Opinion on buying new Desktop PC

As with any brand name PC they are just a chassis and the end user picks the parts. That specific PC based on the Radeon R7, HD, and GeForce GT GPU's is meant to be a mid to low end gaming PC depending on what CPU and GPU the user wants.

If gaming is what the OP is after why not this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Combo...EMC-051614-Latest-_-Combo-_-Combo1656007-LM2A

Thing is pretty beastly for the price paid. Of course Id upgrade the RAM with another 8Gb stick and you would have to pick out a GPU.

 

Build my own, as always.
Mrk

 

Couldn't agree more.

 

Few weeks ago build a cheap FM2 + rig for a relative that runs almost any game on a 720p resolution TV.
It was made out of an AMD FM2 (older gen APU) 5800K ,a MSI FM2 + cheap mobo based on the A78 chipset (PCI-E 3.0 ,SATA 3.0 ,USB3.0) ,8 Gigs of DDR3 1866Mhz 9CL Crucial RAM ,a 1TB WD Blue Hard drive and some medium quality 450W power supply.
30W idle and around 180W in load when playing Dirt 2 for example.
The youngster was quite happy with the overall performance as he was playing Far Cry 3 on the APU HDMI output on the TV.He can add a discrete GPU from AMD(R7 -even R9) in the future to take advantage of the Mantle API for the games to come ,so the weaker quad core(compared to Intel) is easily compensated.
They were also surprised of the internet speed when switching form an Intel laptop to this desktop.
So you can go quite cheap this days for a capable desktop PC.
If you put the money on the SSD ,high speed RAM ( required for GPU part of the APU -the higher the better ) and a good video card you are good to go.
I tend to prefer AMD for video instead of Nvidia because after having issues with my 8800GT i went for an 5770 and other AMD cards after and they simply performed better.Similar power GPU-s are usually cheaper from AMD.I also had more BSOD-s with Nvidia drivers in the past since TNT 2 than after switching to AMD.

 

Currently i have an AMD GPU but personally i prefer Nvidia over AMD ANYDAY.
I dont know if its me but AMD Drivers are extremely unstable and thats after i've tried half a dozen stable releases and another half a dozen beta releases with no luck.

Before my current GPU i had 3 Nvidia GPUs and i never had any problems with my drivers for almost 15 years of owning Nvidia graphic cards. I do have to admit that the reason i got an AMD card this time was because they offer better performance for a lower price but their drivers SUCK.
Nvidia all the way for GPU.

 

I have appreciated Nvidia for the value they had on their cards in the past until 2007.I was practically an Nvidia fanboy .
Had TNT2 ,FX 5200 ,FX 6200 (unlockable to 6600) <- great cards and value if you could unlock them ,a crappy 7600 GS that would cry for additional power even though it had it and worked just fine ,BIOS modded to mute it ,2X 8800GT-s (G92) both artefacting after 2 years of usage <-that i cooked in my oven ,this being the last from Nvidia.One of them wanted only 2 drivers as with others COD 4 would lock.Liked to play with Riva Tuner on them also.
I would say that in 2 years of usage i used only 2 drivers for the 8800GT due to stability issues.2 drivers each series are ok from my experience.Not to many form the huge number of releases they were doing in the past

When back in the 2006-2008 they had aquired the GPU market (as ATI was being absorbed by AMD) and forced the PC gaming to stay at DX 10 ages for years i decided to drop them.
They made monopoly and transformed themselves in a greedy corporation that stopped evolving.And if AMD woudn t have launched 3xxx and 4xxx series we would still have the G92 rebadged over an over .

Avoiding greedy corporations like Intel and Nvidia is what i usually do as the keep the prices high so some fat so called investors to get some profit.
As long as AMD is keeping prices low and affordable i would buy from them.
Drivers are good ,not great ,but in any way no AMD driver killed cards like 180 series Forcewares did with G92-s
AMD cards were also less CPU dependent even before Mantle.
AMD middle range are better in the same price range with Nvidia.For some reason Nvidia cards have now higher prices on the same performance levels.Back in 2003-2006 it was the other way around.

For me drivers with AMD are no issues ,they always worked except some releases that had issues on 4xxx cards on UE 3 engine.

I also remember when i was having the 8800GT the problems i ve had with UT 2004 as Nvidia needed 2 years to remove a microstuter bug from the game in spite of the huge GPU performance.Even the TNT2 was runing the game more fluently
So using Nvidia drivers quality as a justification for buying an Nvidia card is not enough in my book.It s a factor that may be interesting for dual tri card configs and even there Nvidia had and has issues if the cards are multi chip.

Both vendors are relatively ok in driver releases in my view and the price should be the main factor.Mantle API is another one if you are not using some pretty expensive CPU.

Just my opinion.

PS:Still having a working AGP 4x TNT2 somewhere in a box.It made history for me with Windows Me.Kept it deliberately.So i still own Nvidia as they were being made once.They were a great company in the past.
Forgot to add the many games AMD sponsored since they launched the DX 11 series (the HD 5xxx cards)
AMD is more in the PC gaming than Nvidia and the Nvidia meant to be played has also become history.They don t even sponsor games as they did before.The number of great titles helped by AMD is biger than Nvidias.So when i pay for an AMD card i also help PC gaming industry more than when buying Nvidia cards and we all know AMD is not great on the money side as a company.

