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Potential New Customer

Post Date: 2010-08-16
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Warpig View Drop Down
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Posts: 150 		  Quote Warpig Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Topic: Potential New Customer
    Posted: 16 Aug 2010 at 1:18pm
Hello all I am new here as of today, I have been looking at the DSO site for months and I am about ready to pull the trigger on a new gaming PC.
 
I play Everquest 2, the engine was originally designed 6 plus years ago and it does not take advantage of dual or multi core processors as they mistakenly thought that single core processors would be the way to go at the time.
 
The engine produces graphics that can be amazing but it is heavily reliant on the CPU and not so much on the GPU, I know that doesn't make sense but that is the way their engine works.
 
I group, run instance and raid, currently I have a Dell Inspiron E-520 with a Core 2 Duo processor, 3MB od DDR 2 ram and a GT220 vdeo card, Win Vista and not many other bells and whistles.
 
I have read here that it cannot be guaranteed that one will achieve a specific frame rate and I understand that, I am going to provide you with my averages for information purposes. Typically I can run on balanced settings basically meaning middle of the road, when in instances and or raids I have to go to extreme performance sacrificing the fantastic graphics in order to have a decent FPS and reduce lag.
 
On balanced I run about 20 to 30 FPS, on extreme quality in raid environments I run 13 to 25 FPS and the graphics look horrible.
 
Now I am comparing DSO to an Alienware system, the specs I will place in this post, my budget is approximately $2100 to $2200 USD, I would prefer to be around $2000 if possible.
 
Alienware build and price below - Ship date 08/31/2010
 

PROCESSOR

Overclocked Intel® Core™ i7 930 Quad Core Processor (3.36GHz, 8MB Cache)

OPERATING SYSTEM

Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English

VIDEO CARD

Dual 1GB GDDR5 ATI Radeon™ HD 5670 CrossfireX™ Enabled

MEMORY

12GB Triple Channel 1333MHz DDR3

HARD DRIVE

1.5TB - SATA, 3Gb/s, 7,200 RPM, 32MB Cache HDD

OPTICAL DRIVE

Single Drive: 24X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability

MONITOR

21.5” Alienware AW2210 OptX™ Full HD Gaming Monitor

SOUND CARD

Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio

KEYBOARD

No Keyboard

MOUSE

No Mouse

WARRANTY AND SERVICE

1 Year Basic Service Plan

 

Cost - $2148.00

 
Please let me know what everyone think especially any DSO representatives and others of course, and what builds DSO have that are similar to or better including cost etc.
 
Thank you.


Edited by Warpig - 16 Aug 2010 at 1:41pm
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Posts: 109 		  Quote Runes Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 16 Aug 2010 at 1:29pm
Here's a config for $1847 that leaves plenty of room for you to buy an even bigger, better monitor than the one you had in the Alienware configuration:

http://www.digitalstormonline.com/comploadsaved.asp?id=432309

Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Cooler Master HAF 932
Processor: Intel Core i7 930 2.8GHz (Quad Core)
Motherboard: EVGA X58 LE Edition SLI (Intel X58 Chipset)
System Memory: 6GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series
Power Supply: 750W Digital Storm Certified
Hard Drive Set 1: 1x (500GB Western Digital (16MB Cache) (7200 RPM)
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Video Card: 1x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 1.5GB (Includes PhysX Technology)
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
Extreme Cooling: AIR: Stage 1: Noctua Dual 120mm Fans High Performance Cooler
Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Boost Processor: FREE: Stage 1: Overclock the processor between 3.3GHz to 3.9GHz (Cooling Upgrade Recommended)
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-Bit Edition)
Restore Kit: Digital Storm Specialized Recovery System (DVD Image Based)
Install/Test Game: FREE: Hot-selling game
Exclusive T-Shirt: FREE: Digital Storm T-Shirt - Black (Large)
Warranty: Life-time Expert Customer Care with 3 Year Limited Warranty

With that configuration, expect your processor to be overclocked to about 3.8 GHz. Unless you do some professional video/picture editing, there's no need whatsoever for 12GB of RAM.

EQ2 will run on high settings no problem.

