My dad's 70th birthday, need a gaming rig..

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rbanzai

Limp Gawd
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Jan 12, 2007
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My father is turning 70 in January. He's been a gamer since the old Speedball 2 days, but didn't really dive into it until Doom 2 and Duke Nukem. Every day I talk to him he tells me about his latest Half Life 2 deathmatch, and even sends high score screenshots to me.

He has an old Alienware system in a huge case, at least four years old now. My brother and I are considering buying him a new PC for his birthday. Can someone suggest a good online source? Here's what is guiding my purchase:

1. He lives far away now so good support is helpful
2. A smaller case would be nice. The Alienware is HUGE and heavy, hard for him to move
3. Noise is a bit of a consideration. If it's really loud that will be a problem. It doesn't have to be silent, just not like a leafblower
4. Make sure to get components that are at the breakpoint so he is not getting tech that is old as soon as it is purchased

When I price things out just for grins I usually find systems to be around $1200-$1400. What I really need are suggestions for a good company to do business with, and if there are any must-have components, like a specific processor or motherboard to get (or avoid.)

Thanks for your help. It's great having a father who enjoys some of the same things, and has stayed techno-aware when most old folks are retreating from the world. :p
 
rbanzai said:
My father is turning 70 in January. He's been a gamer since the old Speedball 2 days, but didn't really dive into it until Doom 2 and Duke Nukem. Every day I talk to him he tells me about his latest Half Life 2 deathmatch, and even sends high score screenshots to me.

He has an old Alienware system in a huge case, at least four years old now. My brother and I are considering buying him a new PC for his birthday. Can someone suggest a good online source? Here's what is guiding my purchase:

1. He lives far away now so good support is helpful
2. A smaller case would be nice. The Alienware is HUGE and heavy, hard for him to move
3. Noise is a bit of a consideration. If it's really loud that will be a problem. It doesn't have to be silent, just not like a leafblower

When I price things out just for grins I usually find systems to be around $1200-$1400. What I really need are suggestions for a good company to do business with, and if there are any must-have components, like a specific processor or motherboard to get (or avoid.)

Thanks for your help. It's great having a father who enjoys some of the same things, and has stayed techno-aware when most old folks are retreating from the world. :p
Click to expand...

Your father should be happy of having sons like yourselves. :D

Or a Vostro from DELL.
 
My concern with Dell is that you have limited choices for components, and probably a fair surcharge on top of it for the Dell name.

It would be nice to select components that wouldn't be super-duper but would help keep him from falling behind as soon as the machine is out of the box.

Thanks for the info
 
Looked any at AVADirect, Velocity Micro, Maingear, etc? Those three companies all come highly recommended.
 
If you saw the circular ad from BBY yesterday, it showed this (below) system with the wrong CPU. It should say the 6000+, but for $1199 it's got 3GB of Corsair mem, 500GB HD, 22" widescreen monitor, and an 8500GT. If he's a hardcore gamer, I'd suggest just swap out the 8500 for an 8800 or ATI 3870. The case is also our new MX2 mATX, which is not even on our site yet, but the BBY picture shows the ATX version. The MX2 case looks just like this, but about 30% smaller than ATX so it's light and easier to handle. Not pimping, just FYI.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=999981300050007&type=product&id=pcmprd81200050007
 
Gaming is such a neat thing in that it transcends age or occupation. I hope whatever company you decide to use for your Dad does and excellent for you and your Dad. On a related note sometimes I'm shocked when I play LOMAC and play against 55-75 year olds regularly. Many are RL skilled pilots (or were).
 
dell isnt that bad, you dont pay for the name like you do Alienware (even though the same company)

what kind of spec's are you looking at ?
 
Newegg has some decent pre-built gaming computers that are custom from ibuypower and the like.

However if he feels more comfortable with a company, then I recommend Dell.
 
Op consider that VM Dash that looks like a nice little system with the 690G chipset. Be very sure though to ask about if the particular motherboard that VM uses has a true 16X PCIe slot not a stripped down 8x or 4x slot because when using NV cards on those 8-4X slots theres a huge 3d performance penalty. In can mostly be mitigated by using an ATI card instead of an NV card (PCIe). For some reason the NV cards do not perform well on the 4-8x slots whereas the ATI cards still perform very well. Just a heads up if you're interested in that system. It may have a true 16x PCIe slot though since it's already an AMD chipset based board. Yo could add a monitor but I recommend buying LCD's locally (easier return if you don't like it).
 
Thank you all very much for your input. I hope to settle on one soon and then have it shipped to me so I can handle basic setup and then just drive it out to him for transferring all of his stuff over. That's going to be the ugly part. :p

That Dash looks good but I have no experience with ATI cards so I have no idea if any of those are good. I was aiming to get him an 8800GT but I'm all at sea when it comes to ATI. I'm going to look at their other models too, like the Prelude. I like these small form factors.

