Recons new computer.

actually that looks pretty good, i would spend the little it takes to upgrade the RAM from 533 to 667 at 2 DIMM and not the 4 DIMM, if you can afford 4000 USD then go for it

hey recon...being into computers...i have to say one thing. dont buy a dell gaming computer. in fact I was just laughing about the concept of dell making a gaming computer with a bunch of my buddies the other day. thats like BMW going into the business of manufacturing dishwashers. Dell is the home-based family pc...not the gamer experts. plus if you ARE going to buy a dell gaming PC...wait until AMD and Dell sign with each other...unless they already have. Intel is NOT...i repeat....NOT good for gaming. oh yeah sure it will run games fine but bro...once you sit down and play games in front of and AMD gaming rig ull notice how shitty an intel processor is in gaming compared to AMD. AMD is king of the hill when it comes to games. SO! what i recommend...if you are going to drop a ton on a new gaming pc is...Alienware. they make the best gaming pc on the market to this date. you know who Dell competes with in the gaming pc market? Alienware. everyone wants to be like them and thats exactly why there has been such a big bang in gaming pc companies over the years. I tell you the truth when Alienware founded that side of the computer business. they are top notch pc's and I would slap anyone 20 times in the face if they declined an alienware over a dell. trust me on this one dawg. look into it before you buy a dell.

alienware does build good computers, the only thing i dont know much about them is the customer service from them. we may think that this computer may be best, but we cant just look at the computer and whats inside, the computer is build for the person and what they will do with it. gaming computers are easy to build its the other stuff we do with it or want form it that can cause problems if they arent covered from the beginning

i prefer intel myself ther eis really very little difference, but ati vs nvidia nvidia wins by far

Cnet.com has a good companrison between AMD 64 & Intel P4, they give AMD the higher marks. If memory serves me correctly, ATI also prevails, not by much, over Nvidia on the same site.

A Dell is ok, pretty standard machine, which I happen to use. However keep in mind that they use a lot of cheap parts. My case is poorly constructed, loose when assembled. If you shook the computer, you would think their are loose screws and doors, components not firmly afixiated inside. The fans are also noisey and generic, vibrate excessively...despite being clean from dust.

Alienware would be a good thing, used to have nice deals for $2000 range for a modren gamer.

Dell, blah I wouldn't trust them if you want a SERIOUS gaming rig, but if you just want a comp that you can use for gaming for awhile the Dell XPS600 extreme gaming thingy will do.

If going gaming, and not wanting to upgrade in the future you'll want at lest.

3.0 Ghz or greater CPU (or an AMD with a rating of 3000+, I'd reccomend at lest an AMD /w rating of 4800 )

Motherboard with room for upgrade (Not likly in most prebuilds you canbuy IMHO!). SLI capability wouldn't hurt.

2 GB of RAM, DDR2 is better then DDR and the higher the Mhz the better, but I'm not a real RAMert. (1GB is fine 4 now, but you'll need 2GB if you don't want to upgrade in a few years)

Geforce 6800+ nVidia is the way to go for gaming again IMHO. (ATI is ok, but we don't mix...) A GF6800 could keep you going for a while, but somethingin the GF 7 family if you really don't want to upgrade later.

Hard Drive = Your Needs. I personally prefer a few 250GB but if your mostly a gamer, a 80 or 100some GB Drive is plenty.

Operating System: Windows XP or wait for Vista (Me thinks more wait then Win95 jokes joke about). Home is ok, Pro you won't need, Media Center Edition is nice if you are into "Digital Media" allot. (I can work mine via Remote Control if I wanted).

Sound Card, onboard is fine for most people inless your a sound engineer or something. (Or prehapes a DJ.)

350-450 Watt power supply (450-500 if you ask me for serious gaming).

And good cooling.

If you ask me any good computer with a compitent user does not need technical support inless something burns out e.t.c. So you might want to get a good warrenty.

Yes, I am a person in favor of building ones comp thy self, but for your needs a prebuild can do Recon.

