drwex | Time for a new PC?

I'm looking at getting myself a new PC, primarily for gaming. The current one has undergone some heroic rescue efforts and it's still bombing out on me randomly. (*)

So the question is what do I want in a moderately priced gaming box? It's probably going to be a Microsoft OS, and preferably Windows XP.(**) My baseline for this right now is the Dell XPS 630 with a dual NVIDIA GeForce 9800 card. That comes with XP pre-installed - I'd rather not do my own downgrade if I don't have to. Price new from Dell is $1400.

The question is whether I can beat that without going out and building myself a white box, which I would really rather not do. I loathe messing with PC hardware and I don't mind paying for someone else to Just Make It Work.

Other things I looked at:
Dell's Optiplex line - too limited video options
Dell's Precision line - lots more expandability, but pricey. Even the low-end T3400 comes in around the same $1400.

PC Connection HP/Compaq line - doesn't let me customize the machine. The HP SmartBuy xw4600 looks pretty close in terms of specs but is weak on the graphics and only about $300 cheaper.

One option I've heard discussed, but can't seem to find reliable data on: buy a Mac and dual-boot it with my personal copy of XP installed in the other partition. That's intuitively appealing but I'd need a lot more data on current Macs and dual booting than I can find this morning.

(*) I'm pretty sure the problem is a bad video driver. The fact that my motherboard is so old I had to get a retro card for which ATI doesn't seem to make new drivers is part of the problem.
(**) I don't particularly want to start an XP-Vista debate. I just don't see what Vista buys me, and I do see a lot of problems. One of the advantages of getting a name-brand PC is that they come with licensed media to put Vista onto the box if I decide to do that later.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You said "gaming", and that does mean Microsoft.

I certainly won't try to steer you towards Vista, but XP is no longer supported, which means that new games may well not run on it.

Windows 7, the follow-up to Vista (and rumored to be the reason why more effort has not been put into fixing Vista) is coming out soon. If you can hang on just a bit longer, that will likely be worth it in the two-to-three-year time frame.

As an addition to this, since it IS a gaming box I'd go Vista despite the fact that I loathe it.
Why? DirectX 10 don't run on XP. Only Vista.

For what it's worth, Win7 is really just a cosmetic rehash of Vista with some new shinies tacked on: it should certainly be a better user experience but it's the same thing under the hood.

Understood. If I run into something that requires DX10 then I'll consider downgrading to Vista. Again, see above where I get the legal Vista disks as part of this package.

That said, if you know of a better (cheaper?) Vista-only gaming box I'm willing to look at it. XP is a preference but not the only factor.

Honestly my opinion is that you should first pick a price you're willing to pay, then see how to get the best bang for that buck. There are way too many other variables if you go the other way.

I had hoped to keep it under $1k. But I'm willing to flex to $1500 if it's necessary. Beyond that, I dunno.

and that's for the computer w/out monitor/key/mouse, but otherwise all inclusive?

Yeah. I'm figuring some form of NVIDIA 512MB card (because I'm currently soured on ATI), 2G of RAM, and I'm pretty flexible on disk (it's insanely cheap) and CPU (most of what I do isn't that CPU-intensive - most of the dual-cores from last year are fine).

All the deals I looked at included basic mouse/kbd, and a couple had pretty sweet-looking LCDs but none of those packages were right in the important dimensions.

I'm not sure what "soon" means in the timeframe of MS operating systems. I've seen some of the pre-betas for Windows 7 and I agree it looks far superior. My hope would be to hang onto XP until 7 or 7SP1 and then jump.

At this point, buying a PC for gaming is a pretty dicey proposition. A fully loaded Xbox 360 Elite can be had for $400 or less; a PS/3 for slightly more than that. Unless you're planning on developing a Sims or World of Warcraft addiction, there's not really a lot of titles coming out solely for the PC these days.

Unless you're planning on developing a... World of Warcraft addiction

He is far beyond "developing" one... ;-)

*snerk* Too true.

WoW is my main gaming hobby these days. I've not gotten into console games, not least because I loathe the controllers. If I got a console I'd probably get a Wii just because its controllers are so different from the tiny thumb-twitch stuff I see on other consoles.

Seriously, I think the Atari 2600 joystick is still a better controller than what most consoles come with. (A bit harder to do weird button combos on, of course.)

ooh wow! where? :) wow plays great on the mac without the dual boot.

Pygment and I are still on Earthen Ring. And yes, we do play on the mac laptop. But WoW isn't the only game we play.

I'm on Zul'Jin :) I just made a death knight!

I have a friend who runs Macs with Windows and it seems to work very well. I like my mac a lot for being much more stable than any PC I've ever used, and this isn't a new mac either, just newish-to-me. It may cost more, but it's much less likely to crash.

My Mac Pro is set up for dual-booting, which works fine though I rarely use it. (Now that VMWare Fusion supports DirectX 9.0c, GalCiv II runs fine in the virtual machine....)

However, I'm not a particularly hardcore gamer, and since my favorite stuff is (1) 4X games, which don't put much of a burden on the hardware and (2) out on the Mac anyway, I can't really speak to the usability of running Windows games on Mac hardware.

dual booting a mac works very well, but it seems like one of your concerns is price and a mac is expensive.

I understand your feeling about not wanting to deal with PC assembly, but Ars Technica has guides which have components already tested to work together.

Their budget box doesn't have the graphics power you are talking about (about $600, no monitor but with an OS).

Their "hot rod" shoots for $1730 plus shipping, which is past your target range. But look closer:

You have a monitor, speakers, mouse, keyboard, dvd drive. That knocks about $500 off the price. ($1230)
If you're happy with your existing hard disk, that's another $180. ($1050)
If you're never using that old machine again, transfer the OS to the new one for about $130. ($920)

Personally, I'd buy a new hard disk. They have a limited lifespan, and it's bad to lose one.

That's a lot of machine in a quiet case.

Oh: reference link is
http://arstechnica.com/guides/buyer/guide-200809.ars/3

microcenter - byob dection or showtime computers in hudson, nh.

I have put many game boxes together from both places and it is rather nice to pick what you want to spend you $ on.

Sometimes Video alone is enough, or cpu, or putting a SATA Raid together instead to get the ooomf for the desired game.

Want a hand?

This is really the stuff I dig doing. Nothing gets me happier than a liquid cooled dual or quad box with enough lights to make Vegas jealous. Or a sleeper that looks like Wall-e yet pegs sandra scores.

Good luck either way.

Honestly though you can still go name brand if you realize your motherboard is realy not upgradeable.

Memory is so cheap that I don't build any PC without at least 8GB these days and give my boss major grief whenever he orders any without at least 8GB (except for the $200 refurb Rackables).

Watch techbargains.com for any really good deals. Dell routinely has stackable coupon codes that can save over 25%

24" LCDs at 1920x1200 seem to be the sweet spot for monitors, I have bought several in the last year for under $300 each.

Time for a new PC?

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