Buying new PC + ugrades

Hello.

I need to buy a new computer as at the moment all I have is my NetBook and I don't plan on playing GW2 on that.

[New Plan

After having a few days to mull things over I am now leaning towards a barebones system;

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...348&CatId=4149

I think I can stumble through the assembly and installation of the OS but still need to know what video card will fit into this system well. I am also still thinking that a SSD might work but not sure at all regarding what is concidered "quality for the cost". I don't want to get something that is cheep and fails or spend too much money on something that doesn't out perform a cheaper one.

]

[old idea

Here is what I am looking at so far;

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/produ...075f4c3 een02

I was also thinking of buying this and installing;

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/produ...06a805e 6en02

My big questions are about how difficult it will be to transfer the OS after the fact to the new drive. I also don't know if that graphics card is anygood. Should I trust that the power supply is something name brand or look into buying that as well? Is there anything else in that package that I should swap out/upgrade?
]
Thank you for any help you can give me.

In my experience Power Supply's are Power Supply's. I've bought many a name brand and have only had to run to Best Buy to buy a generic one because they went bad at some point. I would just keep that one till something happens to it. Why spend extra money when you really don't need to.

You ever thought of building your own? Not that hard really. It's just taking that first scary step and doing it. Do it and you'll never buy another ready made pc in your life

As for Vid card, no idea I am a GeForce man myself, have NEVER bought a Radeon card. Seems to be a mid level card though, will probably do you fine.

http://www.amd.com/us/products/deskt...-overview.aspx

My experience is the opposite.

If you have a mains supply that is perfect, permanently (!) clean and stable... then probably any old PSU will do. But such a mains supply is unusual.

Apart from being inefficient and failing to deliver their rated power while under load, and possibly generating more heat or noise than necessary... cheap no-name power supplies may not filter out noise in the mains supply, or smooth out dips or spikes.

Most of the time, that's still not a problem. But occasionally, unstable mains power into a cheap PSU... can lead to damaged PC components - memory and hard drives being the most susceptible.

I have personally seen two hard drives killed stone-dead, and multiple PC's simultaneously hard-reseting... due to poor quality mains power. Surge-protector plugs did not help in those instances - the problem was not surges, it was noise/dips/instability.

PSU is one thing where I personally, do not skimp on quality. YMMV.

--------------------------------------

About transferring the OS from an existing drive to a new (SSD) drive - I have done this a few times. The things to watch out for:

A pre-built PC will usually come with an OEM version of Windows. Meaning, the OS is tied to the machine it was installed on - too many hardware changes or upgrades... and Windows will stop working because it thinks it's on a different PC. Just changing the HDU is OK though.

When I've done it, I used disk imaging software to backup the original hard disk... then I restored that image to the new drive. An SSD is typically smaller than the original drive, but assuming the amount of USED disk space will fit on the new drive - any decent imaging software will sort that out automatically eg. Acronis.

I did the backup/restore with BOTH drives connected. The problem there is fixing drive-letter assignments afterwards. Not sure about Windows7, but in XP I had to leave both drives connected... do something about the MBR on the new drive... boot from the new drive (Windows would still treat the old drive as "C:" and load lots of stuff from there)... then do some registry fiddling and Windows Disk Management tweaking, to force the new drive to become "C:"

Have you checked the powerbill? It makes a big difference to how much power is drained from the outlet and how long the parts in the computer lasts.

Don't cheap out on the power-supply.

link

to OP: ok what are you going to use 12gb ram for?? It's also the case the HD6770 is a really slow videocard compared to the the cpu.

If they don't name the particular PSU in use, chances are pretty good it's junk.
Video card is very weak compared to the rest of the system.
SSD is waaaaaaay overpriced, shop elsewhere.
Entire system is poorly configured and waaaaaaaaay over priced, shop elsewhere.

Check out tigerdirect.ca & newegg.ca - I would be more helpful, but at the moment I am heading to DR. appointment... if you can post your budget, I would be happy to help with picking out parts if you choose to build it yourself.

Thanks for all the help!

I would like to keep my budget aroud $1500. I'm not trying to buy/create the ultimate system. I don't really know if the benifit of having a SSD is currently worth the money.

