Buy a new PC - looking for advice

[cactusjack83]

I am buying a new PC early next year (probably in January). The budget is £1500 - £2000.

I have a few questions below, so any responses would be appreciated.


1) Choice of supplier and support

In terms of choosing a supplier (I don't wish to build my own machine), Dell, Mesh or Evesham seem to be the three that I have my eye on. I have read good things about Evesham's support and some good and bad things about Dell's support. Can anyone offer a fresh perspective on support from either company? Dell's support worried me initially, given they sell so many PCs, is this likely to mean they will have trouble offering support to those that need it, given they sell to so many customers?


2) Christmas / New Year offers

Dell always seem to have some form of offer on their site - is it best to wait till January, does this seem to be the best time for offers?


3) Fans/noise

My Evesham machine is very noisy (loud fans). It is something that I have put up with. I remember reading a post on how cool a Dell machine was. Can any Dell customers on this forum vouch for quiet Dell machines? - and likewise, can any Evesham customers vouch for owning quiet Evesham machines?


4) Power supply / cooling

Given that the latest graphics cards and other such components use up a lot of power and give off a lot of heat, is it safe to assume that PC manufacturers provide the right type of cooling systems and fans? It just worries me sometimes in regards to the levels of heat that get produced from my current Evesham machine and the noise made by the fans.

Does the type of casing make an option - for example on the Evesham site, I see the regular mini tower case opinion and also the "Cool master" case...


5) Graphics cards

If I am aiming to buy a machine that is reasonably future proof for gaming for at least 3 years, would I be correct in assuming that the latest cards are ideal? I looked at some evesham machines, and saw the Geforce 8800 gtx and 7900 gtx. Am I correct in assuming that the 8800 is far better and essential for keeping ahead with gaming for at least 3 years?


6) Graphics cards - what types of card

Also what is the difference between gtx and gts?

Finally, could someone recommend what current cards are not worth getting or don't do the job well... - lots of different options available, all so confusing. I see 256MB cards, 512MB, 768Mb and 1GB cards! I presume 1GB doesn't always mean better...

There is also the option to get two cards - e.g. 2 * 512MB - does this provide a huge boost in performance that is worthy of the high asking price?

I need a card to last me the next 3 years or so. If anyone could recommend a very good card to get with a new PC from the latest bunch that are available.


7) A monitor for my poor eyes

Dell's monitor options appear limited to Dell branded monitors. Evesham seem to offer a range of options all at different costs - Viewsonic, Philips and Iiyama. I have heard good things about Viewsonic and Iiyama. Is there a particular brand of monitor that is known to be better for spending long hours using a PC?


8) Vista

Given Vista is coming out and issues that will probably arise over compatibility with hardware and software, is it safer to buy a PC with Windows XP on it, wait 6 months to a year till updates are brought out to patch stability issues or compatibility issues, and then upgrade to Vista?

I would assume that any PC manufacturer will test hardware with Vista thoroughly before releasing PCs with Vista. Or will it take a long time for manufacturers (e.g. graphics card manufacturers) to release drivers to allow hardware to perform properly with Vista? The last thing I want is to buy a new PC with Vista, only to find over time that the hardware doesn't work properly as it should or that there are crashes or conflicts, since the original installed drivers don't work well enough with Vista.

I am also concerned about software not working - the anti-virus companies have complained about not being able to create AV programs in time since Microsoft was not so forth-coming with code for Vista.


9) Quality of components

By the looks of things, both Evesham and Dell use good quality components. Does anyone know of anything that suggests otherwise?


10) Widescreen

Is a widescreen monitor the best way forward for the future (in terms of running movies / applications). Or is a normal square monitor fine?


11) Hard drive buffer

Does a 16MB buffer make a huge difference in the long term over an 8MB buffer?


12) On-site warranties

Dell offer a 4 year onsite warranty. The best I can see on Evesham’s site is 3 years. How would you rate Evesham against Dell in terms of quality of onsite support?


13) Use of multiple hard drives

I see the option to add multiple hard drives to PCs - does the use of 2 hard drives cause more heat to be generated in a machine? Is there any real disadvantage to having 2 drives as opposed to 1?


14) Intel Quad-core processor

The quad core processor is on the market and costs a fortune with a new PC. Is it worth the high price?


15) LAN cards

I would assume all PCs come as standard with a network card which can interface with an external router for a broadband connection. What is the real benefit of getting a Wireless LAN PCI Card as an extra option?


16) Upgrade policy

I have read that Dell use a lot of Dell branded components and charge a reasonable fee for upgrades. Does anyone know how Evesham's policy works? - i.e. will they send an engineer round to upgrade a part like Dell?


Sorry for all of these long questions. I just thought it would be best to be thorough when researching for buying a new PC.

Any replies to any of the above questions would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

[saphalline]

For starters, you need to read this thread (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=51555). Lots of hardware advice and trickery to stay ahead of the Vista fiasco.

Next, you need to realize that even if you buy a top-of-the-line $650 vid card today, it's going to be out-classed in 3 years by mid-range $200 vid cards. 3 years is not an acceptable amount of time for a gaming system to remain on top. 1.5 years is more realistic. If you read up on the GPU core of the new GeForce 8800 series vs the 6800 series, you'll see what I mean.

The Dell thing I'm not even going to touch! You won't find any Dell fans around here, and certainly not for gaming systems! It's complete BS that they have "reasonable" prices for upgrades. If you use their online configurator and look at the cost of extra RAM vs the cost if you buy it yourself, you'll see that as you upgrade more and more, Dell charges you drastically more and more. I shudder to think what they'd charge for the full 8GB of RAM that most standard mobo's support these days. I'm sure more members will chime in soon with their own Dell opinions...