Plan on at lest $1600-$3000 (At lest as far as prices in the US go) depending on the who, what, where.

PS: Beware of Rebates you can some times get a run around & get jipped anyway.

As for processors go AMD are the best for gaming but there is not a lot of difference from intel. Thats why Alienwares have AMD's.

As for graphics cards I prefer ATI but again not much difference. Nvidia are more supported than ATI and thats always a good thing. Make sure you get a motherboard that supports PCI Express and maybe SLI. As spidey says DDR2 and you could make sure your front side bus lets as much Mhz through it as much as the processor gives otherwise you will be hogging on your processor. A big hard drive helps if your going to store a lot.

Oh and just reading spideys post again make sure if your not initially buying a gaming PC it has at least a minimum of 500 watt power supply that has plenty of fans and is extremely quiet.

Good luck recon!!

i have to disagree on you guys saying theres little difference between AMD and intel...theres a HUGE difference. in benchmarks AMD absolutely stomps..crushes and breaks every bone inside intel's body for the gaming factor. but if you compare an intel to an AMD in multimedia....3d rendering...photoshop...music and video editing...the intel proc will soar leaps and bounds over the AMD. Intel and AMD both have their lows and highs. if you are going to game...you want AMD...if you are a hard core multimedia fan u definately want intel.

and for graphics...nVidia is the way to go. ATi cards blow. the have too many restrictions for my taste and their gfx cards have TERRIBLE antialiasing features! jaggies everyone...omg thats a nightmare for me. ugh! go nvidia bro!

alienware also has some of the best customer support to date. ive talked with ppl about their support and i hear it rocks. Dell...i have to say has the best tech support of any computer company in the world. u cannot beat dell tech support. so if u do buy the dell...expect friendly voices on the other end because their tech rocks the house!

At present, they expect to release Vista for home users in January 2007. Business versions will be a little earlier.

In actual fact I wouldn't be surprised it that went back to Feb or Mar.

I would not bother waiting.

As you can see above Recon, AMD vs Intel comes down to personal preference. If you want an easy life then Dell make half decent packages for half decent money.
My preference is for AMD as it has proved to be the more stable platform for the music industry.
Choose wisely young Jedi, and the force will be with you it will.

Recon...don't listen Wiz...rotate your mind and learn to use the daRK side of the Force :laugh:

Operating System: Windows XP or wait for Vista (Me thinks more wait then Win95 jokes joke about). Home is ok, Pro you won't need, Media Center Edition is nice if you are into "Digital Media" allot. (I can work mine via Remote Control if I wanted).

Now I'm thinking, there is a new windows on its way, maybe it would be clever to wait for that system then. Any release date yet?

And good cooling

Anything you can recommend?

I'd say make sure you have a good airflow in the case, depending on how much you want to spend you could look at liqud cooling (over my head a tad.) I'll say this though, fans are good, no expansion slots left is bad. You might want to give some high end video cards a empty slot above them for more cooling.

Operating System: Windows XP or wait for Vista (Me thinks more wait then Win95 jokes joke about). Home is ok, Pro you won't need, Media Center Edition is nice if you are into "Digital Media" allot. (I can work mine via Remote Control if I wanted).

Now I'm thinking, there is a new windows on its way, maybe it would be clever to wait for that system then. Any release date yet?

And good cooling

Anything you can recommend?

I'd say make sure you have a good airflow in the case, depending on how much you want to spend you could look at liqud cooling (over my head a tad.) I'll say this though, fans are good, no expansion slots left is bad. You might want to give some high end video cards a empty slot above them for more cooling.

Good cooling brands:

-Thermaltake <---Surfy Uses!
-Vantec
-Coolermaster
-Thermalright
-Aspire
-Gigabyte
-Aerocool

Liquid Cooling (BE CAREFUL!)

-Koolance<---Top Notch Shit
-Thermaltake

There is only one thing I would add. The bottleneck in a modern system (ie the bit that slows you down) tends to be the memory speed.

