I was looking at something like this
http://www.buydirectpc.com/controler.js ... E5D8670E86
Product Summary
Case
-19 Inch Thermaltake Soprano VB1000BWS Black
Processor
-Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4Ghz x 2 Dual Core 1066MHz FSB 4MB cache
Motherboard
-ASUS P5NSLI (nVidia nForce 570SLI Intel Edition) x8+x8 SLI
DDR2 Memory
Dual-channel: 2 x 1024MB DDR2 800MHz / PC6400
Hard Drive with Serial ATA interface
-250GB 16MB cache SATA2 NCQ hard drive
Optical Drive
-16x Dual-Layer DVD±RW with Software / Lightscribe Enabled
Video Card (PCI Express x16)
-GeForce 7900 GTX 512 MB GDDR3 [PCI-E x16] Dual-DVI / TV-out
Removable Storage Device(s)
-Internal 8-in-1 Card Reader
Sound Card
-Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtrememusic
Network Card
-Integrated LAN with 10/100/1000 Fast Ethernet Controller
Input/Output capabilities
-Refer to the motherboard chosen.
Wireless Networking
-nothing (wi-fi hub upstream)
Modem
-nothing
Firewire
-nothing
TV Tuner
-Hauppauge WINTV-PVR 350 PCI TV Tuner W. REMOTE, MPEG2 Hardware Encoder & TV Out
Cold Cathode Light
-no nerd mods!
Additional Case Fan
Power Supply
-500 Watt Crossfire/SLI ATX power supply with 120mm fan
enough?
CPU Cooling
-Manufacturer's CPU Fan
Operating Systems (OS)
-Microsoft Windows XP Professional w/ SP2
Keyboard and Mouse
-BenQ / BMW X700 Multimedia Pro Keyboard
LCD Monitor
Speakers
-5.1 Logitech X-530 Speaker System
Warranty
-1-Year Limited Warranty
Service
-Assembling and Testing

$2,676 BWAH!!!

or do it all myself from the ground up (This newb upgraded RAM on my 133MHz a LONG time ago, but then again, I am an engineer.) My concern w/ doing this is time, patience, and integration. The Alienware and Falcon aren't just built, the components are tuned to each other.

The big hitters
Alienware
[1] Aurora™ 7500

Processor: AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 5200+ Processor w/ HyperTransport and Dual Core Technology
Operating System (Office software not included): Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 - Free Upgrade to Windows Vista Home Premium!
Chassis: Alienware® P2 Chassis - Space Black
Chassis Upgrades: Alienware® AlienIce™ 3.0 Video Cooling - Astral Blue
Motherboard: Alienware® Approved NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI Motherboard
Memory: 2GB DDR2 PC2-6400 SDRAM at 800MHz - 2 x 1024MB
System Drive: Single Drive Configuration - 250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7,200 RPM w/ 8MB Cache
Primary CD ROM/DVD ROM: 18x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Drive
Graphics Processor: 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7950 GT
Power Supply: Alienware® 700 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply
Video Optimizer: AlienAdrenaline: Video Performance Optimizer
Monitor: No Monitor
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeGamer High Definition 7.1 Audio
Speakers: Logitech® Z-5300e 5.1 280-Watt Speakers
Keyboard: Alienware® USB Full-Size Keyboard
Mouse: Alienware® Optical 3-Button Mouse with Scroll Wheel
Warranty: 1-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support w/ Onsite Service
AlienRespawn: Alienware® Respawn Recovery Kit
Free Alienware Shirt: Alienware® T-Shirt - Black - XL Only
Alienware Extras: Alienware® Mousepad
Alienware Extras: AlienInspection - Exclusive Integration and Inspection - $100 Value - FREE!
Alienware Extras: AlienWiring - Exclusive Internal Wire Management - $100 Value - FREE!

$2,719.00
w/o monitor
TV tuner? idk, but I want one

[1] Area-51® 7500

Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6400 2.13GHz 2MB Cache 1066MHz FSB
Operating System (Office software not included): Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 - Free Upgrade to Windows Vista Home Premium! - With no Media Center Remote Control or Dual TV Tuner
Chassis: Alienware® P2 Chassis - Space Black
Chassis Upgrades: Alienware® AlienIce™ 3.0 Video Cooling - Astral Blue
Motherboard: Alie
nware® Approved NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Motherboard
Memory: 2GB DDR2 Performance SDRAM at 800MHz - 2 x 1024MB
System Drive: Single Drive Configuration - 250GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s 7,200 RPM w/ 8MB Cache
Primary CD ROM/DVD ROM: 18x Dual Layer DVD±R/W Drive
Graphics Processor: 768MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800 GTX
(-$350 for a 512 7900 GT)
Power Supply: Alienware® 700 Watt Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply
Video Optimizer: AlienAdrenaline: Video Performance Optimizer
Monitor: No Monitor
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeGamer High Definition 7.1 Audio
Keyboard: Alienware® USB Full-Size Keyboard
Mouse: Alienware® Optical 3-Button Mouse with Scroll Wheel
Warranty: 1-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support w/ Onsite Service
AlienRespawn: Alienware® Respawn Recovery Kit
Alienware Extras: AlienInspection - Exclusive Integration and Inspection - $100 Value - FREE! (woopty poop!)
Alienware Extras: AlienWiring - Exclusive Internal Wire Management - $100 Value - FREE! (woopty poop!)
$2,909.00
if I get the 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7950 GT
$2,559.00 ($2700 if I go for speakers)
Holy shoot that's expensive. I'd still need a monitor and speakers.

