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Can't Decide What I Want


Nathan_M
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Its the time of the year for me again, i have spent almost 12 months saving up and being tight, between car repair bills and such, anyway my laptop does seem to be getting a bit choppy and this will not be tolerated :ph34r: , so im looking at various different types of machine from all out power to expensive and good looking, i have narrowed it down to one of the following machines all at different price points:

Alienware M14x

CPU: Intel i7 3630qm

GPU: Nvidia GT650m 2GB

Ram: 6GB 1600mhz

HDD: 500GB 7200rpm

SCREEN: 1600x900 14"

£794.22

£79.42 x 10 Months

Alienware X51

CPU: I3 3220

GPU: Nvidia GTX 645 1GB

Ram: 6GB 1333mhz

HDD: 1TB 7200rpm

£ 538.48

£53.84 x 10 Months

Vaio Fit:

CPU: I5 3337u

GPU: Nvidia GT735M 1GB

Ram: 8GB 1600mhz

HDD: 750GB 5400rpm 8GB accelerator drive

SCREEN:1920x1080 15"

+ 4 year warranty

£709

£59.08 x 12 Months

Vaio Pro:

CPU: i5 4200u

GPU: Intel 4400

Ram: 4GB 1600mhz

HDD: 128GB SSD

SCREEN: 1920x1280 11"

+ 4 year warranty

£859

£71.58 x 12 Months

Vaio Duo 13:

CPU: i5 4200u

GPU: Intel 4400

Ram: 4GB 1600mhz

HDD: 128GB SSD

SCREEN: 1920x1080 13"

+ 4 year warranty

£1299

£108.25 x 12 Months

Vaio Duo 11:

CPU: i5 3337u

GPU: Intel 4000

Ram: 4GB 1600mhz

HDD: 256GB SSD

+4 year warranty

£ 1078.99

£ 89.91 x 12 Months

Vaio L series AIO:

top model

£1450

£120.83 x 12 Months

Mac Mini:

Base Line

£489 (including keyboard and mouse)

My problem is im worried that i might buy something that wont have enough power for me when i want to play a game which is something i dont want to all the while i need the power, i also need the HDD space for photo's, and would like decent bundled software for photo and video editing, its a tough decision to be honest, what do you guys think as i will probably be pre ordering an Xbox ONE anyway.

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What games are you looking at playing? You mentioning games and being worried cuts out all the Intel GPU's to me instantly, but then I'm a fan of keeping Intel to my CPU's, ASUS to my motherboards and Nvidia to my GPU's :P

My pick would probably be the Alienware's, the M14x at that price is really good, and would tempt me away from my laptop at that :P

However, how come you included a desktop with the laptops? The X51 is nice but I feel if you're going down the desktop route you could probably do better for the price.

What you need to think is what do you really need? Personally if you're looking for a gaming PC, you want an SSD or 7200rpm HDD, ideally an SSD; if it doesn't come with one add £140 for one onto your budget. I'd also upgrade your RAM to 8gb, it's not necessary but for the cheap price, why not? You'd only need a single 4gb stick on a 6gb computer. Ideally you want 4GB minimum.

Then you need to know your processors, an i7 is nice but adds a premium, when an i5 would be just as good most likely, your processor is eaten with high demand programs, rather than games, i3 processors work nicely on most gaming computers. The clock speed is also important, and overclocking speeds is important too, as an i5 running at 3.50ghz, may be better for you than an i7 at 2.20ghz for what you want.

GPU's are also important and I'd advise you to look carefully at these, a GTX 780 in every computer would be amazing, but also adds a price hike that you may not need. I like Nvidia GPU's, but that's just me. A bit of advice is to head to their site to check out what the GPU's say they'll handle, and let you know of what game performance for various games will be.

Personally, an i5 with a 256gb SSD with a decent GT/GTS/GTX GPU will do nicely (GTX being the better if you can), but then this is personal preference. I keep my laptop with a 256gb SSD and a 1tb external harddrive that I picked up for peanuts.

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Thanks for the response, I have been looking for years at building a pc but I simply don't use one enough to render it worth the price to be fair, for 550 quid I have sourced this before

I3 3220

GTX 650 TI BOOST EVGA SSC or XFX 7850 DD

4GB Corsair ram 1600mix

Asus h77 or b75 up to 80quid

550w xfx psu

500gb seagate 7200rpm

CM k280 case

Win8

DVD drive

Problem is now that I have just brought the Note 8 so I'm out of the market again, haha. I play FSX,Iracing and a few other PC only games, problem is that they all want a bootful of power which I couldn't justify for the amount of use it would see

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Windows 8 is really not worth getting on a build, 7 is much better until windows 8 is actually made half decent. For £550 that's pretty decent if honest.

I know iRacing takes a lot of power to run, I've never played it but I know people who have. I've gone by until recently a powerful desktop and a decent laptop, I decided to buy a higher end ASUS this time round, but still keep most of my gaming to my desktop,

Recently upgraded my desktop courtesy of scan, and a hit on my bank balance :P went for;

i7 4770K

GTX 780

16GB Corsair Vengeance (in red, because obviously everyone is going to see it in a case :P )

ASUS Z87-Deluxe

750W Corsair PSU

64GB Sandisk SSD for the OS, 120GB Sandisk SSD for games, 320GB Seagate 5400RPM as backup for the OS and games, 1TB Seagate SSHD for everything else, bit sceptical on these hybrid's though.

