# Recommend me a computer...



## Morroke (Mar 30, 2009)

Here goes! I've been looking into Alienware computers which look just amazing BUT some friends of mine have told me that they're just a bunch of crap and overrated/overpriced.

So I'm looking for a personal recommendation based on this...

1. I'm a gamer, and like to turn all my graphics to the maximum and still have perfect FPS.

2. I like to run about 5 internet tabs, a messenger program, and a game like WoW at the same time with no negative impact on any of them.

3. My speakers are fine, but not as loud as they used to be.

4. I have space for a fairly wide screen moniter, more than enough if anything.

5. My computer has been getting extremely loud, and I know it's overheating constantly. Cooling systems?

6. I edit and create machinimas, which run high on memory usage.

Gogo suggestions! I'm currently looking at Alienware and Newegg, but open to other suggestions.


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## X (Mar 30, 2009)

sounds like alienware might be perfect for you. you will need a crapload of ram (5+ gigs), an insane graphics card (dual 512s, or a gig+ card), and a good processor, alienware has liquid cooling as an option in their quad cores, which should work perfectly.

and if you have a shitload of cash and want something unique, go for falcon northwest.


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## Morroke (Mar 30, 2009)

Yeah? I'm certainly going to look more into those computers then...hmm. Appreciate the help.


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## X (Mar 30, 2009)

Morroke said:


> Yeah? I'm certainly going to look more into those computers then...hmm. Appreciate the help.



if you check out the mach V desktop and click the "bragging rights" budget icon, its $10,000+ dollars, but i was almost drooling from looking at its graphic and computing capabilities.

do it for the lulz!


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## jagdwolf (Mar 31, 2009)

ok alien ware is now owned by dell.  To be honest if you have any skilz I would build my own.  your wanting a powerful graphic rig, so it would be a custome build.  

If it were me in your paws, I would look for the new quad core, the x58 mb the nvidia 295 gtx a second nvidia card as a physiX card, crap load of ram and the WD Vraptor drive.  

And then I would water cool it all.


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## lilEmber (Mar 31, 2009)

With alienware you're paying for the name as well the look; if you were to purchase the parts and build an equal or better computer comparing it to an alienware one, it would be much cheaper.

The best I can suggest is to go on NCIX.com or newegg.com and purchase a pre-built computer for gaming, if you have trouble deciding what one with what parts suit you the best just post a few or what ever and I (or somebody else) can help you decide what would work best for you, for the least cost.


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## ToeClaws (Mar 31, 2009)

You do realize that with as fast as modern CPUs and GPUs are that a moderately priced system can easily do any game?

I run a system that's a relative antique compared to the new stuff.  I have 3g of DDR1 RAM, an Athlon64 X2 3800, and an AGP Radeon HD3850, and I can play any game I want at 1680x1050.   The low end CPUs on the market are faster than what I got.

So here's the thing - what I suggest is that you aim for a system that gives you the most bang for the buck.  Right now, that would land you with an AMD Phenom2 Processor.  They are immensely powerful, but definitely affordable.  The ATI Radeon HD4800 series of video cards are also amazing performance for the price.  Forget the dual video card thing - that's idiotic.  If you have that much cash to burn, then save up half of it and buy a _new_ video card in a year to replace the original one.  Get a good upper end one like the HD4870, and get it with 1 gig of RAM and you'll be laughing in the face of any game that comes out for a couple years.

As far as RAM goes, that depends on what you're running for an OS.  If you running XP, which is the best choice for performance, having more than 2G doesn't much benefit you because XP has some major issues after 2G of RAM.  It can only allot 2 gigs for an application, and can only work with a maximum of 4G, which includes video card RAM.  Vista will work better with RAM, but it's the worst OS ever made by Microsoft (except for maybe Windows Mellenium... *shiver*).  XP can also be stripped down to basically having nothing running for services like a tweaked out Windows 2000.

