The Best Gaming PC Money Can Buy

SlappingOysters writes "Gameplayer has gone live with their best PC hardware configurations for Q3 2008. They've broken it into three tiers depending on the investor's budget. And while the prices are regional, it is comparative across the globe. 'In order to play these slices of gaming goodness, you're going to need a decent rig, and we sent our PC hardware guru in search of maximum frames in maximum detail, but at a minimum cost. We have three tiers for the three levels of PC gamers out there and all the detail you could possibly want on where, why and what to buy. So choose your poison and get amongst it.'"

Comments

The investor's budget?

[llamalad]

Buying a pc is an investment now?

Re:The investor's budget?

[ivan256]

  investment
              n 1: the act of investing; laying out money or capital in an
                        enterprise with the expectation of profit

No. No it is not. And every computer and used car salesman that refers to the purchase of something guaranteed to decrease in value over time should be sued for false advertising.

Re:The investor's budget?

[Atlantis-Rising]

Are you telling me that as a computer geek, when you lay out money to purchase a computer you do not expect profit to arise from it?

I think that's a very dangerous statement. Everyone who uses their computer for work 'invests' in it. Everyone who uses their second-hand car to drive to work 'invests' in it.

It is not solely necessary for the capital expense to appreciate for it to be an investment.

Re:The investor's budget?

[Anonymous Coward]

  investment

              n 1: the act of investing; laying out money or capital in an

                        enterprise with the expectation of profit

No. No it is not. And every computer and used car salesman that refers to the purchase of something guaranteed to decrease in value over time should be sued for false advertising.

profit
            n 1: An advantageous gain or return; benefit.

Profit is not only measured in $$. It is also measured in :)

Re:The investor's budget?

[POTSandPANS]

I agree. A friend of mine had bought a Mustang GT in 2005, which was the first year of the current body style. The salesman's words: "This car might even go up in value someday because it's the first year of this body style!"

I wish I were joking

Re:The investor's budget?

[Lumpy]

They also think that cars and electronics are "investments" as well, typically nobody knows what the word "investment" means anymore.

I guess it sounds better in marketing than saying...

"Our new PC's are awesome! Get a liability in one today!"

Re:The investor's budget?

[Atlantis-Rising]

That's a complicated question. There are basically three answers:

1: It may make your work faster and more efficient.
2: It may require less maintenance than your old computer.
3: It won't, but that's not necessary; it's like asking a workman whether a new hammer would make his job any more profitable. That doesn't mean it's not an investment anyway.

Re:The investor's budget?

[p0tat03]

How would buying a screaming fast computer for work make my job any more profitable?

Depends on what you do. For a 3D artist, for example, a faster machine means shorter rendering times. This creates less downtime, moves the design-render-refine cycle faster, and also opens more possibilities to allow the client to tweak the final product with you.

For a coder who's working on a massive code base, we're looking at shorter compile times. Cutting compiles from 4 hours to 1 is a pretty significant gain that will likewise see a rise in productivity. Having a blazing server-class workstation also allows you to test your code in conditions that are more similar to what your code would be running once deployed.

For an artist, a massively fast computer (or really just one with an assload of RAM) allows more multitasking. Having Photoshop, Illustrator, a compositing app, etc etc, open all at once is great for productivity, and it allows you to bounce between apps without huge downtime.

But a few examples of why speed is still important in computing.

Re:The investor's budget?

[Fael]

I think the assumption implicit in such a statement ("you could write it off") is that the fiscal alternative is buying porn, funding a drug habit, collecting Hot Wheels, or what have you - rather than saving or investing it. In such a case, you are, in fact, "saving" yourself money by channeling the insatiable need for consumption into something at least partially tax-deductible.

Re:The investor's budget?

[amnezick]

what the??? offtopic? geez...
someone in their right mind please give Sancho what he deserves

Re:The investor's budget?

[mjwx]

Mac OSX is useless for multitasking, the global menu bar alone means that you can realistically only work on one app at a time. Plus its a pain to resize windows and I am yet to see a "tile windows Horizontally/Vertically" function like you get in windows (this is a great help when taking info from one program into another or when reading response messages in real-time as you make changes). lack of a task bar means I cant tell what programs I have open and if any of them require my attention (under Windows the task bar item flashes), under Mac OSX I need to alt tab or do that F11 thing to figure out what's open which takes my full attention away from what I am doing.

