38 replies to this topic

[ThSavageOne]

I have a friend of a friend that made me my gaming rig. What I like to know is whos building rigs out there? Especially if there are any good builders in New Jersey.

[Fuel §]

I live in Jersey
but i dont build rigs, my next one ima build though. I know a lot of people here have built their own. And if you want a custom one, and are just scared to DIY then you can always check out www.cyberpowerpc.com

[Jac3624]

I build my own, but I don't live in Jersey. I could try to help you.

[Why Two Kay]

www.cyberpowerpc.com

They are good

[Catfish]

www.cyberpowerpc.com

They are good

Buzkill has ordered from them a few times. The first time they forgot to put thermal grease on the CPU so it kept overheating, and the second time the video card arrived DOA. I wouldn't use them.

[Bacon]

The only hard part for building really is making sure everything is compatible.

[ThSavageOne]

if i have to get a new one it will be alianware or Dell XPS and my current ont is a fell xps 600

[Darkwing_X]

if i have to get a new one it will be alianware or Dell XPS and my current ont is a fell xps 600

those arent all thier cracked up to be usually.

[JJ]

Alienware, and Voodoo along with Dell XPS are just ridiculously expensive. So much so that at $7000.00 for an Alienware I would by a car first and pay a local computer store to build me a rig. I built this one and it is relatively easy. There are compatibility charts all over the Internet for Intel, and AMD based systems...JJ

Besides if I remember correctly Alienware is owned by Dell, and Voodoo was purchased by HP.

[ijakings]

Theres no substitute for building yourself. You know exactly what is in there and you have the control over it. If you buy from a place that builds the system for you often they will put a warranty sticker on the case opening, where if its broken you can receive no support from them, and id imagine that since their parts would be OEM anyway you will receive no luck from the manufacturer of the item thats breaks either.

If you can do lego, you can build a PC. Like someone said above the only hard part is getting it all compatible. But if you pick out stuff you want and post all the items on here asking if its ok, then we can tell you if its all gonna work.

Now if you are going to self build then the one item you may have a problem with is the Operating system.

At this point in time dont buy vista, its a blatant waste of money and you can upgrade to it later if you feel the need.

If this next part breaches some MG policy im not aware of just moderate it out.

I got my windows XP Pro from ebay. It was from a dell PC, legit key OEM most probably and you get a good reinstall DVD with it. This will cause it to be mislicenced as far as the Microsoft Support goes but they are quite useless anyway. But It will activate over the internet. Mine cost me £30.

This is a slightly more legal way than "going TO the stoRe and RENT-ing" it, and will activate.

For example this one here is a fully unused and legal OEM verson of Pro for next to half price over here.

http://cgi.ebay.co.u...1QQcmdZViewItem

[Why Two Kay]

If you are considering alienware or Dell XPS, go to http://cyberpowerpc.com it has GREAT prices.

You used to be able to get dual core + 7900GT + 2gb of ram for $2500. And I'm talking a year ago, when that was top of the line! It's basically alienware or Dell XPS minus the super uber cases, minus the crap nobody wants, and still cheaper!

[ThSavageOne]

keep it coming im looking at getting another rig now. anyone want to post good specs for a rig now?

[mike080697]

If you are considering alienware or Dell XPS, go to http://cyberpowerpc.com it has GREAT prices.

You used to be able to get dual core + 7900GT + 2gb of ram for $2500. And I'm talking a year ago, when that was top of the line! It's basically alienware or Dell XPS minus the super uber cases, minus the crap nobody wants, and still cheaper!

For what it is worth, I agree. Also keep in mind that the Dells and such are full of crappy trial software, ads and garbage running in the background that slows them way down. I build my own PC's now with some success but my first few were a mess. There are very many little things that can bite you. I'd list some of my goofs here but there isn't enough room in the forum.

[Catfish]

Alienware is owned by Dell now and Voodoo got bought by HP. Falcon Northwest is good but also expensive. Cyberpowerpc has very poor quality control but great prices. There is still no substitute for building it yourself. Read lots of reviews at Tom's Hardware Guide or Anandtech.

