you deserve to get ripped off. Period.

 

[meticadpa]

That's really not a good PC. For a little bit more they could have used an i7 and added a ton of performance. They went with a cheap mobo. Overpaid for the ram by a bit. Antec PSUs are awful, they could have gotten CoolerMaster or OCZ for ~60 (they have crazy sales/rebates all the time). They got a Raven 2 case, which is... well.. silly... They could have gotten a comparable or better CoolerMaster or NZXT case for almost half the price (which is why it's weird they skimped on the motherboard). The Solid State Harddrive is pretty unnecessary too. And finally they would have been better off going with a GTX 460 instead of the ridiculously overpriced 470, which doesn't really even preform better...

What? Are you fucking retarded? Sorry to be so blunt, but you really don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about. 99% of CoolerMaster's PSUs are trash, OCZ makes mediocre units for the most part (only really one good line, the Z-series, and even they're not that amazing). The Antec TruePower New is a great unit, built by SeaSonic, and is a hybrid build of the SeaSonic M12D and Antec TruePower Trio platform. You don't get better value for money than this.

An i7 would add a ton of performance? Would it fuck. This is coming from a guy with an i7 930 at 4.5GHz, too. There's no performance game in gaming to be had from using an i7 CPU instead of an i5 CPU. Both are based on the Nehalem architecture, except that an i7 has hyperthreading, which really isn't useful in games or some benchmarks. I had my FPS drop when I enabled it in a few games, as it happens.

I agree, the case isn't great, and I don't like that. I wouldn't have spent so much.

The motherboard isn't being cheaped out on. That's not going to limit you in any way, and you will be able to get a very decent overclock with it.

The SSD is the future. Solid state technology is miles ahead of anything mechanical. Not only will it be the single biggest upgrade you could make to your rig for general system responsiveness (since the SSD excels at small random reads and writes, and has no access time because of it being solid state), but your games will also load a lot faster too.

The GTX 470 doesn't really perform better? It's a good 20% faster than the 460. That can be the difference between playable and unplayable.

Seriously, if you don't know what you're talking about, don't fucking pretend you do and go fuck yourself with a massive unlubricated horse cock instead.

 

[ZombieGenesis]

Just bought a £600 PC which will last me more years than I'll probably game for at max settings Can't wait to tear through exclusives like Metro 2033 on ultra-high before sitting back with some old favourites like Oblivion... with 200+ gameplay and graphics mods... it'll be gorgeous.
Not to mention 4GB Ram > 0.9 GB I have on this work laptop.

 

[RYjet911]

Okay, seriously, console gamers, learn your facts or go home, a PC hasn't cost $2000 since I was 5 years old. If your thinking of buying a PC, make sure it costs south of $500, unless you are rich or trying to impress that mystical geek girlfriend, its not worth it.

However, for a student in college, especially one who is building a computer from scratch and has no parts whatsoever, it seems in the range of $2000. You may be able to build me something right now for less than $500 to make me eat my words, but I refuse to, because I will end up having to upgrade this computer soon in the future. Again and again. If I want to build a computer, I'm gonna make it top of the line so I don't have to worry about upgrading it for a while. I only have so much money to throw around, so if I save up for a huge splurge, its easier on my mind.

You do realise that's only for PC exclusive games, right? The only time you'd definitely need to upgrade it is when the new generation of consoles are released.

The whole constant upgrading thing is purely part of the computer owning hobby, and not one that PC gamers need to worry about.

Consider it to the people that constantly buy and install tweaks to their cars, tuning or upgrading the engine with superchargers or putting in that slightly better sound system. Not many people do it as owners of cars, just the enthusiasts who want the best do it.

 

[RYjet911]

That's really not a good PC. For a little bit more they could have used an i7 and added a ton of performance. They went with a cheap mobo. Overpaid for the ram by a bit. Antec PSUs are awful, they could have gotten CoolerMaster or OCZ for ~60 (they have crazy sales/rebates all the time). They got a Raven 2 case, which is... well.. silly... They could have gotten a comparable or better CoolerMaster or NZXT case for almost half the price (which is why it's weird they skimped on the motherboard). The Solid State Harddrive is pretty unnecessary too. And finally they would have been better off going with a GTX 460 instead of the ridiculously overpriced 470, which doesn't really even preform better...