Mac OS X displays everything in icons with no text, it takes the human mind 2 to 5 times as long to decipher icons (pictures, hieroglyphics, etc..) than it does to read text, also icons under OS X take up more room (we gave up on hieroglyphs and started using a letter based alphabet for a good reason), lack of a proper file tree under the default file browser makes browsing for multiple files under different directories a pain (search takes longer when I already know what I am looking for). All of this increases information overload (too much information being displayed at once making it difficult to maintain attention), this kicks in under OS X long before Windows and Windows is nowhere near as efficient at displaying information as Linux (I find text based configs far more ergonomic than the GUI pop ups under Windows and OSX, the downside is that you need to know the commands and syntax). Linux has the advantage of having multiple desktops for separating out works, IM/Email client and browser in one desktop, some logs "tail -f"ing in another, text editors and terminals in the other two. Having everything on screen at once is not a good thing as this just leads to information overload, grouping work items work items increases the amount of information that can be readily accessed. After I make a change and restart a service I just move to the desktop with the logs already set up in a way that is easy to read, at this time the logs require my full attention and I don't want a IM client or browser to annoy me.

On a 30" display at work I can have IM, email, code, debugger, everything visible at once. Good luck doing that on windows.

If you have trouble doing that on windows I suggest you unplug your computer and return it to the store, IT is not for you. on a screen that size managing windows will be easy, its when you are working on a 19" is where it gets difficult (except when using multiple desktops, see the Linux point above). Every time I use OS X I get the impression it was never designed for anyone to do more than one thing at a time.

$10K US for a gaming rig?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only a fool would spend that much money on something that will cost 1/3 that in 18 months.

Re:$10K US for a gaming rig?

[CambodiaSam]

There are a LOT of people out there willing to shell out vast sums of money on things that will evaporate in value. Just take a look at the entire luxury and exotic car segments. Everyone knows that cars drop 20% per year in value, but they keep rolling off the line.

Admit it, if you had US $10k lying around with nothing better to do, you would be salivating over the FedEx Next Day Tracking Number. I know I would.

Re:$10K US for a gaming rig?

[turgid]

Sarcasm aside, it works. Trust me. When I was 16 I put my computers aside and bought a bass guitar.

Re:$10K US for a gaming rig?

[ari_j]

You're right, I'd much rather have a girl who is sleeping with me for my money instead of because she's attracted to my talent.

Re:$10K US for a gaming rig?

[crossmr]

She isn't attracted to your talent. She's attracted to you for the money/fame you might get..
it is no different.

Just another hardware guide

[Anonymous Coward]

So hardware guides are post worthy now?

Then let me submit the Ars System Guide ... every time they update it!

Give a hoot! Recycle!

[RingDev]

More so Reuse!

I usually run a 2 year cycle.

Year 1, I build a new PC. Although, I already have a nice monitor, a nice case, a large hard drive, an optical drive, and all the other fixings. So all a new PC is, is a CPU, motherboard, memory and graphics card. No need to replace everything else.

Year 2 I upgrade my existing PC. Add a bit of memory, get a larger hard drive, get the latest generation of graphic card. All for a budget well under $500.

Next year I give my now 'old' PC to my wife (mounting all the components into her perfectly fine case) and buy myself a new pile.

Sure, I'm not going bleeding edge with my stuff. But I just priced out a new PC for this fall. A Core 2 Duo @ 3ghz, 2Gigs of 1200 memory, new mobo, and an NVidia 8800GT. With tax and shipping it comes in right at $500, and will be more than enough machine to handle the next generation of games. Although I think I'll try to hold out just a hair longer for one last price cut on the Core 2 Duo chip. But the Wife's machine is going to need an upgrade for the next set of titles coming out.

-Rick

Re:luv 2 brag

[turgid]

Vista 64 is only free if your time has no value.

The Best Gaming "PC Money" Can Buy

[maestroX]

easy, try a wii or ps3.

Re:furthering the myth of expensive PCs...

[Anonymous Coward]

I love these articles.

How will I ever get my hands on a 4870x2 if idiots don't shell out their hard earned cash while ATI is still trying to recoup its development costs?

Now why they would want to do that when - at worst - any game on the market will require a non-bleeding-edge enthusiast card and that will cost half the price of a bleeding-edge card is beyond me, but more power to them. I mean, if they really want to spend as much on their graphics card as I spend on my rig, just to get a whole 20 more frames, why complain?

Re:Forget the hardware.

[Opportunist]

It's not a matter of money, it's a matter of supply. You can't buy what isn't offered.

Re:luv 2 brag

[jollyreaper]

I feel really old right now because I don't understand a single thing you wrote.

Ok, I'll translate.

I bought a new computer, so I love to brag about the deal I got.

