Looking for a new PC

[Arrowstar]

Hi everyone,

Sadly, over the past few months, I've noticed that GPU on my trusty HP 8510w laptop (an nVidia Quadro model) has started to fail. Clearly this is not good. Anyway, long story short, I'm now in the market for a new PC.

I'm not quite at the point where I'd be comfortable building my own system, so I'm looking to get something already put together and ready to go. I don't have thousands of dollars to spend, so I'm going with a desktop this time around (being out of university, I don't need the portability as much now). My budget is roughly $800-$900 USD for a monitor and PC, though I can be flexible if I find something convincing enough. I'm a casual gamer (Orbiter, Minecraft, KSP, the occasional RTS, etc), so having a discrete GPU is important to me, though it need not be cutting edge. A mid-range CPU is also desirable, and there are some Intel i5 models I'm investigating.

I've been doing some research into systems that are currently out there and I've come across the Alienware x51. It's a small form factor PC and seems to be a good balance between power and cost. The $850 model looks about right for me, and with a discount I get through work, would actually be around $700.

A few questions I have for the community:

• Any comments on the X51? Great? Stay away? The reviews I've found have all been positive, but getting more opinions from actual users would be awesome.
• Any other systems out there I should be looking at?
• Any other comments or thoughts on things to look for? I'm new to buying a PC (my current laptop was given to me by my university when I started as part of a "standardized laptop program" in the engineering college), so any tips would be appreciated.
• Oh, lastly, monitors: any suggestions on what to look for when buying a monitor? Here again I would be in the entry-level to mid-range arena.

Thanks for the help, everyone. Happy new year!:tiphat:

 

[Unstung]

I don't know about the X51 in particular, but I'm familiar with Alienware having a reputation for being very overpriced. I'd personally go with iBUYPOWER or CyberPowerPC for something pre-built.

I've just calculated what it would cost to build a system with the same specifications, and I got about $700 (which includes the OS). With your discount, it looks like this is a fair deal. Despite the appropriate price, I'm not thrilled with the CPU or the GPU. I'd go with a more modern CPU that you can overclock and a better GPU, in which case the ATI Radeon cards seem to be a better deal for equivalent performance.

If the reliability of this desktop is good, for what you're going to be using it for, I'd go with it.

Go for a monitor with good ratings, an acceptable price, and an appropriate size. I don't see the need to worry in your case.
Look here: http://www.newegg.com/Monitors/Category/ID-19

 

[ADSWNJ]

I've had success with www.velocitymicro.com for the last 2 PC's I have bought. I had an Alienware in the past too, and thought it was overpriced for what I got. Really, so long as you have a fairly decent (e.g. $150) GPU, you can skimp on some other things and still end up with a good frame rate. E.g. for Velocity, the Edge systems are fine, and you don't need to go crazy into the Raptor models unless you have money to burn. (And who has that these days, post Fiscal Cliff, eh?).

 

[Eccentrus]

Build one yourself

 

[Cras]

Build one yourself

Yeah...I know you said you are not comfortable yet in doing that, but really that is the best way. You get what you want, and save a bit of money. Its not that hard either.

 

[Capt_hensley]

http://www.microcenter.com/product/400091/G171_Desktop_Computer

I bought one like this with a high end Nvidia card for $1700. It's working very nicely.
I added a SSD 256 gig HD at the time of purchase.

 

[RisingFury]

Building a PC is easier than assembling LEGOs. With LEGOs, you can pretty much stick any block anywhere. But in a computer, if it fits, it will work. The worst part of it is actually hooking up the cables.

Wear (thin) protective gloves, though. I've shed my fair share of blood cutting my skin on the case...

 

[jangofett287]

Building a PC is easier than assembling LEGOs. With LEGOs, you can pretty much stick any block anywhere. But in a computer, if it fits, it will work. The worst part of it is actually hooking up the cables.

Wear (thin) protective gloves, though. I've shed my fair share of blood cutting my skin on the case...

Except for the motherboard headers. If you get those wrong you can melt the wires and fry the board. I should know. I did it. But RisingFury is right, assembling a PC is mostly idiot proof. Just don't force anything in and you'll be fine.