That being said I know that I want a good graphics card and power supply. I have heard good things about the i7 cores but not completely locked on that. I do wish to stay with windows. 8G of memory is likely all I need but wouldn't object to a bit more just because I have run some heavy memory intensive programs for 3D modeling and animation in the past. Not sure I will do so again but I like to keep my options open, not to mention one never knows what software will come down the pipe requiring more memory. I have never heard of a system crashing because of too much memory. 8-)

My biggest fear regarding building my own system is that I will purchase parts that are great but don't mesh. So in the end I wind up with a pile of good parts instead of a functioning computer system. Actually puting the parts together doesn't worry me much though I am a bit tentative about installing the OS properly to take full advantage of each part. It won't matter how good a part is if I screw up the driver instalation.

Monitor and keyboard I will pick up at another time, I have a 20" widescreen currently from my old computer but will likely upgrade to something bigger in the furture.

Thankyou again for any and all help!

Never really noticed a jump or payed attention to the electric bill. Interesting video, very informative.

I was just saying from my experience in the last 8 years and 5 pc builds I have used Thermaltake, OCZ and Ultra PS's. I have also replaced some of them with Dynex PS's from Best Buy, Dynex is a company owned by Best Buy therefore mainly sold through Best Buy. They were probably 25% cheaper than the name brands and lasted just as long. Fortunately I guess, I have never had a "cheaper" PS damage any parts on any computers I've had. I have two desktops running about 18 hours a day for the last 3 or 4 years.

I only meant for the system the OP showed the PS that was included would probably do the job just fine.

Tiger Direct is a great place for deals. I buy all my stuff there. They also have "bare-bones kits" that match up MB, processor and ram so you don't have to. Then you just add the extras you want to finish it out. Made a few of them for family members on a budget and they have performed really well.

As for screwing up loading the OS and drivers, it's really not that bad, it all loads itself from the cd's. Might have to get updated drivers from the products websites but that's about it. I'm no guru so I load everything as is without tweaking or overclocking things. Hell I've never even updated a bios yet.

Believe me if this old fart can do it anyone can. And you'll be free of pre-built computers forever! Just like people that still use AOL as an internet provider, free your mind Neo!

Personally, I would go with building your own machine with known parts – that way you know for sure what goes into your gaming rig and you do not get that bloated crapware that comes installed on an OEM system. However, if your preference is to go Intel then you really cannot beat the OEM price of an Intel rig vs building a similar spec machine yourself from parts. IMO.

The proper way to research an OEM computer purchase is to check the vendor’s own product and support site, as well the various online reviews/forums related to that OEM and the place you plan to purchase the system from.

If you want to upgrade this OEM system (now or later) you will need to check to with the OEM/store on what the warranty/support policy is regarding opening the case and replacing hardware. Most OEM support will not attempt to help you with any hardware issue if you replaced part of the hardware (such as the original HD with that SSD). See what valid upgrade path is open to you that will not void the warranty.

That said, if you do want to upgrade this OEM system, you would want to know: CPU installed/socket type, chipset used, video card (make/model), and motherboard make/brand. etc. Most OEMs use a name-brand motherboard (usually a cut down/reference board) -- I am guessing that Gateway system you want will have an ASUS-Intel reference motherboard installed in it.

Knowing what parts that went into the OEM system will allow you to know:

- Whether you can upgrade the CPU (now or later)
- Whether the socket type is an old or current design (e.g. still support for it now and in the future)
- Any hardware compatible problems with the chipset (especially video card)

If you do not know enough about the motherboard under the OEM’s name, you may have better luck searching under the original MB manufacturer’s name.

The power supply, case dimensions, and motherboard chipset, will determine the make/model(s) of video card you can put into the OEM case. (Motherboards are usually marketed as supporting either ATI or Nvidia video cards.)

The only measurable way to assess how good a video card is is to compare it against other video cards from the same and other manufacturers. Tech review sites like Tom’s Hardware Guide will have video card charts showing you how fast a card is against same/similar spec cards.

Most power supplies that come shipped with OEM systems (mostly at the low end) are spec just enough to run the system’s base hardware and not much beyond that. Even installing a second HD & 1 or 2 more case fans might be enough to push the system over the edge. At the same time it is also in the OEM’s best interest (and bottom margin) to ensure “quality” parts are installed in their systems (to keep low returns/support calls to the bare minimum). For this reason, OEM may choose to install “Just good enough” parts. But if you want to know if the power supply is any good, google the power supply’s manufacturer.

