Help Mr.E purchase a new computer!

Mr.E

Mr.E

unban me from Discord
is a Two-Time Past SPL Champion
Mr.E is considering purchasing a new computer. Graphical bugs and shit with League of Legends is pushing me to get one sooner rather than later (i.e. income tax returnage). I'm guessing maybe my graphics cards is dying on me or something but this bitch is like five years old anyway: Windows XP, 1 GB RAM (LOL ikr?), lowest of low-end dual-core processors. So I figured with Black Friday just around the corner, it's actually not a bad idea to look for deals right now on a whole new rig.

I know a decent bit about computers but ultimately I can't really custom build from the ground up: I don't know shit about mobos, processors, and if I need to pay someone a bunch to build it for me then I might as well just buy a prebuilt one to begin with. Power supply, RAM, graphics card, pretty much anything but the processor I am perfectly comfortable with replacing myself, so all I need is a decent base to work with. At any rate, I stumbled upon this at slickdeals.net:

http://slickdeals.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3586286

Dell XPS 8300. With the coupon code it's only $700, which is well within a price range I'm willing to spend. (I could probably go up to $1100ish but I'd really like to keep it under, say, $850-900.) The specs are pretty nice all-around and even the lowest graphics cards offered (Radeon HD 6450 1GB) is significantly better than the X1300 128MB I'm currently running, so it'll work for my needs. I wouldn't mind upgrading to the 6770 -- Dell's upgrade is not significantly more than purchasing a comparable card stand-alone and installing it myself -- but the lack of a VGA port means I would need to get a new monitor and they're all fucking widescreen these days and I dunno if I can fit one in my meager desk space it's just a PITA to worry about right now... :pirate:

Anyway, I'm seriously considering pulling the trigger on this deal. (The coupon expires Tuesday.) My current desktop is actually a Dell too and I've been extremely satisfied with its performance over the years, never had any problems with it and it's not bad to look at, so that's also pushing me a little bit toward making the purchase. If a few more knowledgable users could offer reassurance that this is a fine deal to take, that'd be great, but any alternative options or advice would be appreciated as well. Desktop PCs only, please, and advanced thank you to anyone who can offer help.
 
If you do it over the phone, I'd ask if the case they use accommodates larger video cards (say a GTX 560 Ti) and buy that separately. Also ask what power supply it uses as they often cheap out on that and you don't want to upgrade the video card and have it not run. I wouldn't use Dell's upgrade as you will probably be able to grab a GTX 560 Ti for $200 - $220 either not or Cyber Monday (including free copy of Batman: Arkham City) which should last you another 5 years.

That gift card promo looks interesting. Free $75 basically.

A custom build from NCIXUS would probably run you about the same price but with a better motherboard and powersupply, but no OS, keyboard, mouse, and a downgrade on the processor (not noticeable for games or everyday use, but if you do video editing or something you might notice it).

You can look at adding another hard drive after the shortage due to Thailand floods if 500GB is too small. Right now they're all super expensive x.x
 
i know you wanted a prebuilt one but i really recommend that if you know someone who can build you one you do so because custom ones are cheaper and better

CPU: i5 2500k
MOTHERBOARD: asrock z68 extreme3 gen3
RAM: 8gb g.skill ripjaws ddr3
GPU: 1gb HIS 6870
TOWER: coolermaster rc371
PSU: corsair hx-650
HDD: seagate sata3 500gb (thailand floods yo)
MONITOR: benq g2420hd

that's about AUD1000, probably cheaper for americans but then again some of the parts are more difficult to source

personally i bought my computer from a friend who bought part of it from asus and then he put in some extra parts for me for about 1.2k including windows and all that jazz

and if you MUST get a prebuilt one, the link you posted isn't too bad, just make sure you can contact whoever is selling it to you and definitely get the best gpu you can get at the moment because the rate of technological advance is making gpus obsolete very quickly (i got my gpu in may 2010 and i can't run bf3 now)
 
It's not about getting the best GPU that's available, it's about getting good bang for buck. I got my GTX 275 in August 2009 and I can play everything out there on the market. $200 - $250 is what I would spend on a video card and it will keep you set for the next 3 - 5 years depending on what settings you want to play games at.
 
I very much advocate building it yourself as well - there are plenty of guides (I used this one) and it's not difficult. I went into building my PC with no experience of doing so at all and was amazed at how hard it was to mess up as everything can only really go in one place.