To answer some of your other questions:

Extra hard drives don't add significantly more heat to a system. RAM adds more heat than a hard drive would. And neither hard drives nor RAM can compare to CPU's and vid cards! The hottest component in today's gaming systems is the vid card, hands down. The CPU is next in line. Everything else is insignificant.

Noise is a concern in any system, but you don't have to suffer with what you get. Case fans are incredibly simple to upgrade, and quieter versions are all over the place these days. And remember that 2 near-silent case fans can ultimately provide more cooling than a single loud fan. More quiet fans are better than a few loud fans overall.

Power supply requirements have skyrocketed lately, requiring a brand new PSU spec to be developed. Often listed as ATX 12V 2.0/2.01/2.03, the official spec is called ATX 3.0+. These new PSU's have a 24-pin main ATX power connector, as well as support for native SATA power connectors, 6-pin PCIe power connectors, multiple +12V rails, and an emphasis on +12V power instead of +3V power. It's also not uncommon to see PSU wattage in excess of 500W on high end systems, especially those sporting SLI/CrossFire configs (2 vid cards). You might even see PSU's in the 1KW range, or 1000 Watts - although these are quite expensive and only useful for uber systems.

Standard hard drive buffer size for SATA 300 hard drives w/NCQ is 16MB now. I wouldn't buy anything less. Here in the US, 320GB SATA 300 HDD's with 16MB cache at 7200rpm are less than $100 (street price including shipping). Going with anything less than this for such a huge budget as yours is just plain silly! Since prices are so low and hard drive size and performance is so high, I suggest you not even consider hard drives that are smaller, slower, or otherwise inferior to the one I mentioned.

I love my multiple hard drives! Having more than one is often a good thing, as it allows you to have a running back up of anything important to you. I have 3 hard drives right now, with plans to add a 4th once I get my Xmas $$. I also do archiving onto DVD's using my DVD burner. Granted I routinely push a lot of data around, but you should consider 2 hard drives on your budget. Not necessarily RAID, but just 2 separate hard drives.

Monitors are largely personal preference. I like the standard 4:3 aspect ratio for gaming compatibility, but widescreen is nice for watching movies. Have you considered dual-monitors on your new system? That would be one way to get the best of both worlds. As to the manufacturer, I like Viewsonic and Acer myself, but there are others that are good. More importantly, however, are the specs! What monitors are you looking at? What are their specs?

The latest quad-core craze is a moot point for most. As you've probably seen, a quad-core CPU alone would eat up half your budget! Leave quad-core alone for now. Concentrate on a good overall system balanced for gaming. Raw CPU muscle takes a back seat to your vid card choice when it comes to gaming performance.

The rest I'll leave for the UK members. Being in the US, I have little idea about your other questions. Hopefully someone will respond within the next few days.

[david eaton]

Evesham certainly use good components. Dell - hmm. I don't think so! Bear in mind the price, remove the profit. and you are left with very little to actually spend on hardware. Evesham's tech support is first class. Dell tech support- better learn hindi!

There is NO way that any computer you buy now will still be able to run games in three years. The graphics card is out of date in about six months, so you would be six generations out of date. If you don't believe it, try playing oblivion on a PCI graphics card with 64M of graphics ram!

Don't get a DELL!

[saphalline]

Haha! I beat you! :p

[cactusjack83]

For starters, you need to read this thread (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=51555). As to the manufacturer, I like Viewsonic and Acer myself, but there are others that are good. More importantly, however, are the specs! What monitors are you looking at? What are their specs?



Saphalline - thank you very much for your reply. It was most informative. In regards to monitors, I am looking at computers specifications from evesham.com, there are a number of different options available for monitors.

They are as follows:

22" Iiyama E2200WS (Black) Widescreen DVI TFT [£0.00]
20" NEC 2070WGX2 Widescreen (Black/Silver) DVI TFT [£109.99]
20" Philips Widescreen (Silver) DVI TFT [£119.99]
20" Viewsonic VP2030B (Black) DVI TFT [£169.12]
21.3" NEC MultiSync 2170NX (Black) DVI TFT [£185.25]

The number in brackets is the price of adding the monitor on to the specification.

I am under the presumption that all of the specified monitors do a good job. I have yet to look at the detailed specs of each monitor. That is something I will do in January, when I look into purchasing the machine.

I am favourable to Viewsonic, mainly because I have heard of their good technical support options in the UK.

[david eaton]

I don't think that tech support counts very much on a monitor. I can't speak for the latest flat panel monitors, but the Iiyama CRT monitor I had worked very well for 5 years. The evesham tech support will also deal with any monitor questions. I would go with the Iiyama monitor, until you decide that you need to change it. that way you have more of you budget to spend on the real core of the machine.

[TopChip7]

As always - there are only 2 suppliers that I would recommend in the UK.

Scan.co.uk and Overclockers.co.uk

Neither have ever let me down yet and I've always had excellent service from both of them.

(And NO - I have no affiliation with either of them - just a customer, that's all)

[david eaton]

As always - there are only 2 suppliers that I would recommend in the UK.

Scan.co.uk and Overclockers.co.uk


I agree that both those sites are good for components. I like Dabs too, but for complete systems, Evesham is the best supplier, with the rest nowhere. I won't even go into why dell, or even hp/compaq are useless for the purposes of this thread, which is for a gaming system.

[cactusjack83]

Thank you for everyone's advice so far. Further responses are always appreciated.

It looks like I will be buying in January. Hopefully a bigger choice of DX10 cards will be out by then and the prices will fall a bit.