Edited by Runes - 16 Aug 2010 at 1:30pm
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Posts: 4219 		  Quote !ender_ Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 16 Aug 2010 at 1:56pm
what he said^
 
even if alienware's was less expensive, it would still be a worse option, check out the "super guide" in the config section to understand why he made these choices over yours......... especially the video card
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Posts: 164 		  Quote Ch3ssplay3r Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 16 Aug 2010 at 2:15pm
Originally posted by !ender_

what he said^
 

even if alienware's was less expensive, it would still be a worse option, check out the "super guide" in the config section to understand why he made these choices over yours......... especially the video card



Yeah the 5670 is.. *shudders* yeah. you don't want that. A 480 is far far far superior. The processor will be overclocked more, you'll get a better warranty, and far better service, and it's less expensive. (don't even try calling alienware for tech support)   
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Posts: 150 		  Quote Warpig Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 16 Aug 2010 at 2:36pm
Originally posted by Ch3ssplay3r

Originally posted by !ender_

what he said^
 

even if alienware's was less expensive, it would still be a worse option, check out the "super guide" in the config section to understand why he made these choices over yours......... especially the video card



Yeah the 5670 is.. *shudders* yeah. you don't want that. A 480 is far far far superior. The processor will be overclocked more, you'll get a better warranty, and far better service, and it's less expensive. (don't even try calling alienware for tech support)   
 
Thanks everyone I appreciate it, the reason I chose AW is they were the only company I found who had at least a decent reputation and a PC in range of what I wanted to spend. I know many of you will tell me they don't but in relative terms I think it is at least a good rep, and I clearly understand by trolling here for months and doing research that DSO is a great company with great support, warranties etc.
 
Any reason to NOT overclock the GPU?
Should the OC'd CPU be watercooled?
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Posts: 4219 		  Quote !ender_ Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 16 Aug 2010 at 2:47pm
the sad thing is that alienwares good name is from before they were bought out
 
Any reason to NOT overclock the GPU?
noise, if you care
Should the OC'd CPU be watercooled?
this is covered in the guide
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Posts: 150 		  Quote Warpig Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 16 Aug 2010 at 3:50pm

I re-read the guide and understand better about the liquid versus air cooling, seems it is not necessary.

I am going to keep working on various builds, chassis etc, oh and there is a 28" monitor my wife will kill yell at me like this >  Upset
 
I will be in-touch with one of the DSO reps this week if anyone else has build suggestions please post ideas.
 
Additionally speaking of monitors I have no experience with any of the monitors listed in the build configurator, I am after 22 inch or bigger if anyone can speak to this I would be grateful.


Edited by Warpig - 16 Aug 2010 at 3:51pm
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Posts: 4219 		  Quote !ender_ Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 16 Aug 2010 at 4:03pm
runes is pretty spot on there, i woudnt change anything unless you had very specific needs
 
as far as monitors, anything i could add is already in the guide,best thing i can say is to try and see them in person before buying, everyones opinions tend to differ to some extent
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Posts: 150 		  Quote Warpig Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 16 Aug 2010 at 4:15pm
Originally posted by !ender_

runes is pretty spot on there, i woudnt change anything unless you had very specific needs
 
as far as monitors, anything i could add is already in the guide,best thing i can say is to try and see them in person before buying, everyones opinions tend to differ to some extent
 
I wish I could see the monitors in person, I live in a rural part of the stae and there are not many if any stores nearby where I could see one of these.
 
I just wondered if anyone had an opinion not on the way the monitor presents the images and or how it works technically, rather I am interested in any opinions related to the quality of these monitors.
 
Thanks again
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Posts: 4219 		  Quote !ender_ Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 16 Aug 2010 at 4:22pm
just stick to 1920x1080
5ms or less
asus and acer for value
samsung and LG for quality, but a little more expensive
hp is pretty good too
 
check out newegg.com, sort by 1920x1080 and best rating
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Posts: 150 		  Quote Warpig Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 16 Aug 2010 at 6:24pm
You are really helpful and I appreciate it, I am interested in the Hanns 28" monitor, if anyone could tell me is this it?
 
Edit I don't htink it is the same monitor as the one on New Egg has built in speakers which I do not need. Reviews on the Hanns G monitor seem mixed
 
 


Edited by Warpig - 16 Aug 2010 at 7:09pm
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Posts: 4219 		  Quote !ender_ Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 16 Aug 2010 at 9:33pm
yea ive never seen that company be a star for quality
keep in mind too, that the higher you go in total inches, the more stretching there will be for the resolution
think of a youtube video when you choose to maximize it, you loose sharpness, gain overall size
22 is a better range in my opinion
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Posts: 150 		  Quote Warpig Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 17 Aug 2010 at 12:51pm

Again you have been very helpful and correct in your advice, thanks again.

