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Desktops forum: Need help with a new gaming desktop selection

by: galindenba April 26, 2010 7:43 AM PDT

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Need help with a new gaming desktop selection

by galindenba - 4/26/10 7:43 AM

My venerable old Dell XPS Gen 3 gaming rig at my secondary residence finally gave up the ghost. I was looking for a replacement. I have had problems in the past with 2 gaming machines that I had bought for my son....namely a Dell and then an Alienware that were DOA right out of the box with much subsequent difficulty getting customer service to rectify the situation(s). I have a Velocity Micro at my primary residence which I paid a fortune for and this one never performed close to what was advertised and was very unstable until I upgraded it to Windows 7.
So being a little gun shy about those 3 companies I decided to try HP. I ordered a HPE-180e with a 3.33ghz i7 processor, 12 MB ram, a 1 TB HD, and a very high end ATI graphics card. Well my steak continues as this thing was a hog right out of the box, could not connect to the internet wirelessly at all, and the sound card made honking noises every time I played a game. Now I was on the phone with the idiots from HP all day yesterday who can't fix it. They are all telling me I can return it for a full refund. I've been calling them back and no one at HP seems to know how to make this happen.
Anyway, they will refund me even if I have to get Amex involved, but in the meantime I still need a new gaming rig. I need stable and I need reasonable/good performance for non-on-line gaming. So I need suggestions...please???


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Sadly.

by R. Proffitt Moderator - 4/26/10 8:25 AM

In Reply to: Need help with a new gaming desktop selection by galindenba

Gamer machines are still tending to be finicky machines. After decades of watching all this and helping friends and more, the goal of a stable gamer machine looks to be a lost cause.

However I've taken simple machines and popped in better graphics cards and all is fine. But then again I might have the advantage of be an electronics designer, writing code from before the days of the GE 210 and now writing Windows Mobile apps.

I wonder how average Joe is supposed to get a gamer machine. Maybe a Xbox 360 or PS3 is the best solution?

About the wifi. I've lost count how many times I've fixed such. All I can comment on there is the way we got wifi means that there is no standard and it is not consumer friendly. If we could do it all over again one of the rules to market would be "it should just work."
Bob


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My blazing OLD game machine.

by R. Proffitt Moderator - 4/26/10 10:10 AM

In Reply to: Sadly. by R. Proffitt Moderator

It's a simple machine. I found a nice enough HP d4999t and to keep things quiet I installed a Zotac Nvidia GT 240 1GB video card which is fanless. This runs some Intel quad core, 4GB RAM and Windows 7 Pro. What was interesting was its speed was below par too at first.

Later I found out by chance when CDBURNERXP didn't work on it (it emitted an error message) that with a little google gave me the clue to install some Intel storage manager item. Now it's very nice. I don't expect makers to do this for us today. We are pretty much on our own but with super tools like search engines to figure it out.

I know many think that it shouldn't be that way. For those I kindly and without any offense intended ask them to go try an Apple.
Bob


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buying a "Gaming PC" depends

by Brechan - 4/26/10 9:08 AM

In Reply to: Need help with a new gaming desktop selection by galindenba

alot on what you want specifically, and what your budget is. If you're tired of the 'out-of-the-box' types of rigs, then there are scours of manufacturers out there that only build 'gaming PC's'. When I googled 'buy a gaming pc' this is just a few of the hits I came up with:

http://www.digitalstormonline.com/

http://www.velocitymicro.com/category.php?cid=12

http://gaming-pc.avadirect.com/Custom_Tower_Gaming_PC

http://ballisticgamingpc.com/

http://www.midlandcomputers.com/premier/index.php

http://www.pugetsystems.com/deluge.php#/nav/configure.php?sys_id=91


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Thanks

by galindenba - 4/26/10 10:04 AM

In Reply to: buying a "Gaming PC" depends by Brechan

Of the 4 PC's I have mentioned all were custom designed and ordered from each manufacturers respective website and not store bought or out of the box. At the time I ordered the Velocity and the Alienware machines they were primarily only doing high end gaming rigs. As I said the Alienware was DOA and they gave us such a hard time about a return that I would never do business with them again. The Velocity did "work" as did the "HP" I'm sending back now, but they ran at nowhere near the promised blazing speed that I think I have the right to expect from machines that cost so much money. The Velocity was pretty terrible until I upgraded to Windows 7. For the high price paid, I want quality, speed, performance and reliability. It's like a car. If I buy and pay for a BMW then I have a right to expect not not to drive like a Chevy. My primary question...still not answered is this: What BRAND of gaming PC do the people on this thread have and/or recommend?


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For most people here

by Brechan - 4/26/10 10:22 AM

In Reply to: Thanks by galindenba

it's a matter of personal choice and what we use them for; some will buy an off-the-shelf, then add to them (such as what Bob has done with his HP). Others; like myself, have opted to build our own PC's.

Another way you can try is this
http://reviews.cnet.com/1770-5_7-0.html?query=best+gaming+pcs&tag=srch


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gaming desktop?

by nofret - 5/5/10 11:27 PM

In Reply to: Need help with a new gaming desktop selection by galindenba

Check out the hp 190t, with the six core gullftown cpu!


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HP 190

by galindenba - 5/6/10 10:37 AM

In Reply to: gaming desktop? by nofret

I just got an HP and it was dead right out of the box. Took me 6 phone sessions with their tech support morons just to convince them it was defective. Then 4 more calls just to get them to take the thing back. That's why I posted on this forum to begin with.
HP again?
I DON'T THINK SO!!


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