 

Even with the driver issues i recommended a friend that asked for help to build a new PC to go with a full setup with AMD CPU and GPU.

 

I´m not a hardware gamer, I still play old games like Unreal Tournament and FIFA 06. But if I pay this much I want a better GPU, something like the AMD Radeon R9 270. Because I´m planning to play newer games, for example, I enjoyed Need for Speed (forget which version) on Win 8 a lot.

 

Quite weird that they don´t mention it on the website. So if you´re correct then it should be this one:
http://www.asus.com/Graphics_Cards/GTX650DC1GD5/

But I discovered that this isn´t the topmodel from Asus, it´s this one: http://www.asus.com/Desktops/G10AC/ Sadly it´s not available yet over here in Holland. Also, when I look at the dimensions, it seems to be too big, and it got this ugly light thingy (see link), this all really sucks!

http://forums.vr-zone.com/asus-ecus...s-new-generation-desktop-unbox-g10ac-ups.html

 

the Asus G10 has a fair bit of negative reviews at Newegg
also the case looks poorly ventilated
and the PSUs in these machines are always poor

you really should just choose the parts and build it
or have the shop build it for you

 

Yeah, I was surprised by the 300 watt PSU in the ASUS M70, even my 8 year old HP desktop has a 400 watt PSU.

It´s also way too expensive if you look at the specs, why do they have to be so greedy? These guys are insane.

http://www.asus.com/Desktops/M70AD/specifications/

 

An AMD 5800K APU ,6800K or second tier 5600K and similar will play Unreal Tournament 2004 or UT 3 on 1920X1080 just fine with max details.You can also play DIrt 2 or BF BC2 at almost full detail with NO discrete video card.
AMD FM2 /FM2+APU-s have great GPU power as long as the RAM used is 1866Mhz or higher.
You can also play Company of Heroes just fine even with 4 ,2 vs 2 skirmish

Even the new AM1 that AMD launched few weeks ago can play those games ,and such machine is dirt cheap.If you put an old ATI 6850 into an AM1 system you cna play even BF3 lol.

 

It´s so weird, in the USA they give you 16GB RAM, but only a small 8GB SSD. In Holland you get 8GB RAM and a 64GB SSD. Of course it´s also way cheaper: 834 euro (1140 dollar) vs 1105 euro in Holland.

http://tiny.cc/yp94gx
http://tiny.cc/2u94gx

Question: how big should a SSD be in able to speed up Windows and apps? I want to buy the Asus, but the 64GB SSD bothers me.

 

First of all, that's a hybrid drive setup with the SSD used for caching the HDD. Windows would "see" it as one drive, but the SSD would speed up some operations. I would strongly prefer just having the OS and applications on the SSD and keeping the HDD separate for media/large data storage.

Second, the size would depend on your needs, as well as how you configure it. I've been getting by with a 60GB SSD, but I only have the OS and applications on it. If you disable hibernation and reduce the size of your swap file, you can save quite a bit of space, as the hibernate file is 75% the size of your RAM.

 

OK, so it´s even worse! Why can´t they just standarize all models? It´s probably because of the costs involved? In the USA the HP desktops are way cheaper than in Europe, it´s probably because they make them in the US, I guess.

And I get a feeling that Asus, HP and Dell are robbing people, I´ve checked the Medion (now part of Lenovo) site and they offer a lot more for less! They offer a bigger SSD, a much better GPU and even hot swappable drives!

Btw, Dell has to be one of the most stupid companies ever, their site won´t even run normally on my old PC, it´s way too heavy. So no Dell for me.

http://www.medion.com/gb/prod/MEDION AKOYA P5301 G PC/310018780
http://www.medion.com/gb/prod/MEDION AKOYA PC P5322 G/310019060

 

why don't you just choose the parts, tell the shop to build it and stop complaining

 

Couldn't agree more.

 

Yes, I know what you mean, but I´ve already explained this, I feel better when I buy a well known brand. That is also the reason why I won´t buy the Medion desktop. I just wish they would stop ripping people off.

 

that makes no sense

anyway...

 

check this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVnl4HIHPY
it'll make you feel better about well known brands

 

Pretty darn funny. I hope I catch part 2.

 

I still need to check that video. Btw, the latest news: HP as introduced a new desktop, lowest price is now 1230 euro, I´m waiting for it to drop to 1150 euro. Is this a nice desktop or what?

Scroll down for the specs:

http://store.hp.com/NetherlandsStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=J2F07EA&opt=ABH&sel=PCDT

 

I think this is part 2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRP3G8Lqv8s

 

Cheap case.

 

cheap case, cheap GPU (for the total price)
I'm sure the PSU is of poor quality (they always are)

if you don't buy a branded desktop out of ignorance... why, oh why do you buy it