Advice on PC Purchase...

[cohenfive]

my 3.5 yr old dell is just not up to the task any more as i've gotten more into photo manipulation (large raw image files), light video editing and occaisonal light gaming in addition to the normal stuff. i'm looking at the following two choices and i'd be curious if you think either could do the job for the next few years and/or if both are total overkill (which they may be) for the sort of things i do. i'd rather err on the side of having more than i need than less....here are the two choices:

1. mint used alienware aurora alx with 3.5 years of remaining warranty.
core i7 950, 6gb triple channel ram, 875 watt ps, 2x300gb velociraptor hd, sb x-fi audio, single dvd burner, nvidia 1.8gb gtx 295 video, killer xeno pro nic, liquid cooling, alienware mouse, keyboard and headset, win7 home prem. also comes with several games (nothing all that recent) and other gaming headset.
2. new cyberpower build--std 3 yr warranty, core i7 930, 6gb triple channel ram, 800 watt ps, 600gb velociraptor hd, additional 1tb hd, dvd burner, blu ray player, asetek liquid cooling, media card reader, stock keyboard/mouse, no headset, win7 home prem, sb x-fi audio, radeon 1gb 5870 video.

the cost including shipping/tax on the new one is almost identical to the alienware. i spec'd the cyberpro to have one 'fast' hd and one big data hd, plus the additional bluray drive and media card reader.

any comments/suggestions are welcome. is the alienware worth snagging even though i'll have a couple of mods i'll want to make to it?

 

[Sp12]

Well, watercooling, enthusiast names, gaming nics, and sound cards are all easy ways to boost the price without really adding to performance. They also have some weird choices like a separate bluray reader and DVD burner drives, yet lack an SSD (something definitely worth it in this price range).

If the warranty isn't a huge deal, I would probably build it myself.

If it was, I'd probably get a workstation class prebuilt from HP/Dell to cut out the excesses.

Do you live near a microcenter? What's your budget for this computer?

Do you have a monitor? What resolution do you have/plan to have? Multiple monitors?

Just a bit of advice, spending a ton of extra at once is not as economic as upgrading regularly, I mean, Moore's states that you will be able to get twice the performance for the same amount of money every 18 months (depending on how you extrapolate it).

 

[mfenn]

Well, watercooling, enthusiast names, gaming nics, and sound cards are all easy ways to boost the price without really adding to performance. They also have some weird choices like a separate bluray reader and DVD burner drives, yet lack an SSD (something definitely worth it in this price range).

If the warranty isn't a huge deal, I would probably build it myself.

If it was, I'd probably get a workstation class prebuilt from HP/Dell to cut out the excesses.

Do you live near a microcenter? What's your budget for this computer?

Do you have a monitor? What resolution do you have/plan to have? Multiple monitors?

Just a bit of advice, spending a ton of extra at once is not as economic as upgrading regularly, I mean, Moore's states that you will be able to get twice the performance for the same amount of money every 18 months (depending on how you extrapolate it).

:thumbsup: I agree with this post.

I would like to reiterate that a velociraptor in place of an SSD is a mistake in this day and age.

 

[cohenfive]

thanks for the messages. i'm not going to build myself--i've done hardware upgrades but not a complete build, and will happily pay someone else, whether its dell or cyberpower to build for me for peace of mind and to have a warranty. i agree on the gaming nic and games on the alx, no value to me, and the watercooling is a throw in at cyberpower and standard on the alx. the sound card is cheap anyway.

on the drives, i was thinking that having the faster disk drives (10k speed) plus a large regular drive would be a good compromise of space/speed. sounds like you guys disagree, and i'm all ears.

what i'd really like is to have a pc set up to boot really quickly and yet have lots of space for photos, videos, etc that can be accessed quickly. can you get a smallish ssd just for booting up and then access all your internally stored files from standard 1tb drives?

thanks for the input. it is a much higher price point than i've bought before ($2k range for either the used alx or new cyberpower).