Guide.png
What I ended up getting:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/ss1tb-samsung-hd103sj-spinpoint-f3-sata-3gb-s-7200rpm-32mb-cache-89-ms-ncq-oem

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-m4a87td-evo-amd-870-s-am3-pci-e-20-(x16)-ddr3-2000(oc)-sata-6gb-s-sata-raid-atx

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/amd-phenom-ii-x4-955-black-deneb-core-s-am3-32ghz-8mb-cache-ht-3600mhz-125w-retail

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1gb-evga-gtx-460-sc-super-3800mhz-gddr5-gpu-763mhz-shaderclock-1526mhz-336-cores-dvi-i-minihdmi

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/coolermaster-centurion-5-ii-black-mid-tower-case-w-o-psu

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb-(2x2gb)-corsair-xms3-classic-ddr3-pc3-12800-(1600)-non-ecc-unbuffered-cas-9-9-9-24-15v

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/500w-coolermaster-elite-power-power-supply-(psu) http://img40.imageshack.us/f/hngs.png/

I spent just under £600 altogether on mine, this was in April/May '11

It's worth looking around a lot before commiting to anything as well - read reviews, ask advice (good start!), ask others who have built a PC etc..

Also HDDs are currently super expensive due to the flooding in Thailand so idk if you wanna wait a while lol.
 
If you're looking for bang for your buck you'll definitely want to build your own, the actual assembling really isn't that difficult and there are a lot of good guides for part selection like the guide Dan Dan posted.

That said the deal on that Dell is pretty good too, the Radeon 6450 isn't really a great card for gaming though. Hard to say whether it's better to use their options for upgrades (just don't get the 6870, it's a weaker card than the 560 ti despite being more expensive on Dell's site) or buy your own though.
 
For the love of god do not get a Dell, I got mine specifically to the specifications of my engineering department. When I tried to order it, the price had jumped 600 dollars from the listed price, and they weren't going to honor the 4 year warrantee I was supposed to get. I had to wait four hours in a customer service run around. I finally get the computer: I can't run the most basic version of AutoCAD, all my steam games lag to hell, I can't leave it without a laptop cooler for 10 minutes without it overheating and crashing (which it frequently does), and my 8 hour battery lasts an hour tops (measured in percent battery used per minute, not minutes per percent). Turrible. I'll admit I don't know much about their desktops but if they're anything like their laptops, then do not go anywhere near.
 
Firestorm said:
It's not about getting the best GPU that's available, it's about getting good bang for buck. I got my GTX 275 in August 2009 and I can play everything out there on the market. $200 - $250 is what I would spend on a video card and it will keep you set for the next 3 - 5 years depending on what settings you want to play games at.
Click to expand...

since when are amd cards not excellent wrt price/performance
my 4650 took everything i threw at it, and it ran me all of $50...
a 6870 is hardly the best available, but it's a very nice card, and for the price ($175-$200) it really can't be beat
also, mre, dvi --> vga adapters are a thing and are often even included with the gpu depending on manufacturer so that shouldn't be much of an issue! if not then you can pick one up for like $3.
 
According to the Q&A hiding with the product reviews, Firestorm, the power supply is 460W. I don't know about brand/quality or anything, never had any major problems with this bugger over the years and it's a Dell too, but that's pushing it for a GTX 560 Ti, no? I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, though. The basic card that comes with it should be "good enough" for the shit I actually play (LoL and TF2, and then maybe in the near future Skyrim and affording the purchase of recent backlogged games like Fallout 3 + New Vegas. As long as it's not bare minimum settings, a fluid low-medium is fine by me.) and a 460W PSU should be plenty for that.

It should be fine for the 6770 if I want to upgrade to that too (for $130). The GTX 560 Ti is nice, and all my own research on the subject praises it too, but I'd need to buy a bigger PSU to run it safely, which with the card would run me a good $300 on top of the basic setup or twice that of the 6770 upgrade, less any upcoming holiday deals. Kinda would like a newer monitor to go with it all and, well, I need a new desk if I want to fit any of the stuff they produce today since it's all widescreen now... Maybe next year, since better card + bigger PSU + new monitor and desk will run me almost as much as the computer itself. ;/

No, DOUBLE DAN, I do not want to wait a while. >:O Indeed, "asking advice" is the point of this topic. Actually, the primary point is to get a consensus on the Dell prebuild in the link I provided and if it's decent enough, proceed with Plan A. :P Those links appear to be very useful for Plan B if it comes to that, though. Just as a point to Thorns, I don't know how much 1000 AUD translates into USD (in real-people cost, not exchange rate) but some quick Google work tells me that could translate anywhere from about $500 to $800 (i.e. roughly the same price) for what is a comparable custom build.

