New Gaming Rig for 2k or Under

Started by Gusington, April 08, 2015, 12:25:13 PM

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Gusington

The beauty of this is The Wife has already been briefed :)

Will check out a 27" monitor, I'm curious as to how much a monitor that size costs these days.

And a Falcon NW can really be had for under 2k? Will have to check that out too.


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

MIGMaster

I alawys built my own PC's in the past but there is no way you can build a PC cheaper than buying a complete unit. I went with a Cyberpower PC - fully expecting a peice of donkey dung, but I was pleasantly surprised - tech support ....I can't say - I always do my own troubleshooting anyway. Alienware/Falcon Northwest make quality stuff but you pay for the brand - however, I suspect their tech support may be worth the extra cost if that's an important factor in your purchase. Not only that but you get to brag you own an Alienware or Falcon Northwest system ;-)

Gusington

Isn't Cyberpower related to iBuyPower?


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

Labbug

Another vender you might consider is Digital Storm.  I have had good luck with them.  I have not had to use customer service much, but when I have, they have been responsive and helpful.

JasonPratt

I don't buy FNW for the brand; I buy it because they have reliably proven again and again to provide the best performance with rock solid hardware and software architecture and, on the rare occasion I needed it, highly competent technical support. Come to think of it, I don't recall ever needing tech support for a problem inherent to their computers, only for something I wanted to do and/or which I messed up. Also, strictly speaking, I don't recall EVER ONCE actually having to talk to their tech support: the sales guy (Matthew I think) who answers the phone has always been enough. Their pre-tech support also includes all manuals and backup discs for all drivers and OS. I buy a three year warranty for the formality of it; some rigs (like their Tiki which is the size of a console system like the Playstation) come with the 3 year warranty built-in. Also, they throw in a good backpack for smaller units.

Unfortunately, my old browser at work no longer operates some key parts of their site, so I can't check what $2000 will buy nowadays.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Gusington

I have yet to go directly to the Falcon NW site but I may not...there are some sweet machines on Tigerdirect. And prices have definitely come down since I last shopped in 2011.


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

JasonPratt

The best Tiki system I can price for $2K or under.

ChassisTiki - Standard Black
Chassis Logo Insert: White Light
Chassis Base: Aluminum - Black
Power Supply: SilverStone® 450 Watt SFX
Motherboard: Asus® Z97I Plus
Processor: Intel® Core™ i5 4670K 3.4GHz
Processor Overclock (they'll do this for free but it takes a few extra build days to make sure it's safe. They'll also let you know if there's no point 'safely' overclocking it. Manually overclocking stays within the Falcon Warranty, so long as they regard it as safe.)
Processor Cooler: Asetek® Liquid Cooling - Tiki
Memory: 1866MHz 2x8GB (16GB)
Video Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 960 2GB
Sound Card: On-Board Audio
Networking: On-Board Ethernet
Operating System Drive: Micron® M600 SSD 256GB (also the only drive)
Optical Drive: Slot-Load DVD Writer
64-Bit Operating SystemMicrosoft® Windows 8.1
USB Rescue Drive
Falcon Northwest Manual
Warranty: 3 Year Warranty - Tiki (this comes standard with Tikis; and they'll match your freight back to you at their cost. They can build this in because statistically Falcons are like rocks.  O0 )

Your cost including freight in North America: $1987

ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

#22
Best Fragbox for $2001

Components
ChassisFragBox - Standard Black
Chassis Logo Insert: White Light
Power Supply: SilverStone® 500 Watt
Motherboard: Asus® Z97 Gryphon
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7 4790K Devils Canyon
Processor Overclock (though that's probably worthless with the Devils Canyon as it does dynamic overclocking)
Processor Cooler: Asetek® Liquid Cooling - FragBox
Memory: 1866MHz 2x8GB (16GB)
Video Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 750 Ti 2GB
Sound Card: On-Board Audio
Networking: On-Board Ethernet
Operating System Drive: Micron® M600 SSD 256GB
Optical Drive: Slot-Load DVD Writer
64-Bit Operating System: Microsoft® Windows 8.1
USB Rescue Drive
Falcon Northwest Manual
Warranty: 3 Year Warranty - FragBox


Alternately: you could dial the processor back to a Intel® Core™ i5 4670K 3.4GHz, and upgrade the video card slightly to NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 960 2GB which has twice as good efficiency in using those 2 Gigs of onboard RAM. $1911 for this variation.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

A Talon will cost you more than a Fragbox for the same horsepower; but basically you're paying for more room to add numerically more upgrades later. Note that the Tiki and the Fragbox can still be upgraded, but with stronger things, not numerically more things (except for the FB which can add a few more things, too.)
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Sidenote: Falcon doesn't care whether a chipset is NVIDIA vs AMD, or Intel vs AMD. They only care about reliability and performance. In past years I've seen them offer AMD builds but only where the chips passed rigorous burn tests. This year (and last year) they aren't offering.

Falcon guards its reputation religiously. If they aren't offering an AMD build this year, they have technical reasons.

(Similarly, they'll talk customers out of a costlier piece of tech if they don't think it'll bring better performance than a less expensive option, though they'll offer it anyway for riggers who want to mess with it personally.)
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

endfire79

Just a note - if you are looking for a fast boot, you really need to get a SSD hard drive.  As  you will most likely buy a new motherboard, they are UEFI standard, and are AHCI, along with latest gen of SATA ports for hard disks.  Hell, Intel is coming out with a new SSD that is PCI-E now ( that means we are jumping from 12 Gbps of data transfer with SATA  to 128 Gbps with PCI-E 3.0x16!!  Crazy.  If I wasn't busy with the baby and work, I would have got a new motherboard to advantage of the new offerings.
"I will return before you can say 'antidisestablishmentarianism'."

"A man may fight for many things. His country, his principles, his friends. The glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I'd mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn."

Gusington

Wow guys...quite the wealth of knowledge here. If I didn't know better I would say Pratt works for Falcon.


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

MIGMaster

I don't think Cyberpower and ibuypower are connected. I don't know the scoop in the US, but Newegg prices are always better than Tiger Direct here in Canada - for goodness sake don't buy anything sporting an AMD A-series CPU - great for a secondary laptop system maybe, but totally out of contention for a desktop CPU.

Gusington

I've never owned an AMD powered anything!


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

GDS_Starfury

AMD, Corsair, Asus and ATI work together very well and do so at a pricepoint that beats Intel for similar performance.  Its all I've built for the last 16 years or so and that covers roughly 10 machines.  3 of those 10 were my personal pc's.
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