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When High End Gaming Machines Fight 63

Posted by Zonk from the pc-as-a-console dept.
mikemuch writes "Games for Windows Magazine and ExtremeTech teamed up to determine which prebuilt high-end PC delivers the ultimate game performance in terms of frame-rate and ability to yield the highest game quality settings on large displays. The winner, VoodooPC's Omen, features an Intel Core 2 Duo QX6800 processor and two Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX's in SLI configuration. It delivers over 15,000 3DMarks (as do a few of the other contestants), but 'only' costs $5,700 — in contrast with some of the other machines that go for close to eight grand."
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When High End Gaming Machines Fight More

When High End Gaming Machines Fight

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  • Honestly (Score:2, Insightful)

    by webheaded ( 997188 )
    Who cares about prebuilt systems that much anyway? Most PC enthusiasts that are looking for this kind of power are the type that build their own PCs anyway, so who are these companies marketing to?

    What would you guys do? Build your own or buy from some random manufacturer?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Simon80 ( 874052 )
      Some people are both filthy rich and into playing video games. This is for them.
      • I certainly wouldn't buy it either, but $6K isn't outrageous compared to what people spend on some other hobbies. For instance $6K won't get you very far in the world of Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
    • Filthy rich white suburbanites who play madden and battlefield 2 and yell that they are 1337. AKA the dregs of gaming.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by buhatkj ( 712163 )
      sometimes, I would buy a dell. granted, vs buying the bits from newegg or something and building it yourself you pay a premium of $100-$300 depending on level of performance, but you get a nicely integrated, fully tested system, with at least a 1 year warranty. dealing with often-flaky part mfg warranties is no fun, and i have gotten burned by everybody but corsair. sometimes you just want the damn thing to WORK. for myself, I might still build one just to enjoy the build. I can afford for it to be occ

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by ZDRuX ( 1010435 ) *
        I have *never* purchased a pre-built PC and most likely never will. There is absolutely NOTHING that Dell or anybody else can give me that will be better than having the freedom to pick and choose your own parts. As for warranty, I have yet to come across a PC component that would make me ship it back or return it because of any faults, so as long as you purchase high-quality ($$) and known big-brand products. The only time I had to return a part was a motherboard, which was already open-box when I bought

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by bunions ( 970377 )
          > I have yet to come across a PC component that would make me ship it back or return it because of any faults,

          Lucky you! Eventually statistics will catch up with you.

          I'm actually pretty happy to not have to build another system. I don't really have it in me anymore to keep up with what ram timings work with what cpu and motherboard and what the optimal configuration is and lord knows what all. You can find plenty of places that will build you a good system from actual name-brand parts for very little o
          • Then I'm your opposite. I LOVE finding out which components fit my need the best, and how I have to pair things together.
            It's a geek's treasurehunt!
            Spending some quality hours just reading reviews, finding bargains, I love it all.
            Now only if I had the money to do it more often...

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by basics ( 702099 )

            Lucky you! Eventually statistics will catch up with you.

            The same point about statistics can be said about pre-built PCs though. Last person I knew who ordered a box from dell had a problem where the PC would lock up every now and then... which he eventually noticed was more likely to happen if he bumped the pc. I popped the side of the case off and looked around found out the main power cable wasn't snapped into the motherboard all the way. When the pc was getting bumped or whatever it was shorting t

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Nightspirit ( 846159 )
        Oddly enough the only thing wrong with my new home-built system was my Corsair memory.

        I understand the feeling though. First I spent 8 hours wondering why the damn thing wouldn't boot (I didn't push hard enough on the intel core 2 duo heatsink pins, a much worse configuration than AMD, which is relatively easy). Then I do a memtest, everything is find, install the OS, then everything starts going haywire. I do another memtest and find out one of the sticks of RAM is bad.

        The part that sucks is that the memor

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by dami99 ( 1014687 )
          It's nice to find a decent hardware store around if you can, at least someone that will exchange faulty hardware without you having to go ot the manufacturer. At my local hw store, if you buy mb/cpu/ram at the same time, they install cpu/ram on the MB and test it all for you, as well as updating the mb to the latest bios. (usually I don't buy all 3 at once though) I've even had them hookup power supplies, and more, just for me to judge noise levels.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by buhatkj ( 712163 )
            that's pretty sweet, wish my local microcenter or whatnot did that. all the same tho, for cpu/ram/mobo/videocard i usually buy online to save monies. for drives and cases and stuff i do go to the store tho...
            i remember on particular net retailer that used to do a buirn-in for you, but they cant match the newegg prices...
      • maybe half of all dells, and 95% of the tv ad buyers, buy systems that start with a 90 day warranty.

        lots of dell systems have 90 days as a starting point.

    • I always build my own systems. It's easy to save money when you don't need to buy things you already have. Plus, even in terms of playing games, you don't need *the best* (and often the most expensive) hardware to get a good experience.
    • Ahh it's analogy time! Computers are like cars. Gaming machines are like race cars. You can take a normal car, drop in a bigger engine, exhaust, performance chip, high-power spark plugs, stiffer suspension etc and turn it into a street racer. Or you can buy a luxury sports car that's already tuned up. What kind of guy would soup up his own car ? A mechanic or hobbyist. What kind of guy buys a Viper or Lamborghini ? A rich small-dicked white guy.

      What kind of guy builds a gaming machine from scratch ?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by The-Bus ( 138060 )
      I'm not much of a fan of building my own. I can do upgrades but for an entire system previously I just had a local shop build them for me. The resulting price was about what I would've paid for parts, so it's not like I paid more. I generally would walk in with a list of hardware wants and let them figure out the rest. Then again, I'm not a huge PC gamer.

      People are obviously buying these $5,000 PCs based on the mere fact that Alienware is still in business (in some form). When Dell makes specialized gaming

  • Yeah, but ... (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by rlp ( 11898 )
    Yeah, but is it powerful enough to run Vista?

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