need help selecting a pc to buy

[imported_buggs]

I'm doing some research and just looking for information on pre built pcs to buy. I have built a few already and don't like the most recent one how a lot of things have been iffy with it and I don't know where problems arise and so on. So I decided I might try to sell all of our pcs and get one from one of the major manufacturers like Alienware, etc. So I was wondering if there is a web site that reviewed pcs? Not just mid, low and high end like the latest pc shopper mag, but all models from all companies like Dell, Gateway, HP, Sony, Falcon NW, ABS, Alienware, Voodoo etc. I am trying to learn more about them all and find the right one for a certain amount. Maybe $1300-$1500. I don't know. This will be a gaming machine and I'd like it to be a good pc with good tech support and customer service. Here is what I want with the pc.

1gb ddr ram 3200 or faster
extremly stable pc
dvd- and +rw drive, prefer dual layer, but not 100% needed, also if dual layer it'd have to make dual layer dvds compatible with most/all set top dvd players.
120gb sata 7200rpm 8mb cache hard drive or larger, prefer not in raid as that is slower then non raid.
second opticle drive like a cdrw. not dvdrom only
4 ide controllers like so i can if i want have 8 devices
floppy
keyboard and opticle 2 button scroll wheele mouse
no monitor
needs to come with a good system restore dvd/cd and hopefully the actual win xp cd, prefer professional
usb and firewire in front of case
extremly quiet case/pc, prefer water cooling if that will make it real quiet, but water cooling isn't 100% needed, cus of money i guess
powersupply, over 400 watt for sure
good tech support, customer service and prefer toll free number with not a huge wait time on hold like Dell etc. needs to be 24/7 also tech support.
3ghz or faster cpu, don't know what would be better, P4 with HT or an AMD 64 the cheaper one, not the FX $800 cpu one that is the most $.
not sure about the video card, prefer Nvidia, I have now an nvidia GF FX 5900 XT and it's ok i spose.
onboard audio or an audigy.
10/100/1000 nic
firewire
Expansion and upgradability for future is a must. meaning extra bays to add stuff and preferably upgrade the cpu if the company who made the pc would allow it/sell one and support it.

I have seen a falcon nw pc for like $1295 on their site, but i still need to add stuff to it. alienware I know makes some of the best, but not cheap. Voodoo same thing and ABS same thing.

So can someone please give me some suggestions? Not to build it myself, i won't do that.
We'll start $1200-$1500.

 

[GlobalHPSJoe]

Of course its self-serving, but check out Monarch. We do custom builds, so we can do everything up exactly to your liking. If you'd like, you can email me joef@monarchcomputer.com and I can send over a quote on something that should work our quite well in your price range.

 

[imported_buggs]

Thanks for the message. I hope other people who don't work for companies can make some suggestions as well. I also hope people if they work for a company would make some suggestions too, that's all good. I did email you by the way.

 

[imported_buggs]

I didn't like anything at monarch, not really anyway. didn't like any of the cases really, things like that.

 

[Turkish]

Your best bet is a Dell PC as all the other manufacturers such as Alienware, Falcon and Voodoo cost a whole lot more, so you won't be able to find something that fit your needs and budget.

 

[imported_buggs]

Dell makes me nervous considering I have only heard of bad support from them and I'm just not sure their systems would be very fast. I also do not want to wait on hold for 30 plus minutes when trying to call them.

I customized their 8400 on their site, but still not very sure about it, plus I do not like thier case.

 

[trexpesto]

Sorry you had problems building!

I second Monarch because you dont have the weird Dell proprietary "features" like lacking an AGP slot, or getting suckered in with a low price and then it goes up and up in their configurator. Dell bargains can be better on the weekend near the end of the month. They are quiet at least. I have been hearing that they don't always ship you the Windows bootable CD, don't know if that's true or not.

Monarch are probably the best of the medium-size "Custom built PC" companies that I have heard of - check them out on resellerratings.com. They charge you about what? - 75 for the build and test, are very helpful and stay on top of your order from what I have heard. They do markup the parts but not horribly in most cases. Sometimes they even have nearly the best price from a well-rated store for one part or another on pricewatch. AT user AbominableJinx was getting one from them, send him a PM and see what he says.

As opposed to Alienware, where you can get the best gaming PC of anyone you know, but you will pay way way more than the optimal price-performance ratio. For the price of an Alienware, you can get a great, cheaper PC and a Rockhopper or something with the extra money, and you can keep one of the bad old PCs around so people will stay off your new computer for downloading spyware and viruses.

 

[imported_buggs]

What is a Rockhopper?
I have been thinking about this and looked on Alienwares site and would go for one of their AMD64 lower cost systems. Dell has an 8400 I configured and it was like $1450 or so, but I'm weary of Dell and now that I've been looking and trying to do some research I want an AMD64, not the FX, but the cheaper ones. I hear they beat the P4 anyway. Monarch, I don't really know anything about. I did look at thier web site, but with so many options I'm struggling to find something, lol. I loose patience I guess cus there's just so many options.

So right now I'm wanting an AMD64 300+ or better
still 1gb ddr ram
With AMD64, does that do pci express?
Is the GF 5750 pci express as good as the GF FX 5900 XT?

I did email the monarch guy, but have not heard anything yet from him. I'm still interested in trying to work up a deal.

Is Gateway or HP a safe bet for a pc maybe with the features and price i'm looking for?
Is there a forum in irc for this web site or this type of place? To talk about pcs and stuff like this?

 

[trexpesto]

Patience is a virtue.

I talked to AbominableJinx and he said that it has been taking quite a while to get his order, but I don't know if it's just what they told him up front or longer.