Cooler Master Storm Trooper case (bought this off the internet)

Windows 7 Ultimate

Blu-ray drive

Floppy disk drive :P

My laptop is aging, but still good :P

i7 2670QM

GT555M 2GB

8GB Corsair RAM

256GB Sandisk SSD

Windows 7 Premium

Blu-ray drive

Bang & Olufsen Speakers (why I bought the laptop, best Speakers ever :P)

Will play Skyrim on Ultra without an EMB which isn't bad for a lappy.

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  • 1 month later...

I agree with all of the above just wanted to add that performance wise the SSD is the way to go as its access speeds should be more than enough for any game the only downside is storage capacity vs cost even 128gb drives are far more expensive than a SATA hard disk, so what i would suggest if you store a lot of photos get the SSD drive option but buy an additional external hard drive for storage 1TB around £40 is not to bad and that frees up the SSD drive for your gaming.

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Im back, and im thinking away from a self build for now, its really between an x51 mid model with the core i5, or an alienware 14,17 laptop both packing a core i7 and gtx770m, but the spanner in the works is the Vaio all in one because it has a 2 year warranty vs 1 and a nice big 2TB hard drive, and the added gimmick of 3d which i may well use, it also packs some great software including Sony Vegas, so its possible i will be buying myself a Christmas/birthday present soon after i have dealt with the old car insurance/service/MOT debarkle.

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Self building is very bad, just coughed up £2,500 for a new computer :( lol

Warranty is always good, which is why I also got myself a new laptop from ASUS :P

3D isn't bad for films but few games support it well. Vegas Pro is a decent piece of kit if you know how to use it though.

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Self building is very bad, just coughed up £2,500 for a new computer :( lol

Warranty is always good, which is why I also got myself a new laptop from ASUS :P

3D isn't bad for films but few games support it well. Vegas Pro is a decent piece of kit if you know how to use it though.

Im back into geek mode here, and wont be spending that much if i build it, i don't struggle with software courtesy of my A level IT experience, i have now decided upon parts that i would like if i do pull the trigger:

CASE: Bit fenix Prodigy (Black/Green)(Link)

MB: Gigabyte GA-H77N-WIFI (because of built in wifi)

CPU: I5 3570

RAM: Corsair XMS3 1600mhz 2x2GB

GPU: EVGA 650ti Boost SSC

PSU: XFX 650w S-Modular XXX edition (or) Seasonic 620w non modular (to save money would be around £15 saved)

DVDDrive: Retail Asus 24x (cheaper than OEM)

HDD: Seagate 320GB 7200 drive (only £19)

Total Price(including OS):

£649.66

My main issue now is do i pay 8 quid more for a Z77 board and upgrade to a K series i7 later on when the price does eventually drop or spend 20+ on a Haswell base for the future or perhaps spend that 20 - 40 quid on a GTX660 or 760 to give me a future proof ish PC? My absolute max will be £700.

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You are paying nearly £70 for a box and cutting corners on a (basically obsolete) £19 hard-drive - it should be the other way round - the hard drive is an important part of the system - you would be better with a silent, ultra fast but small SSD (as mik has suggested) and add and external USB3 or SATA hard drive later ( of a decent size = 1, 2 or 3 TB)

Modern PCs, programs and OSs are very RAM- hungry - these days 4gig is a piddling amount of ram - if you only have 4 gig once your programs etc require more it will start running off the hard-drive - and if you have a realatively slow "old" 320gig hard-drive the system will slow to a crawl - better with 16gig of RAM, even if its not the latest super-dooper stuff

Look for chips etc you can overclock (often the different chips/ CPUs etc are identical apart from the multiplier etc) - + sometimes a component might have 10% more performance and cost 200+% more - look at the "bang for buck" / think about choosing older or mid-range tech - think about the overall system performance than over-speccing one component and under- speccing others (you wouldent put (££££££s) F1 wheels on a Fiesta, would you - likewise - the system should have a "balanced" performance)

"Future proof" is a term i have heard over and over again, history has taught me that the term is meaningless, or if you can "future proof" a PC, its for 6-months max - you could order all the latest components, build your PC and it could be obsolete by the 1st time you power it up!

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I know this is a stupid thing to say as in future proof but for what im doing it would last me for years to be fair, i would probably change the HDD for an OCZ 90GB ssd which is sold for around £55 at aria, im only really considering the case shown because of its size, i haven't got any room at the minute at all and my only other option is an Alienware x51 from above or a higher spec one and to be fair its expensive for what it is. my big debate is Ivy bridge old socket in respect to price or haswell and new socket for future upgrades, to me the ivybridge is good enough for what i want and saves me money to spend on more ram etc, unless someone can find a small case which has the same visual and physical qualities of this for a lesser price?

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Does it absolutely have to be a Mini ITX? I have that case with an Nvidia GTX Titan in it and it's a lovely case, just Mini ITX cases don't have much support in terms of low end cases and that £70 on the case could be £40 somewhere else, an SSD for example.

Also that graphics card is a little lower spec, you can do better if honest.

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