There are still advantages to building from scratch, primarily the price but also the quality assurance of all your individual parts, but then there are the usual hassles too: researching/shopping all the parts, actually putting the thing together, and on the off chance something goes wrong you're completely fucked. Being that price is the biggest driving factor for self-building, if there's a big enough deal on a comparable prebuild (not to mention lolfloods) to make the pricing competitive, I'd rather go that direction. It might be different if I was a true expert, or knew someone who would put it together for free or very cheap, but I like to prepare for the worst.

Fishin, the 6450 is still very significantly better than my feeble X1300 in my aging rig here. :P Low settings, lower-than-max resolution TF2 that takes five million years to join a server hurts me, man. :( Although the latter is more a product of my shoddy CPU. Even attempting to play something like Skyrim would be impossible at the moment. That said, if I do upgrade through Dell's options, it would be to the 6770 which my past few hours of research show to be a reasonable upgrade to the 6450 and their price is fair. (It's only $20 saved to buy it separate and install it myself, less shipping cost and the hassle of dealing with a separate shipment.) If I upgrade beyond that, it's going to be a GTX 560 Ti... but as I said, that's a costlier upgrade that I might do next year in the summer or around this time.

Tennisace, my current computer is a Dell desktop and I've been very satisfied with its performance over the years. Until recent graphical issues with LoL, I've had zero hardware problems. Sorry, dunno anything about laptops. :/ Don't care either, although some might say I should get with the times eh? And incidentally, Flounder, I checked AMD's site and despite what Dell says, the 6770 should still have a VGA port too. Even less of an issue than using an adapter!

I should've went to bed when I posted this but I just continued to do research and wait to reply to your guys' initial posts. :evan: What can I say, I'm excited at the prospect of finally bothering to plunk the cash down on a new computer. I will, however, do that now (go to bed) and check back here in the evening.
 
The actual building of a computer is really easy, just follow the manual, and most shit cant be plugged in anywhere but where it is supposed to. The hard part is buying the right parts.
 
my dell desktop came with windows 98 and i still use it. the hard drive and the monitor both failed once (sometime around 2003) and dell replaced them for no charge. i've heard lots of bad things about dell laptops but their desktops are great.
 
460W is honestly probably enough to run a GTX 560 Ti but I don't think Dell's might be. I could just put together a build on NCIXUS for you with the assembly option like I said earlier which would give you better gaming performance if you can grab Windows 7 from your school or something. I think it would run $800 - $900.
Flounder said:
since when are amd cards not excellent wrt price/performance
my 4650 took everything i threw at it, and it ran me all of $50...
a 6870 is hardly the best available, but it's a very nice card, and for the price ($175-$200) it really can't be beat
also, mre, dvi --> vga adapters are a thing and are often even included with the gpu depending on manufacturer so that shouldn't be much of an issue! if not then you can pick one up for like $3.
Click to expand...
Since when did I say anything of the sort? AMD and Nvidia both make cards at different price points. There' a sweetspot that I would recommend to most users. Right now the best card as far as good pricing for good performance that can last a long time is the GTX 560 Ti. $220 is a good amount to spend on a card. I would usually recommend eVGA or XFX as far as video card manufacturers go but the other major ones like Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI are good too.
 
Build your own computer. Better value, often stronger machines, and way more fun. Just get help on what specs are suited for you and if you need help building, get a friend to do it (but honestly, they make building computers idiot-proof; I did it myself just by following the booklets that came with the hardware.

Getting compatible parts aren't that hard either (although it depends on if you are able to have a nice supply of them and access to experienced people for multiple opinions).
 
Without ever having done it, I would consider it as much "fun" as transferring files over from my old computer. It's something that needs to be done but it's certainly not a main attraction. ;/

Looking at Firestorm's latest post I just went ahead and followed through with the Dell deal (with the 6770 upgrade). I appreciate the sentiment but $800-900 is basically what the deal is offering and while I'd get a slightly better video card and perhaps higher-profile components custom, I also don't have to install the OS (alum now, yo, but I can still probably get a copy from school) and have tech support if something explodes too early. Between the Thanksgiving holiday, processing and standard shipping it should arrive around the turn of the month! Oi, wish me luck.

At any rate, there's still useful reference material here for the near future and general basic advice. Dan Dan's link is a good one to file away for any fellow newbies going to actually self-build, I imagine that's not going to be outdated for a while and the home site seems like a useful repository of computer know-how anyway. Thanks broskis.
 
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