PC Looking for New Desktop

[SirBloodLust]

I have been looking into getting a new Desktop I currently have a laptop used mostly for email and surfing the net. I real don't know much when it comes to computers or gaming on one, but I play Skyrim and Battlefield 3 on a xbox these games look so much better on a PC. Seens my family doesn't have a desktop I thought now would be a good time to remedy that . I really don't want to bother with building a computer and I have had many dells in the past so I was thinking about getting this from dell.com for $880. Another reason I thought this was a good deal was I get the whole bundle for a reasonable price I don't have a monitor, keyboard, mouse, or speakers.

Inspiron 620 ST Inspiron 620 Slimtower

Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64Bit

PROCESSOR 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i5-2320 processor (3.0GHz with 6MB Cache)
HARD DRIVE 1TB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache
MEMORY 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 2 DIMMs
VIDEO CARD Intel® HD Graphics
SOUND CARD Integrated 5.1
MEDIA READER Integrated 8 in 1 Media Card Reader
Network Card Standard USB 2.0 + 10/100/1000 Ethernet
OPTICAL DRIVE 16X DVD+/-RW Drive
WIRELESS Dell Wireless 1502 (802.11n) WLAN half mini-Card

MONITOR Dell ST2420L 24"W Full HD Monitor
KEYBOARD Logitech MK550 Wireless Wave Keyboard and Mouse Combo edit
MOUSE Logitech M505 Wireless Mouse with Unifying Receiver edit
SPEAKERS Creative Labs Inspire T12 Stereo Speaker System

I would like to play skyrim at its highest settings and us alot of mods do you think this computer would be able to do this?

Any suggestion?

 

[psyk0]

The one major problem with that system is that it's using on-board graphics, which will make Skyrim look like cat vomit. Really you want an ATI or NVidia graphics card to get premium performance.

There's a site called Tom's Hardware which reviews PC hardware for gamers - this article in particular compares a number of recent graphics cards for Skyrim performance.
High Detail, FXAA Enabled : Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: PC Performance, Benchmarked

To be honest, anything better than an ATI Radeon HD 4850 will look okay (that's what I used to have), but you want something meaty if you want the game to look really good.

Something else you might want to consider is investing in a Solid-State Drive, instead of the 1TB rotary (old-style) hard drive. They're essentially made from RAM chips instead of relying on the old disk-and-needle technology, so they're lightning quick. It'll cut your load times by at least 75%. You won't get as much storage space on one, though - a 160GB drive will cost you £100 or so - so you might want to get a small SSD, put your Windows and Skyrim installs on it, and then store everything else on a rotary drive.

I would strongly, STRONGLY recommend that you DON'T buy a package from Dell, Alienware or similar companies. They'll overcharge you for a system that won't be optimal. You could easily go to a local computer shop and ask them to build you a gaming machine, and it'll be more powerful and - most importantly - cost you a lot less.

Failing that, make friends with a geek and get them to build it!

EDIT: 'PC World' does not count as a local computer shop, btw. The average staff member in there can't walk and chew gum at the same time.

 

[SirBloodLust]

Thanks for your input psyko, I well be looking into having a custom build cumputer built for me but in the mean time I did look at another overcharge dell the XPS 8300

OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64Bit, English
PROCESSORS 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i5-2320 processor (3.0GHz with 6MB Cache)
MEMORY 8GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 4 DIMMs
HARD DRIVE 1TB Performance RAID 0 (2 x 500GB SATA 3Gb/s 7200 RPM HDDs)
VIDEO CARD 1GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 545
MONITOR Dell ST2420L 24"W Full HD Monitor, 24.0 VIS

My only concern with the cumputer is the Hard Drive as psyko menchened earlier I should invest in a SSD Hard drive I might be wrong about this but I don't think Dell offers any SSD Hard Drives for there desktops, are threre any computer manufacturers that do? I did however uprade the Hard Drive in these build from the "HARD DRIVE 1TB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache" in the Inspiron 620 ST Inspiron 620 Slimtower do you think this would help or just a waste of money? Please keep in mind that I want play skyrim at its highest settings and us alot of mods.

Any thing else other then the price that I should be concerned about with this computer?

 

[psyk0]

The problem with SSDs is that they're comparatively new technology, and I don't think any Dell packages (or those from similar companies) will come with them; for your typical 'home user' (which is Dell's target audience) it's unnecessary and confusing, so they don't put them in packages. They're laughably easy to fit, though, if you just wanted to buy one from Ebuyer or Overclockers or even Amazon; just plug in two cables and it's good to go, pretty much.

