Finding a new tiny god

[bluegargantua]

Hey,

So I'm thinking about getting a PC in the near future. I've been happy with my MacBook, but when I work from home, connecting to my work PC through this Windows Remote Desktop program for the Mac gives me a sad face. I could partition the dive and yadda-yadda-yadda, but what I'm going to do is just pick up a PC and go direct.

So I could pick up any crap-box and just go with that because the PC is little more than a dumb terminal to my work machine. But y'know...there's an awful lot of neat PC games.

So, if you've got some informed opinions, what would you buy? Say that I'd like to spend no more than $1k, but I'll go to 1.5. I'll probably play FPS games (like Battlefield or Left 4 Dead) and maybe a few action sims (like World of Tanks, or some space dogfight games). I'd like a box that comes with a minimum of added 3rd party crap I'll have to uninstall (do not suggest HP for example).

Regale me with your opinions, Internet!

later
Tom

Comments

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

I bought one of the big Lenovo W-series ThinkPads when I returned to college in 2010. It's been good for most things I've asked of it, including some reasonably high-demand games, though it does have its limits (it can run the Star Wars: The Old Republic client without a problem, for instance, but The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a bit beyond its capabilities). The current models are presumably more capable in that regard.

Lenovos do tend to be a bit pricey for their specs (though not to the same extent as Apples), but as a tradeoff to that, the support system for them is domestic - they're serviced by IBM out of Atlanta, as opposed to someplace in Singapore or Mumbai - and the warranty lifetime is pretty generous. Mine's still under warranty until this September, which will be the beginning of my pseudosenior year. I don't recall a ton of third-party junk being on this one when it was new. It has a bunch of first-party utils that might or might not be crap depending on your standards (the power management, networking, etc. - stuff that happens in the lower right corner - is Lenovo-branded, as is a diagnostic program that I think is just a reskinned version of PC Doctor), but I haven't had any difficulty with just leaving those alone and letting them do their thing. It also came with the obligatory crippled copy of Office, but I don't think you're going to get a new PC these days that doesn't unless you build one yourself from parts that include a completely blank HDD. :)

I freely acknowledge that this information is three years out of date, but on the other hand, I haven't heard about ThinkPads suffering some catastrophic decline in quality since then. It still has the same feeling of solid well-madeness that my old IBM-branded ThinkPads always had.

[ninjarat.livejournal.com]

I'll second the Lenovo kit. I picked up a Lenovo K430 last year for about a grand. My configuration is not bleeding edge and it isn't maxed out but its been able to handle what I've thrown at it, mostly Guild Wars 2 and Assassin's Creed, without a hitch. Shipped with a minimum of crapware pre-installed, and the system recovery partition does a clean installation without any extras. Those are all on a disc if you want to install some of the performance and monitoring tools. They're not necessary but they're sometimes nice to look at.

The keyboard is, however, garbage.

[chienne-folle.livejournal.com]

The best way to get a good computer for cheap is to build your own. PC Gamer magazine has recommendations for components in the back of every issue.

[bluegargantua]

Yeah, but then I've got to put it together and I've got to make the components play well with each other and it's a thing.

I have big shovel hands and those components are teeny-tiny. So I use money to avoid my problems.

later
Tom

[chienne-folle.livejournal.com]

Ah, I hadn't thought about the size of your hands; yeah, I can see where that could be a problem. I guess you don't fist people very often, either. :-)

The PC Gamer recommendations for components could still be useful in helping you pick which pre-made computers can play the kinds of games you're interested in. I have a copy kicking around and can send you the information if you want it.

Consumer Reports collects reliability data on pre-made computers; it might be worth checking that out. If I remember correctly, Apple is always first by a mile, and Dell does best for PC's, but it's been awhile since I bought a pre-made computer, so you probably shouldn't rely on my middle-aged memory. :-)

[bryant]

Don't laugh -- Susan got the Dell Alienware X51 for around $1K and it's awesome. Reasonable price (although more expensive than building your own) and upgradable.

[drwex]

You don't have to build it yourself. I bought my current gaming machine from Cyberpower, iirc (cyberpowerpc.com) and I was very happy with their service. Their builder did things like detect when I had bumped up the graphics card to the point where I would want a bigger power supply.

There are a couple of similar sites around - you can find a system that's close to what you think you want and customize it.

If you don't like third parties, I've also found some good deals by haunting the Dell refurb pages (https://www.dell.com/Outlet). If you go there you're going to have to buy a config that someone else built but you can get fairly powerful machines for much less than new. It's often then simple to order an upgrade for what you want (esp video card or memory) and get someone to do that swap for you.

[bryant]

A quick look at their pricing puts them on par with the equivalent config for an Alienware box. The X51 gives you a really nice, small form factor -- it's the size of a console. A Cyberpower machine will allow for dual video cards if you want the best possible graphics. Price-wise, though, I think it's a wash.