OMFG! It's a monster!

[Anubis]

Today I went to PC Laptops, a local computer store with my old man to buy me a brand new compy. If you live in the Salt Lake, Utah area there is no better place than PC laptops. They are little more expensive but you get your money's worth. Every computer is custom made and they'll pretty much take care of your computer as long as you keep it, and replace any parts that is needed for free.

So any way I needed a brand new computer for school; the one I'm using right at this moment isn't cutting it. I never had any problems with it except for a few nasty malware attacks. However I needed a beast of a machine, because I'm going to use programs like photoshop, blender, for animation and 3D rendering, gaming, doing game mods as well, not to mention the occasional video edit. I also need it to keep for a while so I needed raw power, with room for upgrades so that it will handle future software with no problems.

So I ended up with a true monster! I think I'm a little afraid of it, and I don't even have it yet! (they have to build it custom, I'll be able to pick it up tomorrow.)

So lets start off by showing you what my CURRENT computer has under it's hood shall we?

The Sheep
Pentium 4 1.80 GHz CPU
1.24 Gigs of RAM (after an upgrade where it was 248 MB, I think)
Nvidia GeForce2 MX 100/200 video card(I think it's DirectX 7 compatible)
40 gig hard drive (OMG, that is so sad! That's like two standard xbox 360 HDD put together!)
It has six USB ports (none of which are 2.0)
One CD disk drive
One DVD disk drive (upgrade)
A wireless network card (upgrade)
Running Windows XP home and office

Now the BEAST!!!
http://www.pclaptops.com/machines/desktop.php?desktop=3

It is the following!
500 Watt Power supply
Asus P5N-D Mother Board
Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600 2.4 GHz (That is some serious horse power!)
4 Gigs of RAM (can go up to eight!)
eVGA 9600 GT 512MB video card (DirectX 10 compatible!)
Two 250 Gig hard drives (that's 500 gigs all together)
One SATA DVDRW Disk Drive w/ Lightscribe
36 in 1 Internal Card Reader w/ USB
Running Windows Vista Ultimate

At the low, low price of $2,558.58 that's BEFORE tax! I'll be paying my parents back for a better part of three years!!! two if I get a better job.

[outwarddoodles]

Holy cow, that computer is a BEAST!!


I'm sooo jealous of you. Who cares if you're still paying that off several years later, that computer should be worth it.

Honestly, though, I'm surprised how decent of a computer you can get for several hundred bucks nowadays.

[alphanubilus]

WOOT!

That is a beast, and I would be afraid of it too, let alone the price tag. That is almost how much I spent just to get Vista to run on my current PC... Not really, just around $500 dollars, including the opperating system.

Super congrats. If I went to my Ma, and asked for something like that, she'd just laugh at me. Then again, she did by me a nice Notebook PC for Christmas. Nothing fancy, but then again a screenwriter dreams big, we don't need big toys.

Besides my Xbox 360 just suites me nice for gaming... Soulcalibur 4!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Still haven't renewed my Xbox Live Gold yet... I plan to... Oh yes... Once I've mastered Ivy enough to not feel stupid out in the wild. I will not be mauled by 12-year olds! I won't be!!!!

Nice machine though... I bet it will take half of Salt Lake City to power the thing.

[outwarddoodles]

Alpha: Ivy is one of the most difficult but rewarding characters in the game (I think.). All her moves consist of learning a complicated pattern of buttons, she is by far the worst canidate for button-mashing. Once I learned to master her in 2 and 3, I was practically untouchable.


(Also, both of you are complaining about your old sytem? My previous computer had 14GIGS OF HARDRIVE SPACE. My parents gave it to me -- it's not like I could go out and buy my own. LOL.)

[alphanubilus]

Alpha: Ivy is one of the most difficult but rewarding characters in the game (I think.). All her moves consist of learning a complicated pattern of buttons, she is by far the worst canidate for button-mashing. Once I learned to master her in 2 and 3, I was practically untouchable.

You are right, she is not good if your a button smasher, but I really like her move-sets and once you've figured out her quirks you can do some serious chaining moves. The only moves that I have serious problems with is Summon Suffering and Chaos Symphony, as they both require some of the most rediculous button combinations to toss. I mostly knock opponants into the air and then bring them down to the ground again, all the way sending Valentine their direction once they hit the floor. SC4 alters her moves a bit. I was shocked at first, because I found it difficult to do anything with her, but once I learned where each move-set was placed, it became second nature. Her 4-hit whip lash is much easier this time around, while some of the other moves are a bit awkward at first...

The greater question is... Is Anubis going to get SC4?

Who knows if we all get our 360's together and get on live... we might have to have a throw down.

[Aki]

Nice. Very impressive machine.