That system isn't bad at all, and that graphics card is actually pretty good. Honestly I've never heard of Databurst Cache but I would imagine it's a waste of money Beyond that I think you'd certainly get very nice performance out of the XPS 8300, but again, if you take those specs to a smaller shop they'll make you something just as good for 60% of the cost.

Something else that'll make a difference is that the RAM is only 1333Mhz speed. You should look into something closer to 1450 or even 1600 if you can; it means the RAM can be accessed much faster which will provide a tangible performance increase. That's something you're unlikely to find with a package deal though.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, I think I know what the DataBurst Cache is; my partner had something similar set up on his SSD. Basically it stores frequently-accessed data in an easy-to-find place, so after you load Skyrim a few times it'll load it much faster later on. Kinda handy, but by no means essential.

 

[SirBloodLust]

Thanks again pycko when I find a local shop to build a custom computer for me I well let them what about the specs you have suggested also could you please post your recommended specs for me?

In the mean time I well be playing skyrim on my XBOX, and when I make up my mind I'll let everyone know before I buy. If any one has any suggestions please post them I really do like getting feed back from the PC gamers.

 

[Halkin]

not sure of your budget, or currency, so this mileage may vary, but if i was gonna build something for skyrim right now i'd go with:

cpu: i5-2500k (plenty)
board: MSI P67A-GD53
gfx: Nvidia GTX 570 1.3GB (prices dropping)
memory: 4GB 1600MHz ddr3
sound: Asus Xonar DS (why not, get some sound love)
power: 750w will be plenty for this

cooling: get the best air cooler you can, not sure on this i use water

thats the core of the machine anyway, for hard drive space if you have the spare cash get an SSD for windows and store (more or less) everything on a different drive. also note you can use some witchcraft called mklink that will let steam run from the second drive but still have Skyrim on the SSD for quick loading times

this is a relatively cheap setup imo,

 

[Halkin]

also looking at that previous dell setup it has a raid 0 array, thats a striped array so both drives used as one. if one drive fails you will lose half the data (so all of it really). i always thought it wouldnt happen to me but it did lol, i'd stay away from raid 0/striped arrays

 

[Halkin]

and if you have a fat wallet go for something along these lines:

cpu: intel core i7-2600K
board: Asus Maximus IV Gene-Z (sex)
gfx: nVidia 680 (hot hto)
memory: 8GB 1600MHz ddr3
sound: Asus Xonar DS (again, its a fraction of the STX price though if you want some really nice headphone sound go for STX)
power: 800w of something

same deal with hard drives as above.

for both systems a decent case is in order also, personally i'd go for a corsair 650d or if you can pick up an old antec 800/1200 they are good also. many others to choose from tho.

 

[Rod Sandz]

Hey there,

Here are my two cents:

1. Please DON'T waste your money on any Dells or so-called "brand name" PCs, because that's exactly what you'll be overpaying for (a logo/brand on the case). Always remember, a computer is made up of different components inside. Each component has it's own brand and model. Dell does not make components (not good ones at least). They just put them together in a mediocre setup, slap the logo and look for unsuspecting victims.

2. $880 you say? You can set yourself up a nice little war machine with that. I spent less then $800 on my current PC which is:

Intel i7 2600K
ASUS Sabertooth P67 Mobo
Evga Nvidia GTX 560 Ti 1GB
16GB Corsair Ram 1600 DDR3
Soundblaster Xfi Fatality Xtreme
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Heatsink&Fan
Thermaltake ToughPower 700 Watt modular PSU

And it chews up Skyrim and spits it out like silky butter.

3. I Agree Spyk0. Get yourself the parts, and have a shop put it together for you. Even with their fee, you'll save money and get a better system. SSD drives... I would wait. They're plenty expensive, and from my experience with them, the performance increase is not that noticeable. I got myself a decent 2TB drive and Skyrim loads in about 3-4 seconds (system ram quantity and speed play a bigger role here). Save games load even faster, almost instantly I dare to say.

4. Buy parts online instead of direct vendors. You'll usually find MUCH better deals (even in Amazon), than what you get in the stores. Ask around. There are shops where you can take the parts and they'll put 'em together. Just be darn sure you get compatible components.

5. Happy gaming! Always glad to see a console gamer come into the light!