If you plan on updating to Windows 7 when it comes out (if you can ethically swallow  the bile of agreeing to such a horrible EULA), then you should make sure you get 4g of RAM.  Having more than that probably isn't going to be necessary for a few more years, by which time you'll want to upgrade again anyway.

Last tip - build the thing yourself.  You buy those prebuilt things and just like Newf says, you're basically paying for the looks and name as much as for the hardware.  I've been building my own PCs for 19 years - trust me, it works out much better.


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## lilEmber (Mar 31, 2009)

I like vista, with 4 gigs of DDR2 (or DDR3 if you're shooting for that) it wont have any issues, and 4 gigs of DDR2 is a little over $100; DDR3 is about $200 for four.


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## ToeClaws (Mar 31, 2009)

NewfDraggie said:


> I like vista, with 4 gigs of DDR2 (or DDR3 if you're shooting for that) it wont have any issues, and 4 gigs of DDR2 is a little over $100; DDR3 is about $200 for four.



I got to finally sit down at a Vista system and use it for a while whilst trying to help the university's helpdesk spot a very crafty trojan.  I thought it was HORRIBLE.  I can see how people find it easier to switch from XP to Ubuntu than to Vista - nothing is where it should be, and it's not the least bit user friendly or intuative.  

But you know me - my _main_ beef with Vista and the upcoming Windows 7 are ethical ones with the licensing agreement.  They don't benefit the user, they benefit Micro$oft.

I look forward to DirectX 10 making it's way into WINE, which is gonna be awesome for the PlayOnLinux project. ^_^

*ponders* Which brings to mind an interesting thought... I wonder if they'll make a WINE system to bring DirectX 10 to Windows XP?


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## lilEmber (Mar 31, 2009)

Well even if DX10 makes its way into WINE it doesn't mean games will work (or work well) in it, as well DX11 is being shipped with Windows 7; unlike DX10 it has a standard and does things that are incredible. Every single game that uses DX10 is simply a DX9 game with a few DX10 sprinkles, and that's all.


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## Runefox (Mar 31, 2009)

I recommend against Alienware. Like Dell? That's them. Nothing against them, but they aren't the hottest ride in town anymore. Falcon Northwest is amazingly good, and have been around forever (since *1992*), but will cost a pretty penny. Still, the best bang for your buck - and overall the MOST bang - would be to put something together yourself, if possible. Even if you're not confident in putting everything together, many places such as NCIX offer assembly before shipping the parts, so you won't have to do anything but pop the operating system and drivers onto it and start plugging away. So, do some research into the newer technologies - Such as the AMD Phenom II and the Intel Core i7 series - and figure out what kind of budget you're going to go with and what fits the bill best.

As a general rule, a dual core processor will outperform a quad core for single-threaded applications, but quad core processors excel at things which require a lot of parallelism. Mechanimas and games tend to push this a bit, and sooner rather than later, we'll see more and more games optimized for multi-core processing, meaning that quad core CPU's will become a lot more useful. In that vein, no current consumer CPU is faster than an Intel Core i7, but it comes with a hefty price tag. An AMD Phenom II is light on the wallet, but won't provide the same amount of performance. Brand preference also comes into play here.

As for the motherboard, go with an ASUS or Gigabyte (preferably with all solid capacitors). Period.

RAM doesn't really matter; Purchase the type (DDR, DDR2, DDR3) for your motherboard/processor, and worry mostly about capacity and reliability over speed. Timings aren't going to be a huge concern to you at the speeds memory runs at today, though if you can find something that's a good size and has a good reputation with a better speed at a similar price, go for it. I should note that you should go for 4GB (2x2GB) if you're getting DDR2 memory; If you're getting DDR3 memory, 6GB (3x2GB) is what you should get.

Video cards come down to preference. ATI and NVidia are generally always neck and neck, though NVidia's top end blows ATI away. ATI, however, dominate the mid-range in performance and cost, and are a lot more bang for the buck at their price points.