My machine was 1500 US and runs stuff like crysis (well, the demo) on high with no difficulty. Looks like your beast is huge and bulky like my Smilodon (that's what the box it came in called it, haha. Sabre-tooth computer.)

Though you'll be paying back your 'rents for a while, you won't need upgrades for a good long while. That's a benefit of a high-end machine. Especially since once you have a good machine it doesn't take much to catch up if it starts to fall behind - only need to replace one component or another.

Also, the placing of blue led lights in computers thing seems to have become a trend in high-quality machines.

Obviously, blue goes faster.

[Baphnedia]

I suppose it goes for whatever you're going to use the machine for. I spend very little for my computers these days (won't buy a laptop for over $800, bought my latest desktop for $250). But, this is also because I'm using them for applications much more than any kind of gaming.

[Anubis]

Alpha: Ivy is one of the most difficult but rewarding characters in the game (I think.). All her moves consist of learning a complicated pattern of buttons, she is by far the worst canidate for button-mashing. Once I learned to master her in 2 and 3, I was practically untouchable.

You are right, she is not good if your a button smasher, but I really like her move-sets and once you've figured out her quirks you can do some serious chaining moves. The only moves that I have serious problems with is Summon Suffering and Chaos Symphony, as they both require some of the most rediculous button combinations to toss. I mostly knock opponants into the air and then bring them down to the ground again, all the way sending Valentine their direction once they hit the floor. SC4 alters her moves a bit. I was shocked at first, because I found it difficult to do anything with her, but once I learned where each move-set was placed, it became second nature. Her 4-hit whip lash is much easier this time around, while some of the other moves are a bit awkward at first...

The greater question is... Is Anubis going to get SC4?

Who knows if we all get our 360's together and get on live... we might have to have a throw down.

Nah, I'm not much of fighting game fan.

This animal would probably handle most games that are out there just fine, hell, it probably handle half-life 2, and maybe Gears of War on it's highest settings.

I don't expect too much with Crysis, it'll probably handle it okay on it's normal settings but I expect some chug when things gets crazy on screen.

[Xiroteus]

At the low, low price of $2,558.58 that's BEFORE tax!

oO

That is quire expensive, curious, why the two 250gb drives? Back up RAID?

[IndianaJones]

You are lucky. The price of $2,558.58 for that beastly machine is not too bad. If the price is cheaper, I would hella get it. The specs is on your new PC is just wow.

Try to compare your old sheepy one to mines. Which is so obvious.

My 4 year old Black Dell Box
Intel Pentium IV 2.80 GHz CPU
1 GB of RAM
Nvidia GeForce 6200 256mb PCI with a 533 mhz clock memory.
40 GB Hard drive (I have same problem with your old one too).
Six USB 2.0 Ports
One DVD drive
A useless floppy disk drive (why, mom for putting the outdated drive when this computer is built in 2004! Oh well)
A Wireless-G USB Network cable (That thing is no longer supported and the driver is still 2004, lack of driver updates and that sucks, at least I can still connect to the Internet)
Windows XP Home Edition

Now, for the quad core on your PCL Titan. My friend who is pretty much a gaming computer expert explain to me that quad core is very powerful. But the bad thing about it is that it has too much core power like the PS3's cell processor. Too much, means it has too much space to run on one single thing like a game. Which sometimes it might lag, if you just play an old game like Age of Empires II for example. But it is still worth the price and component on that computer. What's with the two 250 GB hard drives? Shouldn't you like get a 500 GB hard drive and a 200 GB back up hard drive. Bah, almost the same thing anyways. A good one too. Both same memory and you can back up your installed games and personalized files onto that hard drive.

I prefer just a powerful high-end dual core processor made by Intel. Because I am not too much like a intense PC gamer which sometimes I am. I am not all that rich and I am saving up on a gaming computer which is similar to yours. Expect a lot cheaper and with a budget gamer's price. My guess on my new future computer will cost around $890 - $1,400. I definitely need a new computer for college this year!

Oh, also remember to back up the things you desire and cherish on your old computer with a 8 GB USB Hard drive or several DVD-R data discs to burn your old files. The things that all computer owners want to keep: Pictures, game save files, patches, game mods, computer programs, emulators, roms, Internet bookmarks, Artwork from artists, Photoshop saved files, Internet password, and usernames stuff (keep it to yourself). So you can unload and extract them on your new computer. I need to do that too. Always Back Up your favorite stuff from your computer.

[Aki]

Nah, I'm not much of fighting game fan.

This animal would probably handle most games that are out there just fine, hell, it probably handle half-life 2,

It will handle half-life. My older machine that can't run most modern games runs Half-Life 2 fine, even if the graphics look kinda meh. Valve games like HL2 tend to run on damn-near-anything.

