Gaming Good price for PC?

[Wizerzak]

I recently bought a pc (second hand but like new) which i am presuming to be quite good. How much is it worth? (im not gonna say how much i payed yet). Please dont look it up and say the exact price... anyway here's its specs:

Dell Dimension XPS 720
Q6600 Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4 Ghz
2Gb memory (i will probably upgrade this)
Nvidia 8800GTX 768mb
500Gb Hard drive (2 x 250Gb Sata drives raided 'striped')
DVD/RW Drive
19-in-1Card Reader + Blue tooth
X-Fi Extreme sound card
Microsoft Windows Vista 32bit

 

[Originality]

Guestimation: ~£400, maybe slightly more depending on the value of Vista. The Q6600 has phenominal overclocking potential, but 2GB of RAM is cheap and the 8800 is very old now (even if it was the best). Only the sound card wouldn't have lost its value. I haven't taken the case/PSU into account in that price because it's Dell so I assume they're both the cheapest parts in the entire setup.

 

[Deleted User]

Q6600 Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4 Ghz
120€ new

2Gb memory (i will probably upgrade this)
Nvidia 8800GTX 768mb
30-40€ new
around 100€ new

500Gb Hard drive (2 x 250Gb Sata drives raided 'striped')
DVD/RW Drive
60€ new
12€
QUOTEX-Fi Extreme sound card

50-100€ not sure
QUOTE

Microsoft Windows Vista 32bit

-9999€

with vista he has to pay you about 9800€^^

The hardware would be about 450€
Second hand I would pay 350-400€

in pound I would say 300-350 pounds (where is that damn pound sign on german keyboards?

 

[Mazor]

in pound I would say 300-350 pounds (where is that damn pound sign on german keyboards?

Alt+0163.

 

[Wizerzak]

ok it was actually £210 so im assuming i got quite a good price.

and why is vista so bad? i've used it for the past 2 years and had no problems, ive also tried windows 7 and there's hardly any difference...

 

[Wizerzak]

take a look at this page about vista, borrowed from Rydian's website.

 

[Deleted User]

take a look at this page about vista, borrowed from Rydian's website.

maybe it had a bad image, but I also used it on a laptops with similar specs and with the time it became much slower. I changed from windows XP to 7 and I don't like the new menu structure.
I think vista is mostly a windows XP 2.0, but which is slower (I think) and a new menu structure I don't like.
If you want I would suggest pirating or buying windows 7 if you will buy more ram, and have ubuntu as a dualboot, which is a great os

 

[LoneSyn]

I never had problems using Vista/Win7 for lag.


As for the PC, it should be within the $150~300 (used) price range in the US. It's similar to a mid-ranged rig.

Definitely change the RAM and see what frequency your motherboard supports (I recommend getting 1333+ mhz if your motherboard supports it). At least 3GB RAM for a 32bit system, +4GB if you're running 64bit.

If you plan on gaming with the latest stuff, I'd recommend changing the graphics card to a Nvidia 9800GTX (they're relatively cheap nowadays) or some ATI Radeon 6 Series (budget version of their top-of-the-line 5 Series with better efficiency but slightly weaker in performance).

Aside from that, it's a pretty neat buy for general use.

 

[Rydian]

http://anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=3666&p=7
XP < Vista < 7 in terms of speed.

Anybody that complains about Vista's new menu structure and then praises Windows 7 has obviously never used both OSes, as 7's is a direct copy of Vista's, with a way smaller amount of changes than there were from XP to Vista.

Vista is a major upgrade from XP, and 7 is a minor upgrade from Vista. Check MS's model numbers for yourself.

NT model for 2K: 5.0
NT model for XP: 5.1
NT model for Vista: 6.0
NT model for 7: 6.1

Server edition of XP: Server 2003
Server edition of Vista: Server 2008
Server edition of 7: Server 2008 R2

 

[Mazor]

http://anandtech.com/systems/showdoc.aspx?i=3666&p=7
XP < Vista < 7 in terms of speed.

