So, is this computer vany good for caming?

[jaysus]

@buddha

well the video card is abit outdated... try to get at least a 3870 or 3870x2 better a 4870 or even better a 4870x2, the 3850 is kinda slow for todays standards

[CityBuilder]

Make sure to read all the information on the computer that buddah linked. Specifically:

OS: NONE - FORMAT HARD DRIVE ONLY

 

So you'll need to supply your own operating system as it comes with NONE (another $99 to $300 depending on which version of XP you buy IF you need to buy one). Still seems like a decent deal to me and If I were in the market... I might be tempted by it, since I've already got enough windows licenses running around over here and have any "extras" that I might want to add. I'd have to unplug any LCD lights though as Im really not impressed by the LED lights inside of todays modern computers, I even go out of my way to buy fans that don't have the lights in them, just something about them screams out to me in the wrong way, but hey that's a personal preference and not one that should really be bothered with when buying a computer since most LED's can usually be unplugged or turned off (hopefully)

 

Without putting your own XP or Vista on it, when you try to boot it up, it will go through any bios information and then provide you with a message telling you that it can't find the operating system or a specific file in the operating system because well.... There isn't one preinstalled for you.

 

Personally if Im going to buy a prebuilt computer I like it to have the operating system on it, because they will usually test it out to make sure everything works and I need not worry about any conflicts of hardware/operatng system/drivers that I might have when I install the operating system myself. Just my own little nigglies I guess. Many others Im sure don't care and would rather install the operating system themselves.

[buddah]

That one is without an installed os, but if you have a copy of xp already you can install it there.

 

There is some wiggle room on the Vid card....for a few bucks more you can upgrade it and still be under your cap.

 

Buddah

[eeeeddd37]

You should be able to build your own without an operating system and if you use your old computer case for about $700. I have been looking around at stuff also. Like another person said in the forum most game games don't use all the cores so I would get atleast a 2.5 quad core. Especially since some games only run off one core.

[CityBuilder]

nahnahnah...

 

2.2ghz is not really a bottleneck... the bottleneck is the tiny 1mb lvl 2 cache of the cpu (modern ones have 6mb)

most games can barely use 2 cores atm but will prolly support 4 in the future and the price difference is marginal

 

I guess it depends on whom you ask. Like mentioned I have the Nvidia 8800GTS video card, and went out and bought the Nvidia 9800 GTX video card and didn't gain any performance out of it, when I asked on several different forums, the usual response was that I didn't see any FPS improvement because my 2.2GHz CPU were bottlenecking and I would/should upgrade the CPU before buying a better video card otherwise it would continue to bottleneck and not give me any noticible performance increase with a newer video card.

 

Anyway, Im in the process of ordering the highest AMD CPU that can go into this computer (don't remember which one, but it's a better one, faster, etc), then maybe the 260 Nvidia card or better. Just gotta remember that upgrading a computer is a constant game of the dog chasing it's tail, no matter what you get, theres better and there will always be people that will tell you that any performance issues you are having is due to hardware limitations of your current computer.

 

// extra bla bla bla bla experience below, not mandatory reading, just personal experience because I am a chatty ken.

 

A couple years ago when Caesar IV came out, I had an ATi X1600 Pro video card and the performance in the game was pretty abysmal, many people told me it was because the x1600 pro video card sucked beans, so I took them up on what they were saying and bought the x1950GT(x) video card for about $359, and installed it and replayed the game and got a whole 5 fps increase. When I then confronted the same people, they then told me that "well, the game is not optimized yet, they are still working on the patch to optimize it", so.... if anybody experiences performance issues with their games, don't let people automatically tell you that it's because the hardware you bought "is so last year" and inadequate. It just might (MIGHT) be that the game in question has it's own issues. LOL.