You'll also want a case with good ventilation, and a reliable power supply with enough wattage to run it all smoothly - Probably a 750W. Antec are a decent company, as is Fortron Source and PC Power & Cooling.

Operating system should be 64-bit with this amount of RAM (4GB+). You won't notice much difference except if you use off-brand equipment that doesn't have 64-bit drivers either built-in or available for download. You should probably stay away from Linux in any event if you're a gamer, since games aren't reliably functional. I do recommend Vista for the time being, and upgrading to Win7 when it's released, or if you're feeling adventurous, exclusively trying out the Win7 beta. Windows XP shouldn't be on the radar with this kind of hardware, since its 64-bit release is both difficult to buy and a bit of a hack.



> Every single game that uses DX10 is simply a DX9 game with a few DX10 sprinkles, and that's all.


This is mostly true. Most games use the DirectX 9 rendering mode so that the wide berth of Windows XP users and users of non-DX10 capable cards can continue to play them. That limits the amount of influence DirectX 10 has over the rendering of the scene, which is why Crysis can be made to look just as good on DirectX 9 as it does on DirectX 10 - There simply isn't much difference between the two, and most of it is virtual, or in other words, disabling effects to make the DirectX 10 mode seem so much better. Right now, the biggest things that DX10 games make use of is Shader Model 4.0.

DirectX 11 games will mandate things like tessellation, multi-threading, and GPGPU support (using the GPU's processing power for things other than graphics rendering), as well as greater restrictions on minimum quality, such as minimum anti-aliasing amount, minimum texture and z-buffer bit depth, etc. It will also allow precise control over how anti-aliasing is performed (with a standard default) based on the programmer's specifications.

But anyway, more about Falcon Northwest. They've been making high-end custom PC's for a decade and a half, and they've got an excellent track record and warranty. They offer everything down to the paint job of the PC as a custom service, and they also offer factory overclocking and testing without voiding any warranties. The base-level Mach V, their flagship PC, starts at $2,553.06 USD, and comes equipped with a Core i7 920 CPU on an ASUS P6T Deluxe motherboard, 6GB of Crucial DDR3 RAM, a GeForce 250GTS, 250GB Western Digital hard drive, card reader, Vista Home Premium 64-bit, and a Silverstone 1000W power supply. All of this can be customized to your liking, including higher-end video card(s), discrete sound card, larger/more hard drives, Blu-Ray support, faster processors, more RAM, and so on. Each of them are hand-built to spec and tested thoroughly, come standard with a three year warranty and take some time to deliver - They aren't cookie-cutter machines.

They also offer a mid-range series called the Talon (no custom paint jobs), and a portable series called the FragBox, as well as notebooks (desktop replacements). The Talon starts at $2,049.13, and comes equipped with a Core i7 920 CPU on an ASUS P6T Deluxe motherboard, 6GB Crucial DDR3 RAM, Radeon HD 4870, 250GB Western Digital hard drive, card reader, Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit and a Silverstone 750W power supply. These are meant to be roughly equivalent to the Mach V series, but with less customizability. This makes it perfect for someone who wants power but doesn't necessarily want to pay a higher premium for making the experience personal, or just doesn't know or care about the finer details. You can still upgrade your hardware the same as you would with the Mach V, but the range is more limited. They also come standard with a one year warranty instead of a three year.

Mops the floor with Alienware, though the price is much higher. Still, you get a lot more out of a Falcon Northwest than you do an Alienware, which are pre-fabbed.



			
				Falcon Northwest said:
			
		

> Falcon PCs come with some standard features that make them quite different than the average PC.
> And there are a few things we won't do... by design.*
> 
> Optimized and accessible BIOS
> ...


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## ToeClaws (Mar 31, 2009)

NewfDraggie said:


> Well even if DX10 makes its way into WINE it doesn't mean games will work (or work well) in it, as well DX11 is being shipped with Windows 7; unlike DX10 it has a standard and does things that are incredible. Every single game that uses DX10 is simply a DX9 game with a few DX10 sprinkles, and that's all.



