SaNE wrote:The above is much better than the Dell machine for gaming, 3570K (able to overclock) plus a 670 will be kicking for a while.
While i agree on the parts choice, overclocking != games rig, This can also be a bit of a turn-off for people who associate 'overclock' with broken-warranty-whyismycomputeronfire.
A non-k processor would be fine.
blackwaterxe7 wrote:Or do I build my own? I mean how much better am i going to get for $1274 considering all the stuffing around?
Better would be what can be supplied under the same coin on an equivalent build, the Dell specs are quite modest, and the performance wouldnt be bad, but not anything to gush over, the mediocre components are the hdd, the 7770 and the fact that you wont be able to expand much over replacing the graphics card and the ram and possibly another harddrive. Dell tend to not allow for much room to wiggle so first off, another case form a build would net you adaptability, room for more hdd's another graphics card, another processor, more ram etc.
Second, SSD's are $1.2 or lower for a Gb, this makes them more than reasonable to be included into any build for a gaming pc. Putting in an SSD even if its for the OS, you will find that things move a lot more smoothly within windows, and when you put games on them... man, what load screens....
The 7770 for the game you put up will be your biggest issue. 2gb gddr ram isnt too bad but the gpu within the 7770 is worse than average.
COMPARISON! just be mindful that with a greater gpu comes greater power need. If you want to stick to ATI/AMD any of their newly refreshed 7970/79xx series cards with the 1ghz tags give the keplar/Nvidia 6XX crowd a run for its money. BF3 and ATI/AMD cards seems to run poorly, i dont know if any of the latest drivers have fixed this, but since launch day the Nvidia cards have ruled the roost. ARMA is a different kettle of fish, and you will need ram/cpu/gpu for it, and the better you get means the more mods etc you can put on. (dayZ?)
If you wanted, you can pick up something very similar to the Dell build from
UmartIf you dont like the rig from PCCG that Wyld listed,
Umart's equivalent has a 7970 over the 7870
The Dell XPS isnt that bad for its price, just the money could be spend better elsewhere. If your looking to build to the specification SaNe has put up, a recommendation from me would be to purchase a case you will like, and make sure you fit a good quality PSU to run all your goods.
If the idea to go a Dell was for warranty, the pccg and Umart pre-builts should have something on equal standing, and atleast you wont spend 45mins on hold waiting their customer service... but then, dell's xps systems tend to get pretty good warranty and service treatment... If your going pre-built, alot of products feature a 'lifetime' warranty now days, and then some manufacturers warranties rock pretty hard, you will have to look up and see if there is any hidden catches for each product tho (like signing up to their site/forum to register your warranty)
blackwaterxe7 wrote:Is the above rig going to give me reasonable performance for games like Arma 2 and battlefield 3?
see that last chunk, ati/AMD for bf3 will give you lower fps unless your forking out for a 7970/7950, which give you on-par performance around the Nvidia 580, if your looking for the best bang for buck either a 7970 1ghz edition or a 670 would be the highest teir, then a 7950 would be the next best thing.
Have a look hereIf you haven't caught on, both PCCG and Umart are favored here, especially if you like bubble wrap >.>