"I'm the kind of weenie you always wanted to smack out of sheer jealousy."

e8500, 4gb ddr2 1066, p5q-3, 4870, freezer 7 pro, rosewill case, 250 gb hd = $1050
had vista64 for free

"e8500, that's just random numbers to sound important. 4gb, more random letters and numbers. DDR2 is the second Dance Dance Revolution game, I guess he enjoys playing it. 1066, that's the IRS form he has to fill out to cover the purchase of the thing. 4870, that's an IBM dumb terminal, not sure why that's involved. Freezer 7 pro, I guess he's wanting to make smoothies. Rosewill case, that's a knockoff of the Roswell design Alienware puts out. And Vista64, that's gay slang for a massive ass-pounding sans lube."

Vista is Stable, Secure, and Enjoyable? WOW!

[Viduliya]

"Your hardware won't function without an OS, so what better choice than Microsoftâ(TM)s latest offering. Despite the constant criticism, Vista is a very stable, secure and enjoyable platform to work with." --

Agreeably you may need Vista as the OS on your ultimate "GAMING PC" specification only because most games require Windows in one form or another to run with all the uber options enabled.

I guess we have to take this all with prospective. As in saying something is stable compared to a house of straw in the path of a tornado and secure compared to a wet paper bag.

Re:Website is terrible, relevant info here

[Opportunist]

That 8,5k rig smells a lot of "we wanted some shock effect, so we simply dumped the most expensive components together". Some of the things don't even remotely make sense for a gaming rig.

Re:Vista is Stable, Secure, and Enjoyable? WOW!

[Zarf]

"Your hardware won't function without an OS, so what better choice than Microsoftâ(TM)s latest offering. Despite the constant criticism, Vista is a very stable, secure and enjoyable platform to work with." --

Really? Really? Really?

Just throws all the other recommendations into question. And Vista as opposed to ... what why even mention it as a choice? There is no choice. It would be like saying back in 1970's we chose the power and convenience of AT&T's phone service... as opposed to what? A can and string?

It's a gaming PC so of course it runs Vista or XP. Something like "We chose Vista for newer Direct X" pretending otherwise is an insult to the readers.

Re:furthering the myth of expensive PCs...

[Anonymous Coward]

Your argument might make sense if people paid 2-3x as much for a new 2009 Aston Martin as a new 2008. But they don't and they would be stupid to do it.

Did you fail the SAT? Let's try a sample analogy:

A $10,000 high-end PC is to a $1,000 mid-range PC as...

1. The Batman is to the Joker
2. A new 2009 Aston Martin is to a new 2008 Aston Martin
3. A new 2009 Aston Martin is to a new 2009 Nissan Sentra

Hint: The answer isn't (2)

Can you run the games that are out now at the same detail, resolution, and frame rate on the $1000 computer that you can on the $10,000 computer

Can the $1000 play blu-ray movies?

Can you accelerate at roughly the same rate on a Sentra that you can on an Aston Martin?

Can you accelerate at roughly the same rate on a 2008 Aston Martin that you can on a 2009 Aston Martin? Holy shit, could it be that you're comparing a $10,000 computer to another $10,000 computer?

Will the features of the Aston Martin eventually be in the budget Nissan cars? Hint, check out in which class of cars remote locking systems, air bags, and cd-players came out in first.

If you didn't earn enough during the last week to buy a Sentra, would you even consider buying an Aston Martin? If you have enough money to buy an Aston Martin, would you ever consider buying a Sentra?

Conclusion: If you're buying a $10,000 PC, you have money to burn. You won't miss the $10,000, and you'll have more fun with it than you would with the $1,000 computer. There's nothing wrong with that anymore than there's something wrong with having your own private jet instead of buying a coach ticket.

3 levels of gaming? That is Nvidia marketing hype.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't buy into it.

I'm one of the most hardcore gamers around. I've flown around the country to compete on LAN and sunk years of my life into competitive online gaming.

My systems are always good enough to not handicap me in my chosen game. I.E. my maximum potential can be achieved with the hardware I have available to me at any given time.

I don't give a crap about graphics. I don't need to buy 2x $500 video cards. Competitive gamers turn down the graphics as far as possible anyway to remove as much "clutter" from their field of vision as possible.

If, on the other hand, you are a casual hobbyist gamer that likes bright, shiny, pretty colors then by all means spend 5 or 10 grand on a computer.

I'll be the one fragging you until you leave the server in tears on my 3 year old PC that cost me about $1,000 at the time.

Re:Yes, but...

[Bacon Bits]

You say that like it's a bad thing. If I need telnet I'll just get PuTTY anyways. The only thing telnet is good for anymore is checking to make sure SMTP traffic works and configuring devices that won't talk with anything else. Otherwise you *don't* use it any more that you use rsh or rcp.

Frankly, I'm more irritated that Windows doesn't ship with a built-in ssh and sshd. And no, remote desktop does not count.