PCI express is a factor of the motherboard, some have it, but there are still fewer pci-ex vid cards out there AFAIK.

This is a good place to ask these questions, but if you don't have the patience to learn this stuff, most people will probably not have tooo much patience with you either. Kind of the way life goes. Still it's worth a try.

Info you need may already be posted, try using the Search here and in General Hardware.

 

[ShellGuy]

First things First. Two SATA drives set in Raid 0 is faster than a single drive. Also right now AMD doesn't support PCIE. I am looking at building a system that well excedes your specs but is still about the same price. Look in to the WD Raptor 34gb drives set in a raid 0 and then have a massive storage drive. if you want to pm or email me i can send you what i have found.



Will G.

 

[imported_buggs]

Thanks shell, but like I said i won't buy and build, i am only interested in a prebuilt from dell, alienware etc. I'll pm you anyway.

currently, i have only read raid is slower then reading from, and in fact it is. everything i have ever read says this in the last 2 years.. it is only faster when writing to. i bought 4 computer magazines right now like a week ago and one of them had a big article about this saying raid slowed down their Doom 3 load times and some other stuff they said, and then they mentioned how it might be bad for all raid now unless all you are doing is writing to them. and pc mag has even said this etc. pc gamer etc, long ago said the same thing.

my dads current pc has a p4 2.4c HT and WD 74gb 10k rpm drive and an ata133 120gb drive with 1gb ddr ram, GF 5900XT.

anyhow, i am trying to sell this and go for a pre built machine.

 

[jvarszegi]

currently, i have only read raid is slower then reading from, and in fact it is.

Wow, it's just great that you consider yourself a RAID expert after reading a magazine article! Do you know the difference between RAID levels 0, 1, 5, and 10? If not, you shouldn't be so quick to make judgements. ShellGuy is absolutely right. RAID 0 with two drives is almost twice as fast as a single drive for both reading and writing data as a single drive. The data is "striped" across both drives; that means that when a particular file is being read, it can be read from both drives at once. Ditto for writing.

 

[imported_buggs]

It's kind of mean you said i consider myself a raid expetrt. i never said that nor anything like that. i only said everything i have ever read says raid is slower when reading from. and i agree based on what i read only a few days ago from the magazine. they said when they tested doom 3 in raid it was slower and it was raid 0.

I don't want to argue nor do i want people to talk about anything other then what my orriginal post was about please.

 

[imported_buggs]

I've been doing some more research and I did go to resellerratings.com. Monarch was highly rated in the top 15, maybe top 10, i forget. So that's good news. I've looked at their stuff and have picked a computer sort of. I've looked at abs also and alienware. I'm still interested in more suggestions please. Does consumer reports have any computer magazines in the last 3 months about this stuff and reviews from tons of companies and tons of models in all price ranges? With so many companies and models to choose from it's really hard to choose something from a good compnay going to give me good tech support 24/7 on the phone and good onsite service with a good pc as well.

 

[trexpesto]

Dell.

 

[imported_buggs]

Dell is out of the question, I said I want AMD64 and us based support, i will not support a company that outsources their support and does not have AMD64.

 

[jvarszegi]

I don't want to argue nor do i want people to talk about anything other then what my orriginal post was about please.

Okay, I apologize for being mean. You should realize that it's silly to say "and in fact it is", though, when you're a newbie in this area; I mean, you're relying on that magazine article. The article is dead wrong, and ShellGuy is right. To what magazine article are you referring? Let me know, and I'll check it out.

In my own defense, the RAID issue is from your original post: you said you didn't want RAID because it's slower on reads. I really want to reinforce that it's not-- whatever article that gave you that idea is horribly wrong, no ifs, ands, or buts (or you're misunderstanding the article). RAID 0 and RAID 1 are the only two options for RAID in laptops, and neither of those would be slower than non-RAID on reads. My main aim at this point is to help you understand that; if you want the absolute best disk performance you can get in a laptop (barring some suitcase-style luggable with desktop hardware), you should invest in one of the laptops from Sager, Alienware, et al. that feature RAID 0 (and back up your important data every so often, which you should do anyway). If you want the best performance from a desktop, invest in RAID as well, either with one of the cost-effective SATA or IDE solutions, or if you're swimming in money, with higher-end SCSI drives and a good controller. You'll be amazed.

My own choice for the OS etc. would be RAID 0 striped across two 74GB Raptor drives, the ones with 10,000RPM spindle speed. They're not much more than the smaller Raptors. Set up caching features in Windows (if that's your poison), and most of the OS stuff will stay resident in memory anyway. Then it's your choice how you want to partition things for your program files. I'd love to set up two RAID 0 arrays on those drives-- I'm thinking of it for my own next machine...

 

[imported_buggs]

I am not looking at a laptop, what gives you the idea that i am?

Raid, Maximum PC Oct 2004 said raid is worse when they played doom 3 and so on. Page 72, In The Lab, The case against Raid 0.

ASeciond paragraph starts by saying, lately however two well known hardware sites, anadtech.com and storagereview.com have come down hard on Raid 0 desktop performance. and it goes on from there.

Game level load times for doom 3, far cry and battlefield 1942.
doom 3 , raid 38 seconds, non raid 35.
far cry, raid 21, non raid 21
battlefield 1942, raid 22, non rAID 22.

so that shows to me raid is bad.

anyway please don't talk to me about raid anymore, this is not about raid, but look at my orriginal post again and that is why i am here, not to fight what is good or not when it comes to raid.

however, i think ive found possibly the best deal from ABS.