I don't expect too much with Crysis, it'll probably handle it okay on it's normal settings but I expect some chug when things gets crazy on screen.

If your card's D10 capable, I imagine it will handle "high" fine. Maybe even "Very high" though I hear for most that that plays like a slideshow for even powerful machines, haha.

[Black Claw]

That is one powerful monster, you should come to my school in Sapulpa, OK. We have five computers hooked up to one of those freakin large servers. We got it from a friend of my teacher who works with microsoft, he somehow was able to get one of the old ones from the back and decided to send it to us for my robotics class. It took me, my teacher and two of my big friends to get it loaded off a storage truck the guy drove from Albuquerque (don't get mad if i spelt it wrong, i don't live there so i can't spell it correctly). Now we have enough saving storage to build a house, a car, and a diesel on a inventor program we recieved from microsoft for free! But yours is just one computer and that sounds freakin' awesome on how much power you got.

[cjkrythos]

Today I went to PC Laptops, a local computer store with my old man to buy me a brand new compy. If you live in the Salt Lake, Utah area there is no better place than PC laptops. They are little more expensive but you get your money's worth. Every computer is custom made and they'll pretty much take care of your computer as long as you keep it, and replace any parts that is needed for free.

So any way I needed a brand new computer for school; the one I'm using right at this moment isn't cutting it. I never had any problems with it except for a few nasty malware attacks. However I needed a beast of a machine, because I'm going to use programs like photoshop, blender, for animation and 3D rendering, gaming, doing game mods as well, not to mention the occasional video edit. I also need it to keep for a while so I needed raw power, with room for upgrades so that it will handle future software with no problems.

So I ended up with a true monster! I think I'm a little afraid of it, and I don't even have it yet! (they have to build it custom, I'll be able to pick it up tomorrow.)

So lets start off by showing you what my CURRENT computer has under it's hood shall we?

The Sheep
Pentium 4 1.80 GHz CPU
1.24 Gigs of RAM (after an upgrade where it was 248 MB, I think)
Nvidia GeForce2 MX 100/200 video card(I think it's DirectX 7 compatible)
40 gig hard drive (OMG, that is so sad! That's like two standard xbox 360 HDD put together!)
It has six USB ports (none of which are 2.0)
One CD disk drive
One DVD disk drive (upgrade)
A wireless network card (upgrade)
Running Windows XP home and office

Now the BEAST!!!
http://www.pclaptops.com/machines/desktop.php?desktop=3

It is the following!
500 Watt Power supply
Asus P5N-D Mother Board
Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600 2.4 GHz (That is some serious horse power!)
4 Gigs of RAM (can go up to eight!)
eVGA 9600 GT 512MB video card (DirectX 10 compatible!)
Two 250 Gig hard drives (that's 500 gigs all together)
One SATA DVDRW Disk Drive w/ Lightscribe
36 in 1 Internal Card Reader w/ USB
Running Windows Vista Ultimate

At the low, low price of $2,558.58 that's BEFORE tax! I'll be paying my parents back for a better part of three years!!! two if I get a better job.

I got you beat on most of that, mine is a custom built over time, assembled and upgraded to the point of insanity. You do got me beat on the motherboard and the processor as those are the hardest to upgrade.

- hard drive space totals up to 1.2 terrabytes, got a Raid array of two 500 gb SATA drives with a case fan blowing directly on the drives.
- 20"X13" widescreen HD LG monitor,
- Logitech G15 keyboard,
- Saitek GM-3200 gaming mouse,
- 3 gigs of ram(had to take out number 4, it kinda fried recently),
- AMD Athlon 64 Dualcore 3800 processor(2 ghz),
- running Windows XP proffessional.
- My video card is a AGP 512 mb video card, I think its a radeon, I honestly dont remember exactly what model. I got it used at dirt cheap from a freind.
- power supply is a 750 watt Thermaltake toughpower unit.
- Ive also got the Saiteck X52 flight control system, but ive never gotten to use it as I cant find any flight sims worth playing that can run with the controller anyways.
- a webcam with microphone and a pimpin stereo system.
- cd burner and a double layer DVD burner
- Few other little gadgets to boost performance that im too lazy to list including a USB/firewire controller card and a hardrive cooler unit.

I had a soundblaster Fatality sound card, but the damn thing doesnt run on Windows XP, so I had to stash it away in storage until they came out with XP friendly drivers.

Most of this was discount stuff, some of it was bought online at cheap websites, so It probably totals up to a pretty penny, but the case is the only thing on it thats almost completely worthless. Granted, I dont care much how the case looks, me baby has kicked the pants off of most computers. She might not have the kind of processor power that some people got, but she has all the upgrade capabilities of any other competing computer.