Guess I'd have to shell out more for a TV tuner on either Alienware setup.
I haven't found the best service reports about Alienware.

OR
something similar from Falcon Northwest is about $2,960.56
No TV Tuner and I'd still need a monitor and speakers.

What I don't want is a $$$$$$Voodoo or anything w/ spamware out of the box. It's annoying as a 5 year old.

Feel free to IM me (AIM: aStupidScrName)
I need help!

_________________
-Farva (I outrank Beggin!)
Beggin, get down and give me 20!

Build it yourself!

_________________
"Down with democracy... we need more dictatorships"! Galamoth
"Derms, celebrate your independance"! Babz

I see Dunna is back..

The Nivida vid card is outstanding I run the 7800 gt couple years old but even T.V. i can run on ultra high np.
So i'm told the AMD proccesors out preform Intel hands down.
Having said that i'm by no means an expert just my 2 cents

IMO no point buying a computer before vista, and certainly not without a directx 10 card. Wait until mainstream DX10 cards are out or skimp on something else for an 8800 GTS.

_________________
"Some demand the freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought they choose to avoid."

computers in retail that I know of will continue to come with XP defaultedly and offer an upgrade to vista for a fee. Beyond that until DX10 is supported by games which for a while will not happen because then they would be for vista only and not for XP which no game company would be stupid enough to actually pull right now..

Build one and make it so its "Vista Ready" if anything, make it so you can upgrade to a DX10 card at a later time.

_________________

View Tribes Ascend stats for BegginStrips.

Vista is NO excuse not to build a rig on your own. I purchased two Win XP Home upgrade installs from CompUSA two weeks ago on sale. They BOTH include free upgrade to Vista when it is available (S&H fee of $9.99).

And as Beggin eludes to, it will be a long time until DX10 is mainstream. Any game maker that went that way right now would have a big problem with sales and game returns...!

Moose

_________________
--> Born in 1972 and unable to PM or post without an editorial review, ! <--


No moose hunting without a license ! Licensing fees available by request .
Why hunt moose anyway? We're just big, slow, dumb, and make for easy kills...oops.

I'm wanting to buy the thing now because of the Vista upgrade. If I wait a couple months I may not be able to get XP. Hopefully, I could make a dual boot system if I need.

BTW, one of the Area 51 setups has a GeForce 8800 GTX

So no one answered my question on about tuning all the components to work to each other. I can duck tape anything together, it's integration that I don't understand.

_________________
-Farva (I outrank Beggin!)
Beggin, get down and give me 20!

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/

I used these guys for the comp I have now.
I used the AMD custom configurator
Had what I wanted at a pretty good price.
Timely delivery and comp runs like a champ

_________________

i'm still prety happy with the system i got from monarchcomputers.com a few years back. I had the case built by them. PSU, mobo, procesor, memory. then added the rest myself.

_________________

Ditto on Cyberpower, that's who I used last time and I'm going to use them again when I buy in a month or two. You can probably save around $500 over what you were quoted from the other guys.

If you build it yourself, and you want to OC, go with the E6300. Aandtech or tomshardware got +3.0GHz on the E6300; something higher than that $1,000 C2D chip. On stock cooling, no less! I'll be building because I like to choose my own parts (instead of a specified price from online makers). Doesn't make much sense for me to buy DDR2 800mhz RAM when DDR2 667 MHz willl suffice just as well.

Sounds like you don't really care how much you spend. But if you were, I was able to build a pretty decent machine for around $500 with patience of finding deals. I got all the parts and cooling devices and installed it all myself. This excludes monitor, mouse, keypad, and OS.

So if your not building yourself then go ahead and take one of these guys suggestions on who to get a build from. I do know that Comp USA is very expensive and over charges a lot.

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God Bless you Gig.

COMPUsa = Ripoff. The only time I ever bought something from them was on PC games, and a badly needed new motherboard, AGP. No other store had the mobo I needed to use except for Compusa (and they still charged a lot more than what the thing was worth.

Honestly, if you buy from a vendor or a brand-name PC, you're paying a royalty fee, aka a premium, on them building it correctly, and taking all the pain and hassle away of building it yourself. However, that fee canbe quite exorbitant, especially when you price the parts yourself and realize that they are charing anywhere from 10%-40% above the Manufacturer's Estimated cost.