 

[mfenn]

RE: SSD, I would go with the 80GB Intel X25-M if at all possible. You want to put your apps and such on there so that you can get the benefits of an SSD. You then put your media on the HDD. SSDs are just so much faster than any HDD (10K or otherwise) that trying to get a fast HDD is just pointless. Here's a visualization:

SSD>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Raptor>>7.2K

As for spending 2k on a machine, I agree with Sp12 that you are better off getting a 1k machine saving the other 1k for upgrades down the road. Your average performance/year is going to be higher for the same total expenditure.

 

[cohenfive]

that's pretty compelling from the chart. probably cheaper to have a smallish ssd plus large traditional data drives than bothering with the multiple wd velociraptors as well. i'm going to reconfigure things and see if i can get the price point down some.

went back and reconfigured the system--is getting two 30gb ssd's ok (they use kingston) or should i stick with the one intel 80gb (which costs a bit more). i changed to the above ssds plus 2x1tb hdds and took out the sound card. that saved a couple hundred bux.

one question--i've always spent money on the best video card i could afford, am wondering if the 5870 is 'too much' if i'm not a serious gamer (single monitor application, dell 2209wa)...

thanks for the advice, i think i've just about talked myself out of the alienware even though it looks great.... i would prefer to have a couple of things set up better for my specific use...

 

[mfenn]

that's pretty compelling from the chart. probably cheaper to have a smallish ssd plus large traditional data drives than bothering with the multiple wd velociraptors as well. i'm going to reconfigure things and see if i can get the price point down some.

went back and reconfigured the system--is getting two 30gb ssd's ok (they use kingston) or should i stick with the one intel 80gb (which costs a bit more). i changed to the above ssds plus 2x1tb hdds and took out the sound card. that saved a couple hundred bux.

one question--i've always spent money on the best video card i could afford, am wondering if the 5870 is 'too much' if i'm not a serious gamer (single monitor application, dell 2209wa)...

thanks for the advice, i think i've just about talked myself out of the alienware even though it looks great.... i would prefer to have a couple of things set up better for my specific use...

SSD performance generally scales with the number of flash chips. For example, a 30GB drive will be about half as fast a 60GB that utilizes the same controller. With that in mind, I would go with the Intel because it has more capacity and less hassle than the 30GB.

As for the 5870, yeah I would say that it is overkill for a casual gamer. At 1680x1050, I would be looking at the 5770.

 

[cohenfive]

will the 5770 be enough for image manipulation using photoshop/lightroom on 12mb raw files or is that not a stressful operation for the card, more for memory and cpu? thanks, this is getting cheaper by the minute!

 

[mfenn]

will the 5770 be enough for image manipulation using photoshop/lightroom on 12mb raw files or is that not a stressful operation for the card, more for memory and cpu? thanks, this is getting cheaper by the minute!

Photoshop doesn't use the GPU other than requiring basic OpenGL support, so it doesn't matter what you get.*

*Somebody is going to come in here and say, "but CS5 uses CUDA!" To that I say, only Premiere CS5 sees any sort of benefit.

 

[cohenfive]

here's a revised cyberpowerpc build, lmk what you think. sounds like this fits what i need better, probably still a more powerful video card than i need but i think i'll stick with it:

core i7 930, 6gb triple channel ram, intel 80gb ssd, 2x1tb hdd, radeon 1gb 5850 video, no sound card, 800w ps, media card reader, dvd burner plus reader (no bluray), liquid cooling (std), win7 home prem. cost is down just below $1500 before tax/shipping...sure wish these guys were outside california, sales tax here is a killer.

 

[mfenn]

Look good to me. Do they perhaps have a lower-end model that forsakes the water cooling?

 

[cohenfive]

is the water cooking a negative or just not worth paying for. it's a throw in at cyberpowerpc right now so i'm not paying extra for it. thanks for the advice, this should be pretty fast for my use i believe.

 

[mfenn]

is the water cooking a negative or just not worth paying for. it's a throw in at cyberpowerpc right now so i'm not paying extra for it. thanks for the advice, this should be pretty fast for my use i believe.

Unless you need it (i.e. extreme overclocking), it is a negative in my opinion because it requires regular maintenance. Don't be fooled by any BS claims of "maintenance free" because ALL water cooling requires maintenance. That is a big reason why all the people who are buying Corsair H50's today are going to be in for a rude awakening!