My point being, is that your best bet isnt to buy a computer from some store making that comp out to be all cool. You can get something half that price by assembling it yourself. The major issue is getting the parts that are compatible. Find a geeky freind to pick you out the right parts. Im not familiar enough to pick out the right parts. I got a geeky freind to do that part for me. Rest was easy. just like assembling a lincoln log set, only a hell of a lot more expensive. just remember, instructions that come with the mother board are WONDERFULLY helpful, so dont throw them away, no matter how much any geeky freinds tell you that you wont need em.

Last tip I can give you is to NEVER buy any parts on ebay, no matter how reputable the seller is, or how good the comments are, or how low the price is. I fell for all those and ended up spending a fortune on shipping, getting a computer case that broke and I couldnt return it, plus the power supply failed(hense why I have the toughpower) and the keyboard and all the case fans I bought from them were complete utter crap. Not a single product besides the case is something I can still even remotely use. All of them broke to the point that I had to throw them away. The case was duct tapable, so repairs were easy, it just looks like crap.

Buy from either new egg, zip zoom fly, or tiger direct. I went with zip zoom, but ive heard good and bad things about all three, so I suppose its just luck of the draw. Mostly good things, plus ive had mostly good experiences with zip zoom, so I really cant complain.

good luck,
CJ

[Anubis]

This is mt first post on my monster compy!!

Right now i'm busy setting it up, you know itunes, steam, McAfee, etc.

I bought the orange box for it today hopefully I can be able to play it before i head off to work. See if i can make it chug or not. lol

[MoonKit]

Can we start referring to Anubis's computer as Frankenstein?

[Anubis]

No more like a woodchipper! It's just about scary and effective like a woodchipper is!

I played HL2 on it before going to work on the highest setting and it didn't even flinch, NO CHUG! BTW, HL2 on the PC with the highest setting looks little better than the XBOX 360 version.

[IndianaJones]

You're one lucky gamer, Anubis.

[takyoji]

Personally, I chose to start out with a dual-core as a simple mid-range instead of using a quad-core since not all my the programs I'm using support symmetric multiprocessing. And as for rendering, I could still just do a network render instead of using just one computer for raytracing or anything like that (I used to play with 3ds Max, but I've turned to Blender instead).

Otherwise, my parts are:

• A black computer case with a side panel of which the entire front panel is perforated which allows air to transfer into it throughout the front. Mainly Cooler Master has the best concepts as of cases. It has 5 slots on the front for components like a DVD/CD reader. It also has 2 USB, 1 Firewire, headphones, and microphone port on the front.
• An ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe motherboard which has been chosen as one of the highest customer preferred product 8 times on NewEgg. Supports NVIDIA SLI technology and so on
• A GeForce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 graphics card that supports SLI
• A 700W transformer which supports Active PFC, supports SLI, has a 3 year warranty. I chose such a high wattage so that I'll have space for expanding if ever needed in the future.
• An AMD 3.0GHz 64-bit dual-core processor. (AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+)
• A card readerthat supports SD, MMC, MS, CF, MD, SM, and XD cards. It also has 3 USB ports, 1 Firewire, 1 eSATA, and an HD audio headphones and microphone port.
• 2GB of DDR2 800 dual-channel RAM. I simply started out with 2GB and would expand further if necessary.
• Seagate 160GB 7200RPM SATA harddrive (performs at 3Gb/s). I also have a secondary harddrive which I got a while ago which has 250GB of storage but of which uses a PATA cord. Totals to 410GB.
• DVD-R burner with Lightscribe. Connected via SATA

The total for all that was: $820

If I wanted to render something, I'd do a network render instead since I would have a total of about 13GHz of power from having multiple computers rendering something rather than just one. Otherwise I'm running Ubuntu, so when I'd want to do a heavy calculation task, I could restart in single-user mode with a CLI and run the render from there and have even better performance. I'm simply waiting for Windows 7 to come out, thus, for the mean time I've been using the WINE emulator for Windows applications. I've been able to do all the same work as I've needed to in Ubuntu that I've done in Windows. I haven't had slow downs or anything that's been able to bring my graphics card to it's knees since any calculation is usually easily handled. I need to steal some of my cousin's PC games sometime...

My personal view is to buy things when it's been around for a little while, has stability, and when programs need such power. I know I'm not some intense PC gamer, but really, when someone buys parts that are far ahead of the time (not that I'm implying that you are at all) when games really don't utilize such power, then you're just burning extra money (potentially). My main focuses were: get a very quality power supply (instead of going cheap, since those will die in no time), have some room for expansion, and don't burn extra money on unstable equipment that's geared towards overclocking.

Sorry if it seems like I'm trying to take over your thread. xP
But hey, at least you won't have to upgrade hardware for quite a while.