 

[Arrowstar]

Okay, let's say I wanted to build a PC, for the sake of argument. I know next to nothing about cases, PSUs, and motherboards. Can anyone offer some advice on those, or point me to resources that do?

 

[Cras]

The first thing you want to figure out is what CPU you want.

That will then give you the socket. Then, go and find motherboards with that socket type.

Have other things in mind, like how much RAM you want, how many HDDs and optical drives or whatever, so you know how many SATA ports to get.

Then grab yourself a GPU. or 2. or 3.

The number of optical drives, hard drives, and especially your GPU will tell you how big a PSU you are gonna need.

Your motherboard will have a layout. Most likely ATX. This is important for buying a case. When looking at cases you need to make sure it is the right layout (ATX the most common, there is also BTX, ATX micro blah blah, most likely you will be ATX), the bay slots, the slots for the hard drives, the fan situation, and the size of the PSU it can handle.

You need to take into account the overclocking situation. This will have an affect on the RAM you buy, you are gonna want to buy RAM that can be clocked up to what you want it to be, and also RAM that can be handled by your Mobo.

The more aggressive you want to be with your overclocking, then cooling comes into play.

If you are smart and stick with the Intel i7s, they can be overclocked with ease on air. You will just need to pay good attention that your case has the negative airflow to get that heat out of there as fast as possible, the fans are clean and there is space in the case, not full of wires and stuff from your PSU (and the big PSUs, do come with a boat load of wires, they can really clog things up. A bag of zipties is a worthy investment to tie all those things up and put them out of the way.

Or you have water cooling, which is my personal preference, external radiator cooling loops. You can include several things in your water loop aside from the CPU, you can put RAM in there (not really needed), and the GPU (which is a nice luxury to have).

I recommend New Egg. It has nice search function, pretty much everything made is on that site, reviews, packages, the works. So when you decide on your CPU, you can search motherboards and narrow things down, you know your Socket, narrow it down. Guess at how many SATAs you want, and other goodies, and so on.

and please oh please, stay the hell away from integrated gpus. You must go with a dedicated GPU card. And best go with nVidia, for a host of reasons.

Cheers, and happy shopping!

 

[streb2001]

I built myself a new PC last month. Start with the motherboard, I wanted something reliable and modern. After a bit of research I chose an Asus P8Z77-V LX. This then constrains what you can put on it:

The CPU socket is LGA 1155 so I chose an Intel Core i3 3.3GHz, not the most up-to-date processor but cheap and more than enough for Orbiter.

DD3 memory on this MB so I bought Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 8GB 1600MHz CL9 DDR3 Vengeance Memory Two Module Kit as it was cheap. Since I installed Windows XP 32 bit I only put one of the two memory modules in (32 bit OS can only address 4Gb).

Power supply: I guessed that the whole lot would need at least 500W so I went for a Cooler Master 500W 12V Elite Power 500 Power Supply Unit

PCI-E 16 graphics card slot - chose an Asus GeForce GTX 650. Again, not the latest but cheapish and runs Orbiter at about 80 FPS with everything cranked up to maximum (unbelievable!)

SATA hard disk interface so got a SATA Western Digital 500Mb drive and an LG SATA CD/DVD writer.

Case: a cheap and rather miserably thin ATX form case with a decent amount of space - CiT 2017 Black ATX PC Computer Case - Front USB & Audio. You will need to find a couple of USB header to backplane adaptors to get some more USB ports at the back if you want them.

I got most of this stuff from Amazon, except the graphics card which I bought locally. The whole lot cost about £450 not including Windows.

Good luck building your own. It is worth it. You get a PC that suits your needs without Windows 8 + crapware installed.

Ask for a bag of assorted PC building screws from a local PC shop - there seem to be three different thread types used. The motherboard will also need at least four PCB standoff pillars (about 1/4" high - not sure) - do not screw the MB flat onto the case!

Ed. Cras beat me to it! I don't go for overclocking (too old to be bothered) but I agree with sticking to NVidia graphics cards.

 

[Arrowstar]

Thanks for the help, guys. I'll be taking a look at everything you've mentioned this weekend.