EDIT: Just noticed the Velocity Micro CEO posted in the thread. Hi! I'll be looking at your products as well but I would probably buy direct from you.
 
Whatever you do, I'd definitely take a look at the boutique manufacturers--you'll get better and more comprehensive support from a smaller outfit than those big retail guys, and you can usually talk to staff members who are avid gamers while you're working out a configuration.

You should really make sure you get quotes and configs from a couple of different companies. I'm "not pimping" either, but Puget's known for silent computers. If you're interested in comparing us with some of the others, I'd encourage you to give us a call--it's easier to be competitive if you are talking directly with a consultant.

Whatever you decide, your Dad's very lucky to have you. You're a good kid. :D
 
Does anyone have experience with ibuypower.com? They seem to have good prices but I want to stick with someone with a decent rep.
 
Do yourself and your father a favor and stick to quality vendors.

Maingear

Pugetsystems

Avadirect

Velocitymicro

or if you must

Dell, HP, Lenovo & Sony

Oh, there is nothing wrong with ATI's latest offering with respect to a mid-level gaming machine.
 
Like Dynafrom said, I would stay away from ibuypower. I have heard some "tales of true terror" about that company.

I would look at the Dash, and other smaller form factor Pcs like you have been. Their small footprint, lightness, and quietness, really make them worth the (usual) slight loss of performance.

I would avoid dell and hp because a few of their components are not full retail grade (mobo), the included bloatware, and after purchase service is not all it is made up to be.

A small (size wise) from Volecity, Puget, Maingear seems like the way to go.

Hope it all works out for your dad.
 
My advice, avoid the pitch to call and "talk" about it initially. Normally when that happens they promise the world, and they may be very good but they're on that phone directly to sell you a machine despite anything they tell you to to contrary. Read the reviews here at [H] about the companies then decide what company you want to go with then call them and talk to them if you like, but always -- always keep the ball in your court.
 
I'd rather just build it. Sry.

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/2692/buildce7.png

-PSU could probably be changed
-the 64bit version of Home premium is the same price or you could get XP
-how is that mobo? Looks good. OC's good?
-OC that Q6600, the memory, and the video card
-Wait a little and could probably get the 8800GTS 512 which is suppose to be only a squirt better.

Everything else looks good.
 
An HP slimline. They are 200 bucks off right now. Run cool, small and light and one year support on hardware and 90 day support on software.
 
LucasG said:
Your father should be happy of having sons like yourselves. :D
Click to expand...

amen. You've got lots of great options already posted around. My advice is to watch the special pre-built deals around newegg.
 
Thank you all very much for the info. I'm going to do some spreadsheeting today to try and get more of an apples to apples comparison. Dell and HP are out due to weird restrictions in their component options, so Velocity and Maingear are the frontrunners.

Can anyone speak to Intel vs. AMD? I've heard that AMD has been falling behind over the last few years, and the Dash only comes with AMD. Is there a particular chip that would be a good match against the Q6600?
 
Ok, now that I've had a chance to do some spreadsheets I think I will need to go AMD to be able to afford this.

The Velocity Micro systems end up too expensive so I am comparing Maingear's Prelude to the Dash. Here's where they differ, other than case (as far as I can tell):

Prelude Dash
PSU 750 500
MB Asus M2A-MVP 480X GIGABYTE AMD 690G

I've specced both with the radeon 3850, which seems to be as close as I can get to an 8800GT without going to a dual slot card and more expense.

It's primarily a gaming machine, but not cutting edge. Just something that will be a big improvement over his monolithic old Alienware system. I don't think he games at really high res since he uses a fairly old 19" CRT.
 
Easiest question probably, what's your budget and what's needed in it. Monitor/speakers/keyboard/mouse? Or just the computer? A lot easier to make recommendations knowing that heh. For your question about AMD vs Intel, AMD is clock for clock slower and doesn't overclock as well generally, but if those aren't concerns their aggressive pricing on the low to midrange chips make them still attractive. Since you are buying from an integrator they probably won't overclock chips at that price range (under warranty at least) so AMD is fine honestly.
 
I apologize for not putting that in my first post.

I was aiming for around $1400. No need for monitor, speakers, mouse or keyboard. My brother is paying the larger part of this so it might be ok to go over by $100-$200.

The goal is a decent gaming rig, overclocking not necessary as it adds complication and my father lives hundreds of miles away so troubleshooting can be a bitch. A small-ish case would be nice, as well as one that is not particularly loud.