Aye, though there is a reason for that - 67% of Windows users are still on XP.  If you just count gamers, I believe it's about 78% use XP.  For that reason, games supporting DirectX 10 have had to be written in a sort of lower compatibility mode to ensure they'd also work on DirectX 9 systems, since that's where the majority of the market is.  A pure DirectX 10 game would look a heck of a lot nicer than what's out now.

DirectX 11 will surely be all the more impressive, but unless the uptake on Windows 7 is good, the game market will focus on wherever the majority is.

But your point on compatibility is a good one - straying from the norm will always run into that issue.  Oh well - I got a PC that runs the games I like for now (yay, L4D!).  Eventually I'll probably just switch to using a console.

Back on topic for the thread!  Morroke, another thing you should consider that's quite important if you do want to build your own system - the power supply.  Modern PCs need pretty beefy supplies because the GPU can draw quite a lot when churning out game graphics.  Don't aim for anything lower than 600W, and getting a good name brand is worth spending a little extra on here.  They are not only more reliable, but also far more quiet.  For example...

The Good: http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3092557&CatId=1483

The Bad and Ugly: http://megacomputer.ca/product_info.php?cPath=146_44&products_id=1167


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## Runefox (Mar 31, 2009)

I would like to go on record and say stay the hell away from OCZ. It's basically OEM equipment with shiny bits added. Sometimes, in the case of their power supplies, it's from a good company such as Fortron Source (a lot of their early power supplies were rebranded Fortron power supplies). Other times, it's just bad. I wouldn't chance it. Corsair, on the other hand, is great for RAM and their power supplies, while also OEM equipment, happen to be very solidly built. So if you _must_ go for "designer" parts, do steer away from OCZ. Oh, and Crucial. And if you absolutely must buy something from OCZ, do some research into what it is, and what people are saying about it. Preferably people who haven't just unpacked it and went "Oh, wow, it works!".


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## Toaster (Mar 31, 2009)

jagdwolf said:


> If it were me in your paws.......



Please don't write like that, it's annoying.

***************************************************************************

You'd just be paying for the name in my book man, if you know any thing about building computers you'd be better off doing that. And you might be able to save some money while your at it.


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## Runefox (Mar 31, 2009)

> Please don't write like that, it's annoying.


Oh, don't get your tail ruffled, he's only lending a paw. Don't be so quick to open your muzzle. After all, if everyfur offered a helping paw every now and again, maybe we'd have less yerf and more yiff. Merf merf! ~<3


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## Toaster (Mar 31, 2009)

Runefox said:


> Oh, don't get your tail ruffled, he's only lending a paw. Don't be so quick to open your muzzle. After all, if everyfur offered a helping paw every now and again, maybe we'd have less yerf and more yiff. Merf merf! ~<3




Too........Much..............furry-speak...........In.............One..............POST!..............
Anti-Furry shield over loading!


**Dead**


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## ToeClaws (Mar 31, 2009)

Runefox said:


> Oh, don't get your tail ruffled, he's only lending a paw. Don't be so quick to open your muzzle. After all, if everyfur offered a helping paw every now and again, maybe we'd have less yerf and more yiff. Merf merf! ~<3



LOL!! Oh wow... that hurts the head.

About OCZ though - I've not seen any evidence of them being a bad supply or rebranded OEMs.  I do know that they tend to swap parts within their own brands (IE, the StealthXstream uses the same circuit board and some parts from the GameXstream, etc.) but all are pretty high end units with good reviews.  I would definitely agree that Corsair is a damn good make, but you do pay dearly for it.  Oh... speaking of "dear", that reminds me of Deer - if you ever see a Deer power supply, for godsake, don't buy it.  In fact, don't even accept it if someone GIVES it to you.  I've never seen a more failure-prone power supply in my life.


