Alde’s Stuff

So, instead of piecing together the franken-puter, Beekers convinced me to go with a custom built machine. But who would be the one to make the box itself?

First part in any good project is to determine specifications. Mine are:

1. Intel 6750 processor
2. nVidia SLI
3. nVidia 8800GT
4. 2GB Ram
5. Expandibility (Able to upgrade to a Quad Core down the road)

This put me in quite an odd area of the market; I’m not a budget gamer, because I still want support for the high end, should I desire it, but I’m not the extreme overclocker that those types of hardware are built for.

Second part is to identify the Vendors to request a quote.

The mass producers: Dell, HP, and Gateway all allow you to custom build a machine. Lenovo does not.

Dell has two lines, the XPS and their Alienware brand. The XPS 720 supports SLI, as does the Aleinware. HP’s Blackbird, designed by Voodoo also supports SLI and Crossfire in the same platform. Gateway’s gaming machines are weak by comparison.

The second tier major builders, such as ABS, IBuyPower, CyberPowerPC, Falcon Northwest, and Polywell all tend to have a nice bit of customizable builds, but there’s so much it’s difficult to choose the right place to start.

The third tier of builders, led by Xtreme Gear, The V Machine, Digital Storm, XI Computer, Puget Computers and a bevy of others tend to have online configurators of limited scope and configurability. Most don’t have many of the newer parts availiable to put into systems, or require you to send in a request for a quote.

So, starting with Dell, the XPS 720 is based upon an nVidia 680i motherboard (most likely a special spin for Dell), comes with an 8800GT, though the “smallest” CPU you can get is the Intel 6850. With 2 Gigs of DDR2-800, a 250GB HD, Dual Layer DVD-RW/CD-RW, Media Reader + Floppy, with a 3 year Warranty nets you a machine priced at $1898, which sets a nice standard.

Moving to Dell’s Alienware line, starting with the Area-51 7500, the only real difference between the custom Alienware and XPS is the XP Pro vs. XP Media Center, at $1889. Note: Alienware had a $100 instant discount, while Dell had a $59 discount.

HP’s top of the line m9000t is nice, but does not support SLI nor is configurable with an 8800GT. HP’s high end line, manufactured by Voodoo, is the Omen. Voodoo’s problem is that you have to pay $600 for a custom color paint job, and comes in around $6000. Voodoo does make a custom PC for HP, called the Blackbird 002, to compete with Alienware & Dell. The base Blackbird comes with an ASUS Striker Extreme 680i SLI, but fully configured, weighs in at $2651. Ouch.

All of Gateway’s high end machines all come with Quad Core Intel CPUs, so no 6750. Also, none of them are SLI capable; they’re banking on if you want SLI, you’ll use ATI. So Gateway falls by the wayside.

ABS, home of the Ultimate Extreme Gaming Machines, won’t let you get into a machine for less than $2700. Not for me.

IBuyPower has a lot of confusing “base builds”, and like you’ll read about CyberPowerPC below, which one you click on will change your final price. For example, an equally configured “Speical A” and “Gamer Paladin 880-MX“, the Special-A is $1429, while the Gamer Paladin 880-MX is $1349, and comes with a free PCI 802.11g wifi card. Both these systems are using the Asus P5N32-E, and the Nzxt Hush Gaming Tower.

CyberpowerPC is quite alot like IBuyPower. Which entry point determines your final price. The Infinity SLI GT is $1343, the Core2DuoSLI is $1339, Gamer Infinity XLC is $1355, Infinity 8800 Pro SE is $1356, And the plain 8800 Pro is $1355. The rig that I quoted.

Falcon NW’s Talon is their “Budget” system, but comes in at 2392.80, though it has a 780i SLI motherboard, and DDR2-1066 memory, with a 750 Watt PSU. But that’s not really worth the extra $1000.

Polywell unfortunately doesn’t stock the 8800GT in their Gamer’s SLI machine, which still comes in around $1887 with a similarly priced GPU.

XtremeGear’s is quite like CyberpowerPC’s, the best configuration I got out of them comes in the cheapest, at $1219, but lacks a 3 year warranty, and the EVGA 8800GT.

The V Machines are all AMDs, so they were not rated.

Digital Storm seems to focus on custom built rigs with a flair for the case and liquid/unique cooling. I came out of there with a $1550 machine, though they do provide a dual boot configuration for XP & Vista that no one else seems to list.

Puget Systems custom SLI gaming rig with the 3 year warranty, grabs a mere $2598.

XI Computer came to the bar with a $1836 system. Though their site seems to be focused on the government purchaser, it lost my info a couple times.

In Summary:

After reading all sorts of review sites, like Reseller Ratings, Epinions, Pricegrabber, etc, I think I’m gonna go with the CyberPower PC. Since I don’t need it in a hurry, that will bypass most of the issues that people had been complaining about. The XPS720 with 3 years support ends up too much compared to the CyberPower PC.

I ordered my CyberPower PC on 12/24/2007. I used a coupon I found online (and since posted to Slickdeals). Hopefully things will go smoothly.