You can get DDR2 memory upto 800MHz and I recommend that would be significantly better than the 667MHz in the package.

You do not need the PhsyX card, maybe in 2 or 3 years you'll want to buy one for an upgrade if it catchs on. I've only seen one or two games that have expiremental support. So don't worry about not getting it:)

Core 2 Duo would be a better CPU for the future, but a Pentium D is plenty for a good while.

Fastest RAM possible, exspecially if you dream of running Vista and Gaming at the same time later.

HDD size depends on you. 80GB is more then enough for most peopleI know, for me a single 500GB is both too small and to large.

Optical Disk Drives to suit your life style

Ether video card will be suitble for a long enough time, as long as game programmers don't take a few notes out of Vista's book.

If you use McAfee or Nortion as your perminiate Anti-Virus I suggest you get the fastest damn RAM you can afford.

XP Home, Pro, or MCE? Your business, I never use Home in less it's pre-installed, and even then I usually consider WinXP a Gamers OS, not a productive one.

As Spideys said, u dont need the GfX accelerator, yet. If you did get it, you would have no board slots left, for if u wanted to add an extra USB card or something. Also save the spare slot, take the GFX card out, sell it. Then buy one of the new quad GPU Nvidea cards, which actually use two slots anyway.

I'm using a Dell Dimensions E510 myself right now.

It's using a Pentium D 930 processor running at 3.0 Ghz for each core and I'm enjoying every moment of my gaming on it. My only real issue is I'm stuck using an x600 Radeon (not the best in the next gen class) but luckly, it's a PCI-E card which will allow me to upgrade to a much stronger product in the near future.

Also from personal experience, avoid the Duo's. They are designed to conserve power and be workstations. They're not too hot for gaming (I've had some really bad nightmares just trying to get Star Wars Battlefront 2 to work on a Duo machine at a recent lan). Stick with the Pentium D 950.

Pentium D in the 3.0 Ghz or above is just fine for gaming, sweet CPU the 930 is:)

The Core 2 Duo's are supposed to be dang good.

Core Duo (Core 1) I've only seen in Dual Core laptops noted for sublime multi-tasking.

The new Core 2 chips are supposed to be the supreme Intel chip, personally I'd kill for a Core 2 Duo desktop. There supposed to use less power then current Pentiums and kick their asses with great multi-tasking.

As far as buying a PC now, if your on a budget I'd go /w the Pentium D. Core 2's use the same socket as Pentium 4's but not all Mobo's are gonna be able to take a Core 2 Duo even if they will take a Pentium 4 class chip. Pentium D is basicly milking a P4 for more money and going Dual Core. If that Dell offers both you should be upgrade from Pentium D to a Core 2 later if you want to. I doub't Dell would go through the trouble of screwing /w the mobo enough for it not to be.

Crap man, if I could get my mits on a Conroe XE (core 2 extreme) I'd be in heaven & bankrucpy

It seems to me now that it would be quite stupid of me not to get the Dual 2 Core E6700, it's 40% more effective than the 950 it says.
Plus it must be the future, well I damn hope so if I buy it.

I wouldn't hold your breath. It'll be out of date in a week.

I often do CPU heavy tasks, and I must say that my Pentium D 930 is the best CPU I have ever owned.

As far as I know the "Pentium" line is deseased, i.e. they are not going to be making a Pentium 5 But I think in the future we should be seeing a 3.0Ghz standard, probably Dual Core CPU with 1-1.5GB of RAM and 128MB level graphics cards starting to become the "standard shiz" when Vista destorys the realm of desktop computing for those who use Microsoft.

Don't get me wrong, I'm up for more secutiy, stablity, and true usuablity (not extra clicks!). But to me an OS that is demanding good hardware specs is starting to borrow programming traits that have become very popular as performance has jumped. I.e. hardware is cheap, let's not care about being "light and fast" at run time sp much.

Well about bloody time