new gaming pc

[Skie]

Ok so after all the problems I had on my old alienware laptop with ffxi I decideded I'm going to buy a new pc for xiv so what are some things I should look for. Mainly want something I can game on ( sims 3 and ffxiv) with no laggyness. Sims 3 laged like a bitch on my laaptop. I am looking for something below 1k. Probley desktop for heating reasons. What is a good amount of ram/hdd space. Walmart has some acer laptops for about 800 with rgb/600 hdd.

[shidobu]

. Probley desktop for heating reasons. What is a good amount of ram/hdd space. Walmart has some acer laptops for about 800 with rgb/600 hdd.

<_<
bad idea =\

Does it absolutely have to be a laptop? And you have a while before 14 comes out. If u can just sit on your money till later. About oct/nov you can prob build/buy one with better specs. Closer to when the game comes out. I dont mind buying laptops from companies. But id sure as hell rather build my own desktop.

And what problems with your Alienware? i own an M17x laptop. It plays FFXI like a dream. Can do most modern game fairly well. uses a Radeon 3870. I had plans of adding another one for crossfire but ended up building a whole new system.

[Agito]

Walmart has some acer laptops for about 800 with rgb/600 hdd.

I'm going to stop you right there before you make a huge mistake, never buy a prebuilt computer and never buy a laptop if you plan to use it for gaming. Laptops are just bad, you're pretty much forced to use crappy on board graphics with it which is fine if you don't game but i'm guessing you will game so let's get you a proper desktop PC with all the bells and whistles.

Phenom II x4 955 cpu
MSI 790FX-GD70 motherboard
Western Digital caviar black 1TB
Crucial ballistix tracer (blue lights) 2 x 2GB ddr3 1333 cas 7 memory
HD 5850 gpu
Antec 1200 case
Silverstone ST75F-P 750w psu

I think i went over your budget a little, but yeah, there goes an example of the type of system you can have, it's pretty much a beast of a system with all the latest hardware. If you want to get the price down then downgrading a few things here and there is doable and you'll still have a really good system. Building it yourself is definately the way to go but if your absolutely set on buying an already built PC then order from a place that makes custom computers for people like Cyberpower or was it Ibuypower?

[Kobus]

I'm going to stop you right there before you make a huge mistake, never buy a prebuilt computer and never buy a laptop if you plan to use it for gaming. Laptops are just bad, you're pretty much forced to use crappy on board graphics with it which is fine if you don't game but i'm guessing you will game so let's get you a proper desktop PC with all the bells and whistles.

Phenom II x4 955 cpu
MSI 790FX-GD70 motherboard
Western Digital caviar black 1TB
Crucial ballistix tracer (blue lights) 2 x 2GB ddr3 1333 cas 7 memory
HD 5850 gpu
Antec 1200 case
Silverstone ST75F-P 750w psu

I think i went over your budget a little, but yeah, there goes an example of the type of system you can have, it's pretty much a beast of a system with all the latest hardware. If you want to get the price down then downgrading a few things here and there is doable and you'll still have a really good system. Building it yourself is definately the way to go but if your absolutely set on buying an already built PC then order from a place that makes custom computers for people like Cyberpower or was it Ibuypower?

i read that as "Pentium II" and was hoping for the woosh.

and yeah, laptops suck for gaming unless you are able to customize everything. i got a "desktop replacement" laptop a few years ago that ran WoW and ffxi well, but it didn't last nearly as long as an actual desktop.

[Skie]

Ridather a desktop but idk that much about building them... like I know hoe to replace memory and shit but idk much about other stuff

[Agito]

Ridather a desktop but idk that much about building them... like I know hoe to replace memory and shit but idk much about other stuff

It can be a little intimidating but hooking everything up and whatnot is the easy part. The hardest part about building a computer is picking out all of the hardware that will best suit your needs and making sure everything is compatable but there's plenty of help around for that. Just ground yourself, install the processor and heatsink, then install it into your case and continue to install everything else. After that, all there is to really do is hook up all the connectors from your power supply, hook a few things up to the motherboard and do a little cable management then your ready to boot it up for the first time. **Before going any further at this point, watch this short Q&A video.:**
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDGvd2Cw-co

Sometimes memory/RAM can underclock itself when it's installed for the first time so, you might have to venture into your bios and manually set the timings to advertised specifications, it's easy though.

[Don Katsu]

I'm going to stop you right there before you make a huge mistake, never buy a prebuilt computer and never buy a laptop if you plan to use it for gaming. Laptops are just bad, you're pretty much forced to use crappy on board graphics with it which is fine if you don't game but i'm guessing you will game so let's get you a proper desktop PC with all the bells and whistles.

Phenom II x4 955 cpu
MSI 790FX-GD70 motherboard
Western Digital caviar black 1TB
Crucial ballistix tracer (blue lights) 2 x 2GB ddr3 1333 cas 7 memory
HD 5850 gpu
Antec 1200 case
Silverstone ST75F-P 750w psu

I think i went over your budget a little, but yeah, there goes an example of the type of system you can have, it's pretty much a beast of a system with all the latest hardware. If you want to get the price down then downgrading a few things here and there is doable and you'll still have a really good system. Building it yourself is definately the way to go but if your absolutely set on buying an already built PC then order from a place that makes custom computers for people like Cyberpower or was it Ibuypower?

No monitor in there or an OS so yeah it's going to be costly.

Here is some stuff you can check out.

Desktop:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883227245

Monitor:
Find one at a local retailer. Do not buy a monitor from Newegg.

