Would this Computer Be Good for Gaming

[dirtmuncher111]

I'm looking to buy a desktop computer and im wanting it to be a good overall computer that can also play up-to-date games, mainly Games for Windows. I went to Dell.com and made a general version of the PC im wanting. Would this computer be good enough to keep up to up-to-date games? (mainly look at the essentials such as video card etc.) (btw i already have a monitor if your wondering why this doesnt include a monitor)

My Computer (hopefully):

Dell Inspiron 530 Intel®Pentium® dual-core processor E2160 (1MB L2,1.80GHz,800 FSB)

Operating System Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium

Memory 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 2DIMMs

Keyboard and Mouse Bundles Dell USB Keyboard and Dell Optical USB Mouse

Monitor No Monitor N [320-3000]

Video Cards 128MB Radeon ATI HD 2400 PRO X24PRO

Hard Drives 320GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™ 320S

Floppy Drive and Media Reader No Floppy Drive Included NFD

Mouse Mouse included with Keyboard purchase N

Network Interface Integrated 10/100 Ethernet IN

Modem and Wireless 56K PCI Data Fax Modem DFAX

Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 8.1 AAREAD

Optical Drive 48X CDRW/DVD Combo Drive 48COMBO

Sound Cards Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio IS

Speakers Dell A225 2.0 Speakers A225

Office Productivity Software (Pre-Installed) Microsoft Works 8. DOES NOT INCLUDE MS WORD

Security Software No Security Subscription (30-day trial)

Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options 1Yr In-Home Service, Parts + Labor, 24x7 Phone Support

Dell Digital Entertainment No Entertainment software pre-installed

Labels Windows Vista™ Premium VPD

DataSafe Online Backup Free 3GB DataSafe Online Backup for 1 Year

Automated PC TuneUp 1 Year Automated PC Tune Up

[saphalline]

Intel®Pentium® dual-core processor E2160 (1MB L2,1.80GHz,800 FSB)

128MB Radeon ATI HD 2400 PRO X24PRONo, this would not be good for gaming at all. The CPU is very puny by modern standards, though it would still be passable for current and future DX10 games if your budget is tight. The vid card, however, is absolutely pathetic and not worth the silicon it's printed on! :eek: It's the lowest DX10 vid card that AMD makes and is roughly 1/15th as powerful as the "big boys". In other words, if the most expensive vid card were to give you 45 fps in a certain game at certain settings, the Radeon HD 2400 Pro would give you just 3 fps.

The current (as of this moment) favorite in the vid card market is the new GeForce 8800 GT 512MB from NVidia. 80% of the performance offered by the 8800 Ultra at less than half the price, half the thickness (1-slotter instead of 2), and 1/3 the power consumption.

There are several other issues with that system, but the CPU and vid card are the ultimate deal-breakers here.

A note on Vista: If you're going to get Vista, get the 64-bit version. It supports up to 16GB of RAM (Vista Premium) instead of just 3GB of RAM for the 32-bit version. For gaming, it makes a difference! Modern systems are upgradeable beyond 4GB of RAM. Why hold yourself back?

[dirtmuncher111]

Yeah sorry about that I don't know much about computers. I was wondering if I could have one more evaluation. The XPS 720 is supposed to be pretty good and it is at about maximum price for me but Ill still get it if its good, so I was wondering if this is better.

XPS 720 Black Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E6750 (4MB L2 Cache,2.66GHz,1333 FSB)

Operating System Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium

Memory 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 2 DIMMs

Keyboard Dell USB Keyboard

Monitors No Monitor

Video Cards 512MB Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT

Hard Drive 250GB - Seagate 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 8MB Cache

Floppy Drive and Media Reader No Floppy Drive or Media Reader Included

Mouse Dell Optical USB Mouse

Modem No Modem Requested

Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 8.1

Optical Drive Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability

Sound Cards Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio

Speakers No speakers (Speakers are required to hear audio from your system)

Office Productivity Software (Pre-Installed) Microsoft Works 8. DOES NOT INCLUDE MS WORD

Security Software McAfee SecurityCenter with anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, 15-months

Limited Warranty, Services and Support Options 1Yr In-Home Service, Parts + Labor, 24x7 Phone Support

Internet Access Service No ISP requested

Dell Digital Entertainment No Entertainment software pre-installed

Labels Windows Vista™ Premium

DataSafe Online Backup Free 10GB DataSafe Online Backup for 1Year

[saphalline]

That's a much better system! :D

Modern hardware, good specs, not much to dislike there. Of course there's still the matter of brand names on the hardware and the price for all of this, but that Dell 720 is infinitely better for gaming than that cr@ppy office machine you first listed! :p

What's the price on all that hardware, then? Any chance of upgrading to a Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer? What about dumping those cheap peripherals for some real gamer-oriented goodies? :p Take a look at Logitech's G11/G15 keyboards and G5/G7 mice for more info. ;)

[George Hallam]

G5/G7 mice for more info

and the G9 :p it rocks :D

[Ajmukon]

Dell XPS is very good for a fairly high price.. but still good :D .

my cousin has the XPS 720 Quad-core Dual 8800GTX 640MB with a 500GB HD, Xi-fi Extreme Gamer 64MB, 4GB RAM.... (Win XP upgraded to Vista Primium)
and he said that:
I installed 10 or so games in 30 minutes... 10 large games

And your system is just a step below his... think about it..

[artp209]

Any chance of upgrading to a Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer?

Can you elaborate on the payoff with the soundcard? I've heard that a dedicated soundcard will improve overall gaming performance over onboard audio due to less load on the motherboard chipset. Is this true? I do know that high quality audio (onboard) reduces video performance on my computer.

Art

[saphalline]

The X-Fi is a fully programmable microprocessor (PIII-class) designed for audio duties. It has limited ADC/DAC capabilities, so it's no replacement for a high end studio-class audio card intended for recording purposes, but it can't be beat for gaming! It's the first dedicated sound card (Sound Blaster or not) that so completely changed my audio gaming experience that I feel no compunctions about recommending it despite the high price. No previous sound card has ever done that for me, especially considering that I'm no audiophile. Even the Audigy series Sound Blasters can't match the X-Fi for pure audio quality for the price, not even when they were new. The X-Fi simply dominates for gaming audio!!

You really need to have hobbled along with onboard audio to appreciate it for what it is. While it's a nice upgrade from an Audigy2 ZS, it's simply astounding when you're used to onboard audio! When you pop one of these suckers into your system, you'll swear your onboard audio was nothing more than an 8-bit classic console mono-speaker system! :eek: I've heard them side-by-side. It's just too weird.

Also, the X-Fi is the only sound card in existence right now that can bring hardware-accelerated 3D audio back to the table when gaming in Vista! Creative Labs made a little utility called ALchemy for Vista, and it's only free to use for X-Fi owners! Audigy owners can use ALchemy for a small fee, but why pay for that!? An X-Fi is sooooo worth it and the free ALchemy usage is just a bonus!