This Christmas I got the entire family together to pitch in on my kids Christmas wish... He said he wanted a "Beefy" gamer computer system this year. I purchased him an A6 AMD HP Laptop last year for Christmas @ 2ghz with 4gb of ram but it could not cut the mustard when it came to games and overheated. This year I wanted to get him a computer that would at least make it a few years before it was lagging.
With that said, last week I turned to Dell for an Alienware Area 51 computer, which I thought was of adequate specs and would save me time and money. I even got approved for no interest financing for 1 year. The total for this system from Dell / Alienware was quoted to me as $2,200.00 with everything including the monitor. Given the crazy cost of these gaming computers I had the entire family chip in, but after I ordered and paid for the computer Dell called me to say they could not deliver until after Christmas! This after telling me that I would have the system on the 23rd before they took my loot! Very upset I canceled the order, and the entire situation was a PITA!
Now with less than 4 days to go before Christmas I had to come up with a good solution, and this time without the backing of Dell credit. Some friends turned me onto a place called Micro Center, which was about 30 minutes from my house, but stocked every single computer part under the sun! I spent 3 days researching these new style componets and decided on the following spec's - ALL of which put Dell's Alienware to shame at a fraction of the cost! $850 for the whole thing!
AMD FX 4ghz 8 Core Processor RSRock "Killer" motherboard with Fatal1ty gamer chipset and 1000 base lan AMD Radeon Sapphire R9 380 Video card with 4 gigs DDR5 memory - 4k ready Crucial DDR3 Memory @ 16gb and 1600mhz 600 watt Thermaltake power supply 250gb Intel Solid State Hard drive w/ SATA 3 6gps and 520/520gig Read/Write Speeds Thermaltake Gamer ATX Mid tower w/ blue LED fan + 5 additional large 4 inch fans Matching black DVD R/W drive New OEM Windows 10 ACER 1920 X 1080 Full HD Monitor @ 22 inches Termaltake Gamer Keyboard with Blue led backlight and gamer mouse with LED's Red LED 4 inch fan Cold Cathode 12 inch red neon bar
And here was the build, from start to finish!
Tested out the system with the game called "Dirt Rally" at "Ultra" settings, which are the highest they have. System performed flawless with no lag or problems! The build turned out real nice and I saved about $1200 building it myself. I must admit these new Solid State drives are worth the money! I literally loaded windows in two minutes and it boots in less than 4 seconds. These new computers really cook! Anyway, just wanted to share! It's probably the most excited I have ever been about a computer build that I paid for that I'll probably never even use. Once the kids takes it off to his room, I can forget about being able to use it. LOL
Merry Christmas everyone!
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What is to give light must endure burning -- Viktor Frankl
The up-side here is that now you'll know how to update & build your own for peanuts ! (How many band-aids did you need ? - Those internals are razor sharp & cut like a knife if you're not careful)!
Cheers,
Rastus
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"Only an alert & knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial & military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods & goals, so that security & liberty may prosper together". Dwight D.Eisenhower.
Thanks Rastus! Yes the parts inside a computer can be sharp but I managed to do it without any cuts. You being mechanically inclined and having experience working on cars would have no problems either I'm sure. I actually enjoy it as its kind of like a puzzle that keeps you guessing until that moment you're ready to flip the switch. It's really all in the components in terms of success. I spent a great deal of time researching to try and get the best bang for my buck and ensure the components complemented one another. I'm sure by next year you could build this same system for under $600 or maybe even less than $400 if you had a good monitor, keyboard, mouse and a copy of Windows 10 to transfer over.
I posted the thread so people doing research on their gaming computers could get an idea of what works and what today's cost are. I'm telling you though, the single biggest improvement you can make in terms of performance / speed increases are hands down with these new solid state drives and the SATA3 6gb/s connections. To put things in perspective a traditional hard drive reads and writes anywhere between 50-150 per second, and that speed drastically decreased as the drive gets full and the magnetic pickups head towards the outer edge of the platters. Solid state drives in SATA3 configuration read and write at 520mps! It's without doubt the best performance increase you can make, I'd dare to say even better than adding ram. If you don't have SATA3, they have lower speeds in the mid 300's which is still a big step up.
Anyway, Merry Christmas and if you ever need a good gaming system you now know some components that perform well together and are somewhat reasonable in cost as it pertains to expensive gaming hardware.
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What is to give light must endure burning -- Viktor Frankl
Well... I thought I was done spending, after what felt like a non-stop blood letting of money, but apparently my suspensions were correct as it pertained to the quality of the internet and all these new machines being online in addition to all the old ones.
Kept on having problems with the modem re-setting and poor connectivity once everyone was on the internet. Went thru a host of different things trying to make my existing hardware work, but unfortunately my Motorola Wifi Router and my Linksys router (Both made in 2003-2006) were no longer able to route the data. Add in my Motorola surf board SB5120 DOCSIS 2.0 internet cable modem and I guess it was a bottle neck, and tapped the modem so hard it would reset all the time. Guess DOCSIS 2.0 isn't capable of speeds over 30mbs and even then that's the upper limits in terms of burst speeds.
Good thing for the kids they all got Christmas money, because I honestly was not feeling well and the idea I was going to have to spend even more money just about sent me over the edge. With their cash in hand I set out to Best Buy in search of a DOCSIS 3 modem and new WIFI router all in one. Got a good deal on a newer Motorola DOCSIS 3 all in one @ $125 on sale, which ironically was $20 less than at Micro Center. Regular price for this item was $155, but again, it was on sale.
Then on the way home I got to thinking about all the WiFi radiation, and how the router sits less than 15 feet from my desk. I decided that the 10 or so devices that cook my brain with microwaves in the 2.4ghz spectrum daily needed to be limited to mobile cell phone devices. So I stopped at Lowes and picked up a 500 foot box of Cat 5e cable, some RJ45 ends and a crimper. Considering that just one 100 foot Cat 5e cable was north of $40 I did pretty good, plus I can run this stuff in the walls easier.
I have now got every piece of equipment that is not a cell phone wired into a 1000 base Netgear switch, run to the new cable modem. All is well and no more cable modem re-sets.
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What is to give light must endure burning -- Viktor Frankl
I just wanted to say that my Son, whom I built this rig for, and whom was using it every day up until a few months ago, shocked the hell out of me by going out and buying ON HIS OWN, a new rig twice as bad ass and even has liquid cooling and neon light sheeaat...
All on his own!
So maybe after all these years the rig I built was getting dated... what can I say...
But at least the boy is working, going to school and doing his thing...
The same can't be said for my oldest "lover-boy" Son, who unfortunately is cursed with toxic masculinity and absolute woman weakness...
What can I say... Not even I'm perfect.
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What is to give light must endure burning -- Viktor Frankl