As to the monitor I have a 3 year old Dell 22" monitor I think I may just use it and use an old CRT on what will become my second PC (my current Dell).
 
Can you speak to the cases it was recommended that I choose the Cooler Master HAF 932 but I also like the looks of the Cooler Master 942 HAF X. Are there any advantages / disadvantages to either or are they booth good from a cooling / airflow perspective?
 
Are these cases / fans really as quiet as what I have read here / researched elsewhere or would it be advantageous to have the sound dampening option installed?
 
I e-mailed DSO lat night and am hoping I hear form the mtoday as I have a bunch of other questions.
 
I haven't even ordered a PC yet and I am psyched.
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Posts: 16314 		  Quote Alex Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 17 Aug 2010 at 3:14pm
Awesome! If you don't seem to see a response, please double check your SPAM/Junk mail folder as our emails can get flagged.
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Posts: 4219 		  Quote !ender_ Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 17 Aug 2010 at 4:23pm
Can you speak to the cases it was recommended that I choose the Cooler Master HAF 932 but I also like the looks of the Cooler Master 942 HAF X. Are there any advantages / disadvantages to either or are they booth good from a cooling / airflow perspective?
almost exactly the same except price, choose whichever one you like, no disadvantage
 
Are these cases / fans really as quiet as what I have read here / researched elsewhere or would it be advantageous to have the sound dampening option installed?
with the haf cases you do not need sound dampening, plus with the open air design it wouldnt do much
if you want something as close to dead silent as possible, you could get stage 1 noise supression, not 2 though
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Posts: 150 		  Quote Warpig Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 17 Aug 2010 at 6:04pm
Originally posted by Alex

Awesome! If you don't seem to see a response, please double check your SPAM/Junk mail folder as our emails can get flagged.
 
Hello Alex, nothing as of yet, nothing in Junk Mail. Is 24 hours too long to have recieved a resonse?
 
Not trying to be a smart ass just asking.
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Posts: 150 		  Quote Warpig Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 17 Aug 2010 at 7:19pm

An additional hardware vs cost / performance quesiton - Are the Killer Xeno Pro and or Killer 2100 Network cards worht the cost? Do they really reduce lag, latency etc as advertised?
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Posts: 2247 		  Quote Dragoonseal Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 17 Aug 2010 at 7:21pm
Originally posted by Warpig

An additional hardware vs cost / performance quesiton - Are the Killer Xeno Pro and or Killer 2100 Network cards worht the cost? Do they really reduce lag, latency etc as advertised?

No and no.

Pay your ISP more for a better connection or just get a better ISP altogether, that's about the best you're gonna get in that regard.
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Posts: 150 		  Quote Warpig Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 17 Aug 2010 at 7:33pm
I have a 15 mbps connection now on cable, thanks for the input.
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Posts: 150 		  Quote Warpig Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 18 Aug 2010 at 6:41pm
Are the any significant differences, advantages / disadvantages between the following two hard drives?
 
Hard Drive Set 1: 1x (500GB Western Digital (16MB Cache) (7200 RPM)
Hard Drive Set 1: 1x (1TB Hitachi/Seagate (32MB Cache) (7200 RPM)
 
Thank you for any input you may have
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Well obviously there's a difference in overall size, but as for the cache size, here's a post made by fellow member Dragoonseal about the topic:

Eh, it could go either way, it's kind of subjective whether or not to call it a big jump in performance or not. So you're all kind of right.

There are definitely extremely little performance differences between drives that are similar but have different cache amounts. For example 1TB 32MB cache HDDs, 1TB 64MB cache HDDs, they're all pretty much the same with only around a 5% performance difference at most. This holds true for smaller HDDs too, the difference between 500GB 8MB cache HDDs and 500GB 16MB cache HDDs is almost not measurable.

But there is a larger, and much more measurable, difference between what I would call generations of HDDs. The performance of 500GB and 1TB generations of HDDs is larger not only because of larger cache sizes (if that is even much of a factor at all) but because of overall improvements on a lot of levels. Increased platter sizes, increased data density, increased number of platters, faster spindle heads, etc.