While Vista has received lots of bashing for no reason other than "durr vista sux cus i read it on interweb", claiming it to be better than XP in terms of speed citing only one benchmark and no additional information doesn't really prove your point.

Why do you find this benchmark to overrule the majority of other benchmarks (of which many are recent) that shows Vista performing worse than XP in terms of speed?

 

[Rydian]

It's 7 pages of benchmarks.

 

[coolbho3000]

@LoneSyn He should not upgrade to the 9800GTX, the 8800GTX is almost as fast (and faster in some situations).

 

[Originality]

I thought the 9800 was exactly the same as the 8800, except with a smaller process (leading to less energy and less heat). And I thought the GTX 280 was exactly the same but with an even smaller process and higher clocks. Something about Unified Architecture.

 

[hatredg0d]

not a bad buy,

if i got that rig, id over-clock the CPU, probably go with 4 gigs of ram, and i swap out the graphics card. im an ati fan, and i say hd5770, but im an ati/amd fan..and your current card is good. but if your going to upgrade, go with something with direct x 11 support!! differences in ram speed wont really make much of a difference when your not benchmarking, will help with over clocking though..

So if using your current graphics card dosent bother u, missing out on features such as full hardware tessellation support and the better gpu multithreading

. and if you think your cpu is doing just fine. just upgrade the ram. rock windows 7, and keep on pimpin it. it all depends on what actually ur planning on doing with this thing, and how much more money your willing to dump..

 

[coolbho3000]

I thought the 9800 was exactly the same as the 8800, except with a smaller process (leading to less energy and less heat). And I thought the GTX 280 was exactly the same but with an even smaller process and higher clocks. Something about Unified Architecture.

The 8800GTX uses a different (older) GPU core altogether and has more RAM than most 9800GTXs (768MB versus 512MB). The GTX280 is quite different from both aforementioned GPUs.

 

[Mazor]

It's 7 pages of benchmarks.

How does the fact that they covered 7 sections make the results in those sections overrule those of other benchmarks?

For instance, why do you find it to be more true than three relevant results from first page of google results (of which none are from when Vista was brand new and general consesus was that it was underperforming)?

http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/22/windows...multicore-benc/

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/reviews/w...review?page=0,3

http://www.infoworld.com/d/windows/death-m...xp-144?page=0,0

 

[Wizerzak]

i don't do much extreme gaming, mostly just online stuff. I mostly need the power for other stuff like video, copying pictures which doesn't really concern the graphics (i dont think). The 2 offline games i do play are: RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 (max settings) and i'm getting Civilization 5 for Christmas, does anyone know how well this will run and what settings i will be able to use?

 

[Berthenk]

i don't do much extreme gaming, mostly just online stuff. I mostly need the power for other stuff like video, copying pictures which doesn't really concern the graphics (i dont think). The 2 offline games i do play are: RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 (max settings) and i'm getting Civilization 5 for Christmas, does anyone know how well this will run and what settings i will be able to use?

Pretty good considering that even though the 8800 GT is old, it's one of if not the best GPU of its time. Though with that comes a price, that of a high elektricity bill.

 

[JonthanD]

I would consider upgrading to 7 as well. It's better then Vista.

Better security via an improved implementation of ASLR, and a few other tricks.

Another thing to consider.

I have a machine with 2GB's and it ran Vista ok, 7 runs much better on the same machine.
The user experience is much smoother.

Of course my main machine has 8GB's and well the OS is not really noticeable.

 

[Wizerzak]

i don't do much extreme gaming, mostly just online stuff. I mostly need the power for other stuff like video, copying pictures which doesn't really concern the graphics (i dont think). The 2 offline games i do play are: RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 (max settings) and i'm getting Civilization 5 for Christmas, does anyone know how well this will run and what settings i will be able to use?
Pretty good considering that even though the 8800 GT is old, it's one of if not the best GPU of its time. Though with that comes a price, that of a high elektricity bill.


8800 GT 8800 GTX and it's all right, my parents pay for the electricity.

QUOTE

Better security via an improved implementation of ASLR, and a few other tricks.

I'll have McAfee installed anyway so no worries there.