What? Are you fucking retarded? Sorry to be so blunt, but you really don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about. 99% of CoolerMaster's PSUs are trash, OCZ makes mediocre units for the most part (only really one good line, the Z-series, and even they're not that amazing). The Antec TruePower New is a great unit, built by SeaSonic, and is a hybrid build of the SeaSonic M12D and Antec TruePower Trio platform. You don't get better value for money than this.

An i7 would add a ton of performance? Would it fuck. This is coming from a guy with an i7 930 at 4.5GHz, too. There's no performance game in gaming to be had from using an i7 CPU instead of an i5 CPU. Both are based on the Nehalem architecture, except that an i7 has hyperthreading, which really isn't useful in games or some benchmarks. I had my FPS drop when I enabled it in a few games, as it happens.

I agree, the case isn't great, and I don't like that. I wouldn't have spent so much.

The motherboard isn't being cheaped out on. That's not going to limit you in any way, and you will be able to get a very decent overclock with it.

The SSD is the future. Solid state technology is miles ahead of anything mechanical. Not only will it be the single biggest upgrade you could make to your rig for general system responsiveness (since the SSD excels at small random reads and writes, and has no access time because of it being solid state), but your games will also load a lot faster too.

The GTX 470 doesn't really perform better? It's a good 20% faster than the 460. That can be the difference between playable and unplayable.

Seriously, if you don't know what you're talking about, don't fucking pretend you do and go fuck yourself with a massive unlubricated horse cock instead.

RARGH I AM HARDCORE ENTHUSIAST AND OTHER PEOPLE ARE STUPID

My friend's i7 rig runs much smoother than my i5 rig, and my computer is overclocked. Surely someone so certain of their facts would understand that different computers can run differently, even with the same components, and that ones with components rated lower than others can run better than higher spec parts in some cases.

You should also know that the motherboard is just as important as everything else, as even with all the same bits, different boards can have quite a drastic effect on the performance of the system. And also, a good overclock does not mean a good system. Most gamers won't even bother with overclocking, due to the danger of frying the chip and the length of time it takes to sort out messing with the multipliers and voltages.

Unless your motherboard sorts that out automatically like mine does and gets 3.8 GHz from an i5 750 without any problems.

 

[ZombieGenesis]

And just for the sake of evidence, if I hadn't intended to overclock my i5 760 I wouldn't have needed the aftermarket cooler (so thats £-35). I could also have skimmed a bit from the RAM but I really wanted the 8-8-8 and I don't know how to manually tune it (-£15).
I also went a bit overboard on the power supply (you dont need anything near 750w for a single card) and if I had bought the affordable case+power supply bundle I saw for £65 that would have been a massive £105 saving.

So all together I could have built an i5 760, GTX 470 (superclocked), 4GB RAM rig for...
£505.

It'd be hard for non PC gamers to get their head around, but if that kind of hardware was in a console it'd run you somewhere in the £2000 numbers I'm sure. (Hell, Alienware 'Gaming Laptops' of that spec are £3000+)

 

[Laughing Man]

aside from just cause which required Vista/7 and the fact that x2 wipe the floor with P4 espcially if you takes ones made in 2000 into account and yes a 7 series card is more than enought for those games

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-10-04-fallout-new-vegas-pc-specs-revealed
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=228688
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Call-of-Duty-Black-Ops-Minimum-PC-Requirements-Revealed-161866.shtml
http://www.needforspeed.com/post/need-speed-hot-pursuit-minimum-pc-specs

You do know that a computer of 2005 doesn't meet the minimum spec on any of those games save NFS HP (which I seriously doubt would run well) don't you? I mean I could list the reasons for each game but hating all sweeping statements as I do I am gonna use one here. All of them fail to meet the requirements on the CPU scale. In 2005 AMD had their 'Manchester' and 'Toldeo' cores on the market the only CPU from that range that would have come even close to the Minimum Core 2 Duo at 2Ghz (that all those games seem to list) is the 'Toledo' based 4800+ everything else sits below the required minimum spec.

The later models based on 'Windsor' just about had the grunt to take the fight to the Core 2 Duo but they arrived in Q1 2006 so are a moot point and of course their is the debate about weather minimum spec means playable spec?