Here is a three part series on how to build your own PC:

http://www.tomshardw...o_build_part_1/
http://www.tomshardw...e-right-vender/
http://www.tomshardw...ld-a-pc-part-3/

[Doc_Savage]

Once you make it past the first hurdle of building one for yourself (which is the completion of the machine) you will never go back to buying one at the store. Why you ask

1 Prebuilt machines, have a lack of upgrade ability, and given the gaming requirement leaps and the technology strides it is hard to keep up... HP and DELL and everyother computer manufacturer, want you to fall behind the technology curb, its how they stay in business

2 You can pick and choose which parts you want in it, with obvious futures in mind...IE lets say the gaming world desires a 8000 cpu to play at max on the hottest game coming out in the next year, which is 1000 smackers and out of the price range of most people , but you found the board at newegg, that eventually will fit a 8000, but also can fit a 6000, which is 200 smackers...now why not buy the 6000, and then when the price of the 8000 drops to a resonable amount, pick it up

3 You control the costs of building a machine, IE if the motherboards review says the onboard sound is completly on target there is not a need for a seperate cound card

4 It keeps the average user, such as myself and a ton of others in touch with what is out there for technology, and what is going to be coming down the preverbial pike.

5 and the most important reason to try this out.......I have a blast while doing it, I cannot imagine ever buying another machine other than what I built myself..and when I let other people use it...they say what in the heck did I spend 2 grand for that...the machine I have at home doesn't do this, I tell them they have a glorified paperweight, because this is a computer.

[Irviding]

I have a dell XPS 400 and I am happy with it it works fine.

[Jac3624]

I am also never going to buy another prebuilt Pc. The last one was a crapy gateway that didn't have a diskete drive, it was that long ago where that mattered, when I tried
to install one it didn't work.


After that I decided to learn to build them myself and I'm glad I did. Mostly because it costs less and you don't have to deal the crappy customer "support" ppl.


Maybe if you told us exactly what you want the Pc for and how much you want to spend, we could help you configure it.

[Silverhawk]

Many times I have had people goto falcon pc's and use thier designs systems to decide how they want it built before I actually beat their price by at least 1/3 and tweek it a little then build it. Lately I have been busy building a few for a business and still need to send another member a design setup to him for a new pc build. The best was is simple first decide how much your gonna spend. Second decide what your gonna end up with and how your gonna use it.

like say you have $2000

and you want to end up with a gaming PC, tower, monitor, no printer, no scanner, no speakers, new keyboard and new mouse.

This gives the designer a start and a range indicator.

When you design a system the main factor is cash.

You can build a $500 gaming PC, 1000 gaming pc 2000 gaming pc and the only real differences is better video cards, more memory, better hard drives, stuff like that.

For the most part a $3,500 system from any given system buildr like falcon, ailenware can usually be build for $2000 and have better componets.

OK back to building lol

[PerfectSilence]

I'd Recommend Alienware. I know people, particularly Lin, whom has have numerous problems with theirs, but mine has worked almost flawlessly for the 9 or so month I've had it. I did drop quite a large wad of money on it, but I do believe that it was well spent. They packaged it extremely nicely, went through a round of checks and balances and the case is extremely sturdy (I know, my 115 pound friend sat on it).

As for the fact that they are aligned with DELL, that is absolutely true. They were acquired by DELL about a year ago. However, people seem to forget that Alienware is a Satellite company of DELL and still has it's own management. Alienware also puts in Universal parts into their machines, whereas DELL has been notorious for using special parts that are near impossible to replace or upgrade.

[Jac3624]

Silverhawk is right, I built mine for around $500. That's without monitor, keyboard(getting a new one soon), and dvd drive. The first pc I built cost around $750, it wasn't top of the lone but I was able to play BF1942. That's how I build pc, I just look at the most high spec game that I plan to play and build so it will play that perfectly. The one I'm using right now I configured for BF2 and what I ended up with is a rig that can play Oblivion almost perfectly. For me building pcs is much cheaper the buying them.


My offer still stands. Tell us what you want it for and how much you want to spend and we'll help from there.