New Home PC - advice sought?

M

maxjam

Registered User
Messages
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Hi all,

im looking to buy a new home PC for myself. I dont have any of these xboxes or ps3's etc, i work in software development and ideally I want a high spec machine both for working on and in my downtime - playing decent games.

I was looking at the Alienware machines on dells website (last pc was a dell) and the system I thought good enough costs 1260 euros.

Im including the specs below, but does anyone know of a better place to buy? not fussy bout looks etc I just want decent performance for as cheap as possible!!!

Core specs:

Genuine Windows® 7 Professional 64bit- English

Intel® Core™ i5 Processor 650 (3.20GHz, 4MB)

1GB ATI® Radeon™ HD 5670 graphics card
4096MB (4x1GB) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel Memory

500GB (7200RPM) SATA Hard Drive

16X DVD+/- RW Optical Drive (DVD & CD read and write)

Integrated HDA 7.1 Dolby Digital Audio
Dell Wireless 365 Bluetooth EUR

Alienware 19-in-1 Media card reader

Total €1260.00

your help is as always much appreciated!
 
Alienware are very very expensive for what you get to be honest; people buy them specifically because of looks, so if you're not looking for a 1€€t machine to bring along to the next LAN party, avoid. I'd recommend picking up a copy of "PC Advisor" and checking out their desktop section; they do proper reviews and note the performance of each machine.
 
Having never bought and built a pc before, here is what I found on komplett that is similiar to the alienware pc...
not much price difference though? What do ya think? Have I forgotten anything?

Processor -
1 x Intel Core i5 661 / 3.33 GHz - LGA1156 Socket - L3 4 MB - Box
€197.00

Cooler -
ZALMAN CNPS 9900 LED CPU cooler
Socket 754/940/775/939/AM2+/1366/AM3
€50.25

Mother Board -
MSI H57M-ED65 - Motherboard - micro ATX - iH57 - LGA1156
Socket - UDMA133, SATA-300 (RAID), eSATA -
€147.90

RAM
Corsair Dominator-GT - Memory - 4 GB : 2 x 2 GB - DIMM 240-pin -
DDR3 - 1600 MHz / PC3-12800 - CL7 -
€165.00

Video Card -
Sapphire RADEON HD 5770 - Graphics adapter -
Radeon HD 5770 - PCI Express 2.1 x16 - 1 GB GDDR5
€158.50

Hard Drive -
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 - Hard drive - 500 GB - internal - 3.5" -
SATA-300 - 7200 rpm - buffer: 16
€53.50

DVD/CD Disc Drives ( x 2) -
Samsung DVD±RW burner SH-S223C Black
S-ATA - DVD±R 22x, DVD-RAM 12x
€39.00

Case -
Lian Li PC-60FN - Mid tower - ATX -
black - USB/Audio
€102.75

Sound Card -
Creative X-Fi Titanium
Sound Card
€85.00


Card Reader -
Sitecom 73:1 kaartlezer Smart Elements
Card Reader
€25.95

Software -
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional - Licence and media -
1 PC - OEM - DVD - 64-bit - English
€135.00


Total €1,159.85
 
Agreed - Komplett can be a nightmare - I was just using their diy sheet as an example.
 
So should I cancel my order now??? ....

Just kidding :)

Think at the minute the dell one seems handier... as for a mac? Shudder... im a Microsoft Developer so it wouldnt make much sense to me plus I want to use it for games, more games are in existence for the PC platform that the apples.

Dell looks good at the minute, but I hate giving cash to the giant global corporations.
 
get a DELL and save yourself hassle, good support and they do work.

noah
 
build it yourself, it's fun and you'll learn a lot. don't forget a power supply in your list. maybe drop the sound card, that MOBO has on board sound, get a nice pair of headphones with the money saved. Surely you can get your hands on an OS as a microsoft developer? By the way... put in a raid. don't get hung up on the 64 bit... lately I've been bitten in the butt with incompatible software, ie some work software not functioning etc. work around is XP mode, but it's a pain in the neck..
 
I wouldn't bother with RAID. Go with SSD if you want a fast disk for the OS, with a regular HD as storage.

You should ask on the gaming forums like OCUK or Boards for getting the best bang for buck gaming performance.
 
I'd recommend building your own too - if you're in software, it shouldn't be too much of a hassle! AMD multicore chips are supposedly great value right now, and a graphics card that will play anything you throw at it will cost only €100 at the moment.
 
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