A decent laptop here. This can play WoW, FFXI, and Sims 3 at Max settings but it's a refurb. Any new laptop with a dedicated card will cost you.
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?inv...5-PB-R&cpc=SCH

[Skie]

Was looking at a Dell inspiron i570-5378PBK

23' widescreen flat panel monitor
AD Athlon II x4 630 processor
6gb memory
1tb hard drive
window 7 64 bit

784 after taxes

good bad?

[Don Katsu]

Was looking at a Dell inspiron i570-5378PBK

23' widescreen flat panel monitor
AD Athlon II x4 630 processor
6gb memory
1tb hard drive
window 7 64 bit

784 after taxes

good bad?

What is the video card?

[Galkaeater]

Was looking at a Dell inspiron i570-5378PBK

23' widescreen flat panel monitor
AD Athlon II x4 630 processor
6gb memory
1tb hard drive
window 7 64 bit

784 after taxes

good bad?

nah since it uses intergrated graphics aswell as a stock PSU
Meaning you would have to spend more upgrading

[Skie]

I dont really mind having to upgrade latter i just something rather soon. When i have more time/money i dont mind upgrading the graphics card and psu. Not positive about the video card... i think its a ATI 5600? or something like that

[Olo401]

Ridather a desktop but idk that much about building them... like I know hoe to replace memory and shit but idk much about other stuff.

Building a computer is very easy to do. It does take some time the first time you build your own computer though, and I won't kid there are certain steps where following instructions is essential (i.e. installing the CPU heatsink) but it's completely worth the effort. And you will always end up with a better machine than you could get from any retail store or brand name company.

Anyways let's look at the Dell machine you posted. The CPU & hard disk are fine. The memory is fine, but it's probably not set up in dual-channel which will slow down the machine. It comes with the OS and a monitor, which is always a plus. But where you end up losing out here is on the things not listed. The graphics are integrated (Radeon HD 4200), which is terrible for gaming. You can get a expansion video card, but the power supply is only 300W which is too low to support even a low-end video card. And then even if you switch out the power supply, the case is a MicroATX minitower so you might not even have enough room for the card to fit.

Now let's build a machine with identical specs to this from parts and see what happens:

ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO AM3 ATX MoBo - $100
AMD Athlon II 630 2.8gHz - $100
G.Skill 2x2GB DDR3-1333 Dual Channel Kit - $109
WD Caviar Black 1TB 7200rpm Hard Drive - $100
Samsung CD/DVD Burner - $25
SuperTalent all-in-one Data Card Reader - $10
Coolermaster RC690 Case - $70
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit - $100
ASUS 23" 1080p HDMI Widescreen Monitor - $180

That puts us at $794 before shipping. Add to that the following:
Corsair 650W Power Supply - $70 (after rebate)
XFX Radeon 5770 Video Card - $170

...and you'll be at about $1050 with a good video card, a good monitor, a case with plenty of room for expansion, and the OS. And the entire system will be properly balanced and ready for gaming right away. BTW I didn't check for combo deals on Newegg, but I'm sure there are some that will help bring down this price tag.

[Don Katsu]

If you live near a frys electronics you can get this deal as well

http://www.frys.com/product/6096078

That's a $184.99 proccesor and $89.99 motherboard for $164.99

That combo deal is cheaper than the processor

[Skie]

so just gonna buy a prebuilt dell insprion at walmart today and upgrade it bit by bit as i can. for future advice what should i upgrade first?

this is the computer

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-1-TB-...78PBK/13316869

main uses is gonna be sims 3 and ffXIV when it comes out. sims lags really bad on my laptop so i wanna fix that if at all possible. im also a big graphics person. Thanks!

and price isant that big of a deal just be reasonable. Would really love to make it liquid cooled if at all possible just for fun! :D

[Pikarya]

Dell and upgrade don't go in the same sentence. Proprietary motherboard design, Custom PSU size/fit & cooling systems are usually in awkward/unchangeable positions if you upgrade your CPU heat sink in the future (410 model for example).

If all that is irrevelvant to you, I guess its a good pick for you.

[Mabubeezareel]

Seconding the fact that Dell's are notoriously fickle for upgrading. The model that you've picked out will not be able to run FFIV without installing a video card, and there's no guarantee that you'll be able to physically fit a decent card in the case, let alone have enough juice from the power supply to even run it.

Hypothetically speaking for a moment, even if you could fit a good video card in there, you'd have to upgrade the power supply to support it. And installing a power supply and making all connections to your devices is (almost) half of what you do when assembling a PC from scratch. Plus you need to factor in the additional costs of those components on top of what you're paying for the base Dell.

Your best bet is to go with the build that Olo listed a few posts up. It will actually be less expensive overall than the cost of the Dell and the necessary upgrades to the video card and power supply. Plus it will be easily upgradeable in the future. If you don't feel comfortable putting it together yourself, then either find a friend to assemble it for you, or take it to a local computer shop and pay them to do it.

[Don Katsu]

If you want to play FFXIV you're going to need to spend at least $850.00, there is no way that Dell will ever be able to play it without replacing the video card

According to the system requirements for the Alpha
This should be able to run FFXIV
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16883227179

[Skie]

Eh I just needed a pc ill get new one for xiv I guess but is the dell I got able to support two monitors? And if so how do I do it?

[Equitas]

dell computers are about the same tech level as a rock with a ethernet jack.

LOL sorry hate dell's

Its always better to build your own if you want something that will hold the test of time. Why pay a company to put low quality parts into a system making it un upgradable then adding a higher price.

[Don Katsu]

Eh I just needed a pc ill get new one for xiv I guess but is the dell I got able to support two monitors? And if so how do I do it?

Since you have a store bought computer the best card you can put it in is a 5670.

Based on the Alpha Requirements for FFXIV you should be able to play it with this card:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-871-_-Product

And it supports multiple monitors.