 

[mindlesspuppet]

That's really not a good PC. For a little bit more they could have used an i7 and added a ton of performance. They went with a cheap mobo. Overpaid for the ram by a bit. Antec PSUs are awful, they could have gotten CoolerMaster or OCZ for ~60 (they have crazy sales/rebates all the time). They got a Raven 2 case, which is... well.. silly... They could have gotten a comparable or better CoolerMaster or NZXT case for almost half the price (which is why it's weird they skimped on the motherboard). The Solid State Harddrive is pretty unnecessary too. And finally they would have been better off going with a GTX 460 instead of the ridiculously overpriced 470, which doesn't really even preform better...

What? Are you fucking retarded? Sorry to be so blunt, but you really don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about. 99% of CoolerMaster's PSUs are trash, OCZ makes mediocre units for the most part (only really one good line, the Z-series, and even they're not that amazing). The Antec TruePower New is a great unit, built by SeaSonic, and is a hybrid build of the SeaSonic M12D and Antec TruePower Trio platform. You don't get better value for money than this.

An i7 would add a ton of performance? Would it fuck. This is coming from a guy with an i7 930 at 4.5GHz, too. There's no performance game in gaming to be had from using an i7 CPU instead of an i5 CPU. Both are based on the Nehalem architecture, except that an i7 has hyperthreading, which really isn't useful in games or some benchmarks. I had my FPS drop when I enabled it in a few games, as it happens.

I agree, the case isn't great, and I don't like that. I wouldn't have spent so much.

The motherboard isn't being cheaped out on. That's not going to limit you in any way, and you will be able to get a very decent overclock with it.

The SSD is the future. Solid state technology is miles ahead of anything mechanical. Not only will it be the single biggest upgrade you could make to your rig for general system responsiveness (since the SSD excels at small random reads and writes, and has no access time because of it being solid state), but your games will also load a lot faster too.

The GTX 470 doesn't really perform better? It's a good 20% faster than the 460. That can be the difference between playable and unplayable.

Seriously, if you don't know what you're talking about, don't fucking pretend you do and go fuck yourself with a massive unlubricated horse cock instead.

Antec power supplies are notorious for ranging drastically in quality, especially the TruePower series -- they've been better lately than in the past though. OCZs range from mid tier to highend (EliteXStream). Coolermasters are at least as good as most Antecs with the exception of the signature series. If you read my post I never claimed them to be the be all and end all of PSUs, rather a cheaper alternative.

You might have a point on the processor, if it weren't for the fact that i7's support both dual and triple channel memory. The price difference is fairly negligible given the system that was listed as hardware could be adjusted to keep the price where it is.

As for the motherboard, this might just be my personal preference here. It does lack some expandability with the memory, and lacks USB 3.0, which is an issue for me, and should be for anyone who intends to keep their PC for 8 years.

And yes, SSD are the future, but they are also quite expensive to be putting in a budget rig. Games will load faster, sure, but once the game has loaded to memory the performance will be the same -- waiting a few extra seconds for load time isn't really a huge concern when you're trying to be cost efficient. Moreover it's something that can easily be added a few years down the line once the prices drop. Though, the best option here would probably be scrapping both drives and going with a Seagate Momentus.

Have you looked at benchmarks comparing the 460 to the 470? When you consider the price difference, and that g-cards are one of the most likely upgrades to be making during a comps life, it's just excessive spending. No current games require bleeding edge graphics cards, and they likely won't until the next console generation as it will usher in the new Unreal engine (and probably the new Source engine). This all goes without mentioning the heating issues with the 470s, which may become problematic.

Being a vulgar jackass does not make your points valid, nor does it change benchmarking numbers or price.

 

[Hogbinladen]

I'm sorry Mr OP, but you are more wrong than you can possibly imagine. A good gaming PC here down in Aus costs in excess of $2000. Mine cost about $3500. So before you start generalising, remember that there are countries other than your own.

You paid $3500AU for a gaming PC? I paid $1428AU for everything I have, which includes an IPS monitor and has maxed out everything I've thrown at it, which includes SC2, Civ V, Sup Com 1 and 2 and CoD 4. I could even play Sup Com 2 and Starcraft 2 at the same time maxed out.

I'd suggest you know what you're talking about before you say anything.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I'm sorry Mr OP, but you are more wrong than you can possibly imagine. A good gaming PC here down in Aus costs in excess of $2000. Mine cost about $3500. So before you start generalising, remember that there are countries other than your own.