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## Runefox (Mar 31, 2009)

*FF1 victory theme*

EDIT: Oh, and some of the earlier models of the GameXstream series were rebranded Fortron Source power supplies; Which made them rather good. Some of the others in the same line hailed from other manufacturers, and weren't so hot. I'm fairly sure they're still in the practice of doing this. In fact, a quick search indicates that Fortron is actually the company behind virtually all of OCZ's power supplies. In which case, I'm wrong about their power supplies, but stay the hell away from their RAM.


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## net-cat (Mar 31, 2009)

I highly recommend building your own system for gaming.

I would also caution against cutting edge. Is that extra 2 FPS really worth $500?



Runefox said:


> Windows XP shouldn't be on the radar with this kind of hardware, since its 64-bit release is both difficult to buy and a bit of a hack.


I'll give you "difficult to buy." (OEM, Education and Corporate channels only.) But explain to me exactly why it's any more of a hack than Vista x64.


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## Runefox (Mar 31, 2009)

net-cat said:


> I would also caution against cutting edge. Is that extra 2 FPS really worth $500?



Depends on the budget, really, and how much of that mechanima is being done. Video editing/rendering can take quite some time and resources, and upgrading to high-end equipment can literally save days in a lot of cases. While I doubt this is a professional endeavour, I've had professionals purchase high-end PC's from our shop for the purpose of rendering, and going from Pentium 4-class processors to Core 2 Quads or Xeon quads shaved hours off rendering times in (I can't remember what application it was; similar to CAD) in one instance, and days off high-end movie production in another case. To some, that $500 is more than worth the few extra frames per second of rendering/encoding. And a few extra frames per second in games couldn't hurt along side that. =D



net-cat said:


> I'll give you "difficult to buy." (OEM, Education and Corporate channels only.) But explain to me exactly why it's any more of a hack than Vista x64.



Well, here's one really big showstopper: WDDM, or rather, lack thereof. WinXP 64 greatly benefits from Vista's requirement that all MSFT-sanctioned drivers be both 32-and-64-bit in most cases (before Vista 64, XP 64 had a much harder time with driver support). While this is good, lack of WDDM means that while as of now there are still display drivers available for it from the big two, that may not be the case sooner rather than later - I suspect support to be dropped long before support is dropped for XP 32. Audio drivers are sometimes hackable going from Vista to XP, but often times will only work with Vista (difficult if not directly impossible to hack). While it doesn't particularly make XP 64 a hack, per se, it does require a lot more of it on the user's behalf to run it properly versus Vista 64, depending on the hardware.

The other side of the coin is that while both are more or less 32-bit OS'es with 64-bit support tacked on, Vista has a good bit more support going for it in general for a variety of reasons. This means security updates, patches, etc, along with the aforementioned driver situation. In addition, in many cases, XP 64 is identified as Server 2003 x64 (they share the same core components), which some software will (virtually) refuse to install/run on. In particular, I've had personal experiences to that extent with some antivirus software, older games, and some CAD and media software.

Finally, XP 64 doesn't support DirectX 10/10.1, and for a gaming PC, Vista is fast becoming (if somewhat virtually, as in the example of Crysis) desirable for gaming, especially on high-end PC's.


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## net-cat (Mar 31, 2009)

Runefox said:


> Well, here's one really big showstopper: WDDM, or rather, lack thereof. WinXP 64 greatly benefits from Vista's requirement that all MSFT-sanctioned drivers be both 32-and-64-bit in most cases (before Vista 64, XP 64 had a much harder time with driver support). While this is good, lack of WDDM means that while as of now there are still display drivers available for it from the big two, that may not be the case sooner rather than later - I suspect support to be dropped long before support is dropped for XP 32. Audio drivers are sometimes hackable going from Vista to XP, but often times will only work with Vista (difficult if not directly impossible to hack). *While it doesn't particularly make XP 64 a hack, per se, it does require a lot more of it on the user's behalf to run it properly versus Vista 64, depending on the hardware.*


Then say that. (It is true, after all.) 