It's obvious that you are buying or possibly building a gaming PC. However, for less than $2,000 I can build one helluva PC, including the cost for a monitor, speakers, and the rest. $1,500 and I can build a great PC without the monitors and extra stuff.
Here's my recommendations:
E6400/E6300
2GB of DDR2 RAM OCZ Brand, 2x1GB sticks DDR-667 OR 2GB of Corsair XMS2 RAM DDR-675, 2x1GB.
eVGA 680i motherboard, or go with a Gigabyte/Asus P975 motherboard
7800GT to a 8800GTX video card (you can decide on what you want, personally my aim would be a 7900GT with an upgrade option to the 8800 series at your discretion).
Seagate 320GB HDD with Perpendicular Recording Technology + NCQ
WD Raptor 74GB at 10,000 rpm
Logitech MX518 mouse with the Logitech G15 gaming Keyboard
Creative's X-fi XtremeMusic or XtrememGamer Fatality Edition sound card
Dual Layer DVD+/-RW optical drive, and if you got the cash, go for a Lightscribe burner as well (2 is better than one)
You can decide on a case yourself: P180, Antec Solo, Lian-Li, Thermaltake, you're choice.
PSU: Hiper, Aspire, or Sunbream brands. Would recommend an Antec, however, I got one for my first build and not only did it die, but it took an optical drive, floppy drive, and a fan with it too (and no, I didn't do anything wrong, it was a bad PSU).
Sound System: Logitech X-540 5.1 surround sound system. If you got a lot of cash, go for the Z-5450 or Z-5500 as they are the best surround sound systems you can get (THX certified!)
Monitor: Viewsonic and Dell are both good brands to buy. For about $300, you can get a 22" Wide screen from dell, $250 a 20" wide screen, $219 gets you either a Dell 19" LCD or a Viewsonic 19" LCD (not widescreen).

I'm going to estimate a cost of about $1900 for it all, assuming you get a 20" widescreen, 7900GT or 7950GT, and the Z-5450 sound system. (But you need to do the homework yourself)

Thanks for all the help guys! You've made a big impact on how I'm going about this. (Especially InternalError)
Over the last week I've looked more into building my own.
A few things are definate or don't seem worth scouring the internet for.
My IT guy at work said it's not that big of a deal. I also found a handful of good forums.
The system I've been thinkin' of is actually really close to SnipEye's spec's.
Goal: Be Vista and DX10 ready. decent resale value of the components if I do some upgrading.

What I'm thinking (with some options I need some input on) is:
- 21-Inch Antec P180B Advanced Super Mid Tower CSE-ANT-P180B
- SeaSonic S12 Energy Plus SS-650HT ATX12V / EPS12V 650W (overkill???)
- Asus Striker Extreme nForce 680i SLI Socket 775 1333MHz DDR2 - 1000
OR for 150 less...
-eVGA 122-CK-NF68 nForce 680i SLI Socket 775 1333MHz DDR2 – 1000
-eVGA 122-CK-NF68-AR LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel
- Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775
- ASUS P5A2-8SB3W 80mm CPU Cooler
- Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD3200KS 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s (why does everyone want the 10k rpm raptor as well?)
- CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
- LITE-ON Black 16X DVD+R/8X+RW 2M Cache ATAPI/E-IDE w/ LightScribe
- Creative SB X-Fi XtremeGamer 70SB073A00000 7.1 24-bit 96KHz PCI
- eVGA GeForce 8800GTS Superclocked/640MB GDDR3/SLI/PCI Express/Dual DVI/HDTV
OR
- BFG BFGR88640GTSOCE GeForce 8800GTS
(is there REALLY any difference other than price? should I go w/ an overclocked FoxConn)
- Floppy: nothing (9-in-2 card reader in monitor)
- Microsoft B2M-00015 Black 103 Normal Keys 17 Function Keys
- U.S. Robotics USR5417 IEEE 802.11b/g PCI Wireless MAXg 125Mbps PCI Adapter up to 125Mbps Data Rates 64/128-Bit WEP, WPA (overkill?)
[ Wi-Fi only in KS, direct ethernet in Ohio when I FINALLY return. been in the field 243 days, now. not that I'm counting... ]
- XP Media Center Edition 2005 - OEM (ZipZoomFly)
[My living room only has a table. this would be my TV, compy, DVD player, and stereo IE my media center]
- Speakers: nothing in KS, just headphones. 5.1 sometime back in OH.
- Dell 24" widescreen monitor via dellepp.com (not budgin' on that sweet thing)

Final notes: I haven't thought about if I have ROOM for all this. on the mobo!
For a media center, I'd need to go from coax to a TV Tuner!! dah! where's that gonna go?!
Where can I cut some money out?

_________________
-Farva (I outrank Beggin!)
Beggin, get down and give me 20!