Wesy Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 Okay, I'm thinking about upgrading my home machine (it's a doorstop). The only reason that I haven't upgraded in 5 years is that the company provides a notebook. But playing CM on notebook (PII 300 notebook) with a keyboard the size of an envelope sucks. So...I really don't want to break the bank, but wanted to spend anywhere from 1200-1800 on a new box (My wife the CFO would okay this amount). What do you folks recommend? CPU Intel PIII (667-866 MHz) AMD Athlon up to 1 GHz AMD Dural (not to sure of this one) RAM 128MB HD Approx 20mb Video: 32MB TNT2 card or Geforce Also what brands would you recommend, I'm considering the following: Dell Micron Compaq HP Any comments would be appreciated!@ Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StellarRat Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 That's a big topic. Just in summary: I have found that most of the systems supplied by Dell, Gateway, etc...have become less upgradeable, but cheaper during the last few years. If you can work on your own hardware I recommend building your own. You can usual put a system together for a price close to the big guys. I have an Athlon 650, Voodoo 5500 AGP, 256 megs of RAM and a Creative Labs 128 PCI sound card. I built it myself and I'm real happy with it. If you build your own (or have someone build it for you) the parts will USUALLY be more interchangeable and standardized than the ones that are built by the big mail order companies, however, with a mail order PC you are less likely to have any bugs that need to be worked out after the PC is built. As far as what you are looking at right now, I would increase the memory to 256 meg. I haven't ever used any 3D card besides the Voodoo line so I can't address your choice there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest machineman Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 sharkyextreme or Anandtech are both good sites with monthly reccs for gaming machines, giving all the parts they use and why. A link to sharky's latest: http://www.sharkyextreme.com/theguide/value_game_pc/ This retailer: http://www.firestorm.ab.ca/products.htm has a useful 'build your own' section and a parts section where you can fool around with different specs. It's in Canadian dollars, just knock the price down by about 2/3 or more to get US. I got a Dell a couple years ago and while it has always run for me fine upgrading is a pain as the power supply and case switches are non standard. [This message has been edited by machineman (edited 11-30-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supertanker Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 If you don't want to build your own, and it is not a mission-critical machine (i.e. you will only do work on it and not CM ), I usually recommend the Dell Outlet: www.dell.com/outlet . This is where Dell resells the returned & refurbished machines. $1800 will get you a pretty nice box from there, probably in excess of your specs. For example, they currently list a P3/1000mhz, 256MB, 40MB HD, geFORCE2(64MB), SB Live, CDR 12X, 56K 3Com, 3Com 10/100 for $1785 (plus shipping, no monitor). Edited because I went to close that window and noticed that they are having a holiday sale, so knock $300 off any machine priced $1600-$1999. The inventory is always changing, so watch it for a box you like. I have several friends running these machines now, and all are happy. ------------------ "Late evening turned to early morning as you sat with fists tightly gripped and thumb poised, anxiously awaiting the next cartridge of goodness. The hardcore gamer was born from nights such as these. Show your 'Roots.'" - The description of the Atari 2600 shirt on game-skins.com [This message has been edited by Supertanker (edited 11-30-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smeltz Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 Personally I recommend staying away from the big boy names. I had a local shop help me out designing my box for 1800 bucks. I of course did a lot of research before picking parts. a short list: PIII 500 Mhz 128 Megs of 100 SDRAM 17 Gig HD 19" AOC spectrum 7Vlr Monitor Pioneer 10X DVD 32 MB Diamond Stealth Video card GNT 5000 speakers with powered sub This was almost one year ago and the only thing I can complain about is the video card. Diamond is now defunct and I'm really eyeing up a Prophet. When I bought this box 133 Mhz Ram was a bit new and more expensive but is now reasonable. The new 1.2Ghz Athlon got rave reviews in Computer Gaming World (CM made one of the best games of the year in the January issue also! ) Hercules Prophet MII is a good card for about $120. To give an example of the big houses for computers though a friend of mine just got a Gateway piece of crap for $1700 a month ago and mine being a year old still put it to shame right out of the box. Not to mention they add a slew of unneeded system bogging junk to the installs. I've heard good things of Dell but that's about the only one of the Big Boys. You could always treat yourself to computing bliss if your not going to play a large list of games and get a Mac G4 cube. They scream through graphics. ------------------ "Free your mind!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chupacabra Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 All the PCs I've owned have been Dells, and I've been happy. Excellent tech support is IMO Dell's big advantage. When I moved to London earlier this year, my laptop had a fairly major breakdown. Even though my laptop was bought in America and I had not had it registered with Dell UK, they still sent someone out to fix it the next business day. Dells also in general use less propreitary hardware than manufacturers like Gateway and Compaq. I had no trouble upgrading my old Dell 486 to a Pentium chip, back in the day. ------------------ Grand Poobah of the fresh fire of Heh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