Most retail-packaged hard drives sold today will come with a data storage migration tools -- either proprietary, modified open source package, or a cut-down OEM-version of a retail package (such as Norton Ghost or Partition Magic). Intel (maker of the SSD you wish to buy) provides "Data Migration Software" that you can download from their support site.

I do not think you will have any problems with transferring the OS over to the SSD. When the OS is installed on the computer, the OEM would have used a predefined OEM product key (which will not even match the key on the windows sticker on side of the computer case). It use to be that after making something like 3-4 changes to the hardware would “invoke” your product key, requiring you to register your copy of Windows again. But since your key wasn’t used to activate Windows the first time you should be able to use it to re-activate Windows again. The worst that could happen is you need to call Microsoft Support to get it activated. (Microsoft tracks how many times a key has been used – if a key has been used too many times, they will not activate it again, instead they will direct you to call OEM support to request a new key.)

Note starting with Windows Vista, Microsoft has introduced a new way for OEMs to perform an offline activation of Windows that includes a bit of code that scans the computer’s BIOS. This is why certain OEM Windows Vista/7 Install/Recovery DVDS will no work with certain models from that same OEM.

The slightly shorter answer version:

That Gateway system looks good, and should be good enough to play GW2.

SSD has yet to prove itself technology wise IMO – your money is better spent elsewhere – like getting a beefier video card or more memory.

Windows 7 takes up about 20-30 GB of disk space and likely another 10-20 GB of OEM bloatware is on top of that. If you do plan to get that SSD, the only problem I can see you running into is the amount of disk space needed to copy the content of the existing hard drive to the SSD. Another problem you may run into is how the partitions are arranged on the existing hard drive – it may have 1) boot/system partition, 2) “C” partition, maybe even a “D” partition, and 3) hidden “system recovery” partition. I know with Partition Magic and Norton Ghost, I can specific which partitions I want copied over, but I do not know if Intel’s Data Migration software is able or designed to do that.

Of course, you can always try doing a fresh OS install on the SSD (completely removing the old drive from the system) by using an OEM Windows 7 Install CD along with the product key that came with the system. If the OS does not activate (even after talking to MS support) you can always fall back to reinstalling the old drive.

I do not think you need to worry about the power supply unless you plan to install a new video card. Most of the power supply venders have online PS calculators that can assist you with calculating the current PS against the current/future system power needs. If you find that you need to upgrade the PS, check to see if the case/mb uses a standard or proprietary design PS.

If you decide to upgrade the video card you will only need to worry about the power supply can support it and whether you can actually get the card into the case. You may be stuck to using a particular brand/type of card depending on the MB chipset, though.

But the bottom line is if you really want solid answers to the questions you have bought up, post them to the OEM customer support forums. Unfortunately it doesn't look like Gateway has one, but you are going to want to hear from people who already bought that particular system (or a similar model from the same vendor) and may have already gone through the experience of upgrading some of the hardware on it.

Building and picking parts is not all the hard and it's easy to ask here or on others forums for a build at a prize range. If you add contry you live some might even help you find a good store to pick the parts up. Some pages like this: http://pcper.com/leaderboard even have pre setups that is good to start from. For $1500 you will get a really big monster.

Thanks for all the advice. I sounds like making changes/upgrades to that FutureShop system would be a lot more trouble then its worth.

I am now leaning towards getting a "barebones" system and just adding in the graphics card/HDD/DVD or what ever is missing. Here are two I am looking at;

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...7&Sku=B69-9015

or

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicatio...348&CatId=4149

I am a bit perplexed as to why the one with more included is so much cheeper, is it all because the other is overclocked?

If I went with either of these what Graphics card should I get and what else is missing from either package?

The first unit is "pre-assembled" and includes liquid cooling, which I suspect is why it's a bit more expensive.
The second bundle is not pre-assembled - you need to do that yourself. If you are totally unfamiliar with how computers are put together, pre-assembled may be a better choice.

Actually, I thought the original Gateway you posted was an ok deal and would be around the same price once you add a video card and OS, etc., to either of the bare-bones kits - no assembly required.

My only real thing to point out is that the Intel SSD in your first post is too small and way too expensive. With an 80Gig drive you would need to be very careful about what goes on it to keep it from getting full. It would be better to read some reviews and get a newer SSD at least 120Gig.