You paid $3500AU for a gaming PC? I paid $1428AU for everything I have, which includes an IPS monitor and has maxed out everything I've thrown at it, which includes SC2, Civ V, Sup Com 1 and 2 and CoD 4. I could even play Sup Com 2 and Starcraft 2 at the same time maxed out.

I'd suggest you know what you're talking about before you say anything.

I'm sorry Mr OP, but you are more wrong than you can possibly imagine. A good gaming PC here down in Aus costs in excess of $2000. Mine cost about $3500. So before you start generalising, remember that there are countries other than your own.

You paid $3500AU for a gaming PC? I paid $1428AU for everything I have, which includes an IPS monitor and has maxed out everything I've thrown at it, which includes SC2, Civ V, Sup Com 1 and 2 and CoD 4. I could even play Sup Com 2 and Starcraft 2 at the same time maxed out.

I'd suggest you know what you're talking about before you say anything.

Nice late quote thar. It really depends where you live on prices and so forth, so before you get all high and mighty, maybe you should go travel all over Australia before you can conclusively say that a computer will never cost that much.

Good day, sir.

 

[blankedboy]

To be fair, buying a bleeding edge PC will cost you an arm and a leg. However, there's no point since there aren't really any games that really take advantage of it since game graphics don't dare outpace consoles. Basically, as you said, you can get a gaming PC for less than 500$. Heck, you can get it prebuilt as long as you don't go for any big brand names like Dell or Alienware.

And here's me still wondering what the fuck everyone has against Dell/Alienware (same company, as the other fulla already said).

EDIT: GAH WHO REVIVED THE THREAD

 

[Hogbinladen]

I'm sorry Mr OP, but you are more wrong than you can possibly imagine. A good gaming PC here down in Aus costs in excess of $2000. Mine cost about $3500. So before you start generalising, remember that there are countries other than your own.

You paid $3500AU for a gaming PC? I paid $1428AU for everything I have, which includes an IPS monitor and has maxed out everything I've thrown at it, which includes SC2, Civ V, Sup Com 1 and 2 and CoD 4. I could even play Sup Com 2 and Starcraft 2 at the same time maxed out.

I'd suggest you know what you're talking about before you say anything.

Nice late quote thar. It really depends where you live on prices and so forth, so before you get all high and mighty, maybe you should go travel all over Australia before you can conclusively say that a computer will never cost that much.

Good day, sir.

I suppose it does but your post said Australia, as in the entire country. The PC I built was almost $600 cheaper than what you said would cost you in Australia. You won't necessarily have to blow $2000AU to get a good gaming PC in Australia.

But I'd like to know what you based the $2000 off of, and where you bought that $3500 machine.

 

[mjc0961]

Now for those lazy, I "bought"
250gb hdd
Generic motherboard
4GB ram.
Radeon HD5770 1gb Video card.
2.8ghz triple core
and a power supply.
This ran me only
$452.94 (no shipping)
(Disclaimer: Some of these parts might not match each other, as far as compatibility CPU might not fit the mobo, and ram etc, but the prices are right for general parts)

Good for you. You proved that if you don't buy the most expensive parts and if you don't buy all of the required parts, you can spend less money. I think that was obvious to just about everyone, though. But hey, if you want to just lay your parts out on a table or whatever instead of putting them in a case, good for you I guess. I wouldn't expect them to last too long though. I also hope you don't ever need anything off a DVD or one of the various memory card formats.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I'm sorry Mr OP, but you are more wrong than you can possibly imagine. A good gaming PC here down in Aus costs in excess of $2000. Mine cost about $3500. So before you start generalising, remember that there are countries other than your own.

You paid $3500AU for a gaming PC? I paid $1428AU for everything I have, which includes an IPS monitor and has maxed out everything I've thrown at it, which includes SC2, Civ V, Sup Com 1 and 2 and CoD 4. I could even play Sup Com 2 and Starcraft 2 at the same time maxed out.

I'd suggest you know what you're talking about before you say anything.

Nice late quote thar. It really depends where you live on prices and so forth, so before you get all high and mighty, maybe you should go travel all over Australia before you can conclusively say that a computer will never cost that much.

Good day, sir.

I suppose it does but your post said Australia, as in the entire country. The PC I built was almost $600 cheaper than what you said would cost you in Australia. You won't necessarily have to blow $2000AU to get a good gaming PC in Australia.

But I'd like to know what you based the $2000 off of, and where you bought that $3500 machine.

Average prices of friends computers and ARC computers Penrith.