43ordcoy Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 don't buy a compaq if you are interested in upgrading it's a bitch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dschugaschwili Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 I've just built a new computer from the following components: Duron 700, 2x128MB RAM, GeForce2GTS, 45GB HD, 40x CD-ROM. I'm not yet finished with installing all my programs, but it looks like a very good gaming system to me, and the price was quite reasonable. If you want to save a few bucks, take only 128MB RAM and a GeForce2MX. Dschugaschwili Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airborne Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 I agree with Chupacabra here. I went with a new Dell and picked up the one with pretty much all of the specs of the refurb above sited by Supertanker. 1Ghz, Pent III, 256m ram, 64 mb GeForce2. Go on-line to www.Dell.com and spec one out for yourself. That is a great price. So far, I've been real happy with Dell. CM really rocks, and the hi-res mods are beautiful to behold Good luck. ------------------ "If it bleeds..we can kill it." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest KwazyDog Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 One thing that came up today with a chat between myself, Matt and Charles is the speed the AMD Thunderbirds seem to have in Combat Missions calculations. From what I have read the Thunderbirds appear to have very good floating calculation capabilities, and this becomes very noticable in CM when calculating turn resolution. When I first set up my system, I did some benchmarking between it (AMD Thunderbird 900mhz) and a P3 clocked at the same speed. The result was that the AMD was calculating the same turn between 2 to 3 times as fast as the Intel processor! Now one thing to note, the down side of the AMD processors is that I have found they do run hot, very hot. In fact I had to install two extra fans in my system to keep it stable on hot days. Its been running well ever since though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
der Bob Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 Wesy: I have been upgrading my own pc for over 10 years, but the last try to build a new system from scratch taught me to just buy one already built. For a hair over $2000 (less than $150 more than I paid for all the parts separately), I got a Gateway AMD840 Athlon, 45 GB ATA 100 HD, 128MB ram, 32MB Riva TNT, Creative Sound Blaster Live, 250MB Zip, DVD/CD Rom, 17" .24 monitor, 3 Boston Accoustic speakers, printer, digital camera (a crappy one, though), 56K modem/network card, Windows ME, a ton of other software (some useful, some not), 24hr/day 800 support, 1 year parts/labor/on-site warranty, 2 more years parts warranty, and no farkin' headaches! I couldn't get my homebrew to work (and neither could the technicians at the place I bought the parts), so I returned all the parts and phoned Gateway. I am 100% satisfied with the results. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vomitmeister Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 I've played around with the big boys. My first machine was a Gateway 486-66. Couldn't upgrade anything in it. Couldn't even reuse the box. Then I bought a Dell 200MMX. It is maxed out and I found I couldn't upgrade anything in it, even the box. I ended up building my own. My recommendation is to stay away from either of those if you ever think you will need to upgrade to play CM4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest wwb_99 Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 Old Dells were pretty much industry standard, but they have exploded over the last few years and now make their own deals, so they tend to be a bit funky. Out of the makers you list, I have heard the best things about Microns, but there are some other builders you should check into, such as Alienware and Falcon Northwest. Both are a little pricey, but they build high quiality PCs designed for gaming, with very little preloaded ancilliary bull****. Processorwise, AMDs are better for the prices, if the heat issues are taken care of. Go with the GeForce 2 card, TNT2 is already several generations old. By CM4 times it will be ancient. Also, Dells get alot faster if you are comfortable reinstalling the OS from scratch. Also, request Win 98 SE when purchasing your system, as Win ME has some bugs. WWB ------------------ Before battle, my digital soldiers turn to me and say, Ave, Caesar! Morituri te salutamus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rookie Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 Agreed, all the big boys are too proprietary. If I were to buy a built box it would be a Falcon NW or a Alienware. They offer similar warranties to Dell and use parts you can upgrade... I just have to say My 1Ghz Athlon homebuilt smokes any of my friends prebuilts by a wide margin, and is alot more stable.. ------------------ -Rookie Cactus Air Force Homepage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tris Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 Also, request Win 98 SE when purchasing your system, as Win ME has some bugs. As if Win98 SE does not. Agreed re video cards. The TNT2 technology is great but as you note getting long in the tooth. However, unless you're gonna pop for the next best nVIDIA tech (GeForce) with 64 MB of DDRRAM you'd probably be better off sticking with the TNT2 until nVIDIA releases its next-generation card. While I'm happy with the GeForce GTS I now own, my Diamond Viper (32 MB) ran without a hitch. Were it not for the excessive pixels to push around in CMBO from all these new hi-res mods I would not have changed video cards at this time. Re vendors: unless you're a do-it-yourself sort of guy it's not a bad idea to find (if possible) a reliable local shop to build your computer system, assuming it's willing to offer reasonable support after sale. If you read some, hang around while these people work on your unit and ask the odd question or two it's possible to learn a lot about computers quickly. Turnaround is minimized, also. [This message has been edited by Tris (edited 11-30-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest wwb_99 Posted November 30, 2000 Share Posted November 30, 2000 Tris, Good point about the local shops. If you find a good one you can get dell like service in the local area, at times better (because it is personal) and you support small business. Also, I forgot to mention Build Your Own PC programs, such as the one run by the CPCUG. Many cities have such programs run through local PC users groups, and it is a great way to build your own PC to your own specs while having expert supervision and support. WWB ------------------ Before battle, my digital soldiers turn to me and say, Ave, Caesar! Morituri te salutamus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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