Runefox said:


> The other side of the coin is that while both are more or less 32-bit OS'es with 64-bit support tacked on, Vista has a good bit more support going for it in general for a variety of reasons. This means security updates, patches, etc, along with the aforementioned driver situation.


 No, they're not. They're 64-bit operating systems with 32-bit backward compatibility tacked on. (Like all common, modern OSs.)
As for the support thing, yeah. Vista is new and they are deperately trying to end-of-life XP. Though I'd be interested to see if XP x64 is end-of-lifed with XP or with Server 2003.



Runefox said:


> In addition, in many cases, XP 64 is identified as Server 2003 x64 (they share the same core components), which some software will (virtually) refuse to install/run on. In particular, I've had personal experiences to that extent with some antivirus software, older games, and some CAD and media software.


Ah, yes. Though that's less a problem with Windows itself and more a problem with the fact that developers are lazy. They can't be bothered to check the API documents on how to identify versions of Windows. So they make cute little hacks that frequently make assumptions.



Runefox said:


> Finally, XP 64 doesn't support DirectX 10/10.1, and for a gaming PC, Vista is fast becoming (if somewhat virtually, as in the example of Crysis) desirable for gaming, especially on high-end PC's.


Again, say what you mean. 

XP x64 has plenty of shortcomings that should be considered when choosing an OS. Saying "oh well it's a hack" serves no one.


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## Runefox (Mar 31, 2009)

> serves noone


Always happy to serve Noone!


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## net-cat (Mar 31, 2009)

Damned sticky spacebar...


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## Aestuo (Mar 31, 2009)

My suggestion:  Build, build, build!  It's the best way.  You get exactly what you want, and you know exactly what is inside it and exactly what you need to upgrade to for the future.  I built my first computer back in August, and it's still working perfectly right now and I love it!  To build or not to build? It's the best decision that I have made.


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## ToeClaws (Apr 1, 2009)

net-cat said:


> As for the support thing, yeah. Vista is new and they are deperately trying to end-of-life XP. Though I'd be interested to see if XP x64 is end-of-lifed with XP or with Server 2003.



XP 64's patching coincides with 2003, but unfortunately it's End of Extended Support is the same as the other XPs:

http://www.microsoft.com/oem/english/content/software/XPEOL.mspx


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## Runefox (Apr 1, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Damned sticky spacebar...



See, if you weren't an all-powerful admin capable of destroying me, I'd suggest that there's a reason behind that.


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## net-cat (Apr 1, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> XP 64's patching coincides with 2003, but unfortunately it's End of Extended Support is the same as the other XPs:
> 
> http://www.microsoft.com/oem/english/content/software/XPEOL.mspx


Doesn't surprise me. Though I bet the way they do that is just by disallowing the updates to be installed. Someone will overcome that...



Runefox said:


> See, if you weren't an all-powerful admin capable of destroying me, I'd suggest that there's a reason behind that.


Hurr. Yeah. I bet you know _all_ about that.


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## ToeClaws (Apr 1, 2009)

net-cat said:


> Doesn't surprise me. Though I bet the way they do that is just by disallowing the updates to be installed. Someone will overcome that...



Probably. 



net-cat said:


> Hurr. Yeah. I bet you know _all_ about that.



Then the both of ya stop reading my stories while posting on the forums.


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## jagdwolf (Apr 2, 2009)

question here.  

What do your finances look like?  thats gonna be the deciding factor.


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## Slade (Apr 4, 2009)

Build a custom PC. They're cheaper and better than factory-made computers, even Alienware.


Also, try Voodoo PCs. Better than Alienware, but expensive.


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## ForestFox91 (Apr 4, 2009)

Go to cyberpowerpc.com or build your own.


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