• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Prebuilt computer

rudy

rudy

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Apr 4, 2004
Messages
8,703
I am looking for something $900 or less, no monitor needed. The trick is it has to be pre built with a reasonable graphics card.

I was really thinking that there would be various companies that would put together good value systems but apparently no one I can find so far does that.

I am looking for a i5 2500k or 3570k

I figure 8 gb ram

Any 7200 rpm hard drive would be fine an SSD, 128gb or larger would be better.

No SLI needed, no special anything, except it would be nice if it could output to 1440p via dual link dvi. But I think any GPU would do that.
 
Hmmm, well you have three main options:
1) DIY
2) Expand your budget by at least $500 so that you can get a well put-together prebuilt gaming PC
3) Settle for a shoddily built gaming PC from CyberpowerPC or iBuypowerPC
4) Find a prebuilt PC with an Intel quad-core CPU for really cheap and upgrade the PSU and GPU.
 
Danny Bui said:
3) Settle for a shoddily built gaming PC from CyberpowerPC or iBuypowerPC
Click to expand...

Have had a few friends buy ibuypowers over the years and they all seem to love them. They seem to last a while and from what limited use I have with them I would say they are fine. I wouldn't buy one, but it is a cheaper alternative than most if you want almost completely customization. If you wait for a good sale they can actually be almost as cheap as putting the PC together yourself. I know a friend bought one slightly cheaper than if he pieced the PC he was looking at building together himself from newegg. Granted cheaper parts were used here and there...
 
hdawg06 said:
Have had a few friends buy ibuypowers over the years and they all seem to love them. They seem to last a while and from what limited use I have with them I would say they are fine. I wouldn't buy one, but it is a cheaper alternative than most if you want almost completely customization. If you wait for a good sale they can actually be almost as cheap as putting the PC together yourself. I know a friend bought one slightly cheaper than if he pieced the PC he was looking at building together himself from newegg. Granted cheaper parts were used here and there...
Click to expand...
From what I've seen on the forums and in person, I cannot recommend that course of action to anyone I don't hate.
 
Ya no ibuypower , this person actually had one of those some years ago and it was hell.

Too bad we are just going to have to lower our specs alot, I cannot believe there is no market for a company to make a value based machine.

I find with the big OEMs they are dead set on forcing you to move up to more expensive i7s which we all know have very little gain for almost any normal person. So they raise the price $200 give you an i7 but you lose the K series which would have only cost like $20 more. So you end up with a ton of useless upgrades, I can find i7s with over kill 16 gb of ram etc. within my price range but I cannot find what should be a less expensive configuration. pretty messed up. And a big part of the reason no one buys desktops anymore.

IMO the major failing of OEMs like ibuypower is that they give absolute shit PSUs. And in the end it is that very thing that causes them to have tons of returns and issues.
 
rudy said:
Too bad we are just going to have to lower our specs alot, I cannot believe there is no market for a company to make a value based machine.
Click to expand...
The problem is that PC boutiques or OEMs, even the ones that charge $500+ on top of the cost of parts, have razor thin margins especially if they offer a warranty longer than 1 year. Remember that if there's any hardware issues or software issues during the warranty period, they eat the various costs involved, not you. Not to mention that it takes time to make sure that PC is as stable as possible before it's shipped to the customer. Then there's the need for a profit. Hence the higher prices for pre-built gaming PCs.

As you've seen with CyberpowerPC and IbuypowerPC, there are are companies that cater to the cheap gaming PC market but they do so while cutting costs everywhere. As such, their quality is severely lacking compared to good PC boutiques like Puget Systems, Maingear, and Velocity Micro.

Anyway, cheapest gaming PC from a PC boutique that I am willing to recommend is this so far:
http://www.maingear.com/boutique/pc/configurePrd.asp?idproduct=1432

EDIT: Alternatively, if you want to go the Frankenstein route (option 4) and don't care about warranty, another option would be to get this $600 Inspiron 660:
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellst...ron-660&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&ref=1932_better

Add this PSU:
$57 - Antec NEO ECO 520C 520W PSU

And this relatively short GTX 660 GPU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127707

You should be ok after that.
 
Last edited:
I'm new to PC builds, but in my opinion for a $900 budget (without display), I would definitely recommend doing a custom build yourself. It might cost slightly more than $900 overall but again IMO there isn't much to think about as far as what you'll be getting for your money.

Edit: Sorry, I guess I didn't read it close enough. Why must it be pre-built?
 
It just is what the person wants. This person knows how to build computers so obviously its a time issue.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top