His current machine (Alienware) is several years old now and was not cutting edge when it was new. So a midrange gaming machine should feel like a pretty big improvement.

He mostly plays HL2 on a 19" CRT. So he won't be running at ultra-high res.

This made me think that a modern, mid-upper range CPU and mid-upper range graphics card would be great for him. The ATI 3850 in the Dash seems well regarded, and is single slot. The 8800GT seems nice but noise and heat problems concern me.

So I'm thinking an AMD/ATI system from Maingear, either the Prelude or Dash will be a good fit. The AMD 6000, 3 gigs of RAM, 250 gig HD, ATI 3850, onboard audio. I'll have it sent to my house for initial testing (better I should deal with out of the box issues than him), then I will drive it to my dad's place for his birthday and use that Windows transfer tool to copy over his account and files. I see there is a beta companion that will copy over some of his programs, too.
 
As a company Maingear seems very respectable and their customer service is generally top notch (plus they seem to have a loyal community base in their forums). The dash looks like a pretty good deal too and is based on the Small Form Factor SG03 from Silverstone so it'll be as compact as just about anything out there. You're a bit limited in upgrading internal hard drives but it's got great build quality. At this price range, while the customer service won't be as good or personal you could I suppose consider builds from the major OEMs like Dell and HP. The Dell XPS 420 for instance if you drop the 20" monitor could probably net you a Q6600 + 8800GT combo and 4 gigs of DDR800 for around 1350 before tax and shipping. Since it won't be overclocked the Dell Bios probably won't be a big deal either. Of course, as you probably know though the service and support at a major OEM can't be as personal as that of a small boutique can be, and Maingear is probably a surer bet at making things right than Dell. Dell at this price range can be tough to compete with though if you/your dad are willing to deal with the things that go with a big OEM.

rbanzai said:
I apologize for not putting that in my first post.

I was aiming for around $1400. No need for monitor, speakers, mouse or keyboard. My brother is paying the larger part of this so it might be ok to go over by $100-$200.

The goal is a decent gaming rig, overclocking not necessary as it adds complication and my father lives hundreds of miles away so troubleshooting can be a bitch. A small-ish case would be nice, as well as one that is not particularly loud.

His current machine (Alienware) is several years old now and was not cutting edge when it was new. So a midrange gaming machine should feel like a pretty big improvement.

He mostly plays HL2 on a 19" CRT. So he won't be running at ultra-high res.

This made me think that a modern, mid-upper range CPU and mid-upper range graphics card would be great for him. The ATI 3850 in the Dash seems well regarded, and is single slot. The 8800GT seems nice but noise and heat problems concern me.

So I'm thinking an AMD/ATI system from Maingear, either the Prelude or Dash will be a good fit. The AMD 6000, 3 gigs of RAM, 250 gig HD, ATI 3850, onboard audio. I'll have it sent to my house for initial testing (better I should deal with out of the box issues than him), then I will drive it to my dad's place for his birthday and use that Windows transfer tool to copy over his account and files. I see there is a beta companion that will copy over some of his programs, too.
Click to expand...
 
You never said anywhere that your not willing to build, so why not?

You could easily build a high end gaming computer (complete with 8800GTX) if you went that route (considering the money your spending).
 
FMX said:
You never said anywhere that your not willing to build, so why not?

You could easily build a high end gaming computer (complete with 8800GTX) if you went that route (considering the money your spending).
Click to expand...

generally they don't want you to post that recommendation here in the prebuilt forums, but yeah if only a single GPU is needed I would go with a 7050 NV chipset mATX board that has a 3 PCI slot clearance (not the two PCI slots like the 690G) so that you could drop in an 8800GT and then cool it with a VF900 for quietness and just have him use onboard sound, use a Silverstone single rail PSU, AC Freezer Pro HSF, Yate-loon slow RPM 90MM case fans, some sound dampening mat material the case bottom and door and drop in in an a nice little Inwin or Foxconn mATX case (some of them have bottom clearance even for the 8800GTX). I would initially use XP (not vista) as well since it's bound to be much easier and familiar for and older person/gamer to deal with ( OS permissions and such).

That's how I would build it for a customer like this, but if going enthusiast prebuilt VM or Puget would be a good way to go :)
 
I haven't built one before so this would not be a good one to learn on. I need it to be really well made. :)

I think I'll be going with that Dell. They have a deal on right now where you can get a $200 gift card for their online store, and that means my Dad could replace his CRT with an LCD on top of having a new computer. Free shipping as well.

My brother is putting up most of the money so the decision is his. My job was to spec and research, and after purchase I'll be the one testing it, putting it together and transferring from the old to the new.

Thanks again for all the input. Made this a fun experience.
 
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