So a whole generation of improvements, which makes a bigger difference, but with HDD performance numbers being so damn small regardless I don't know if you could really call it a big or huge difference. I want to say that most 500GB HDDs max out around 80MB/s for sequential speeds and 1TB HDDs max out at around 130MB/s. And small file speeds are.. ugh almost unmeasurable on any conventional HDDs, I don't have any numbers on hand but the difference there should be be significant.

I say this is subjective cause on one hand you can sit there and say 80MB/s to 130MB/s, that's a 60% improvement! But then on the other hand we're only taking sequential speeds, and we're only taking a 50MB/s difference, so eh. This becomes especially irrelevant if you can fit a SSD for OS/apps into the mix, because then the HDD is only for media storage and the speed difference becomes fairly moot.

Here's an old HDD article I just found doing a Google search. It's old and on last gen 500GB HDDs but the info is still all pertinent to the discussion. Conventional HDD tech remains unchanged from then, just bigger, more density, more cache, etc.
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Posts: 150 		  Quote Warpig Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 18 Aug 2010 at 7:43pm
Thank you, I iwll give HDD further consideration
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Posts: 150 		  Quote Warpig Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 19 Aug 2010 at 6:47pm
Originally posted by Runes

Here's a config for $1847 that leaves plenty of room for you to buy an even bigger, better monitor than the one you had in the Alienware configuration:

http://www.digitalstormonline.com/comploadsaved.asp?id=432309

Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Cooler Master HAF 932
Processor: Intel Core i7 930 2.8GHz (Quad Core)
Motherboard: EVGA X58 LE Edition SLI (Intel X58 Chipset)
System Memory: 6GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series
Power Supply: 750W Digital Storm Certified
Hard Drive Set 1: 1x (500GB Western Digital (16MB Cache) (7200 RPM)
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Video Card: 1x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 1.5GB (Includes PhysX Technology)
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
Extreme Cooling: AIR: Stage 1: Noctua Dual 120mm Fans High Performance Cooler
Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Boost Processor: FREE: Stage 1: Overclock the processor between 3.3GHz to 3.9GHz (Cooling Upgrade Recommended)
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-Bit Edition)
Restore Kit: Digital Storm Specialized Recovery System (DVD Image Based)
Install/Test Game: FREE: Hot-selling game
Exclusive T-Shirt: FREE: Digital Storm T-Shirt - Black (Large)
Warranty: Life-time Expert Customer Care with 3 Year Limited Warranty

With that configuration, expect your processor to be overclocked to about 3.8 GHz. Unless you do some professional video/picture editing, there's no need whatsoever for 12GB of RAM.

EQ2 will run on high settings no problem.
 
Been creating builds all week, I like this one (Thank you Runes) except I swapped to the Haf X 942 case, what does everyone think? I plan to order this tomorrow if I hear back from Sarah on several questions I have.
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Posts: 150 		  Quote Warpig Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 19 Aug 2010 at 6:51pm
Originally posted by !ender_

just stick to 1920x1080
5ms or less
asus and acer for value
samsung and LG for quality, but a little more expensive
hp is pretty good too
 
check out newegg.com, sort by 1920x1080 and best rating
 
The Dell monitor I have is 22" and my native max resolution is 1680x1050, it is about 3 years old. Any opinions etc on something like this versus one of the less expensive ones on the DSO site?
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Posts: 4219 		  Quote !ender_ Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 19 Aug 2010 at 7:05pm

modding runes setup with a haf x is a good build

as far as monitor, its all preference, you would certainly be sidelining a lot of the power that your 480 has, a 480 is extremely happy at 1920x1080 (inch measure does not matter at all)
just look for something that is 1920x1080, 5ms or less, the rest is up to you, but id really suggest hitting up a local store and seeing what looks good to your eyes
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Posts: 150 		  Quote Warpig Quote  Post ReplyReply bullet Posted: 19 Aug 2010 at 7:07pm
Originally posted by !ender_

modding runes setup with a haf x is a good build

as far as monitor, its all preference, you would certainly be sidelining a lot of the power that your 480 has, a 480 is extremely happy at 1920x1080 (inch measure does not matter at all)
just look for something that is 1920x1080, 5ms or less, the rest is up to you, but id really suggest hitting up a local store and seeing what looks good to your eyes
 
Yer always here dude and thank you


Edited by Warpig - 19 Aug 2010 at 7:13pm
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