advice please

Wow this place is dead. Come on!

Anyways...a couple questions. First...is this [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] any good?

2ndly...if one were to come upon one of these in the next 5-7 business days, what games would be suggested? FPS priority! I've read all your reviews on different games, but frankly cannot afford to get them all NOR do I have the time to play them.

If you tell me the above pc is a POS, Ill jump off a cliff...I swear

PC is great, minus the fact you could do a lot better on the graphics card. But my very tired, not super-up-to-date self would say that it's perfectly legit.


Blows my current CPU out of the water (Intel Core-2 Duo E8300 @2.83GHz) and I run current games perfectly fine. With an HD 6870 instead of a 7770 and only 4 gigs of ram.

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Find that really helpful just for basic knowledge.

Oh, and the HDD is actually... not ideal. Huge capacity, but very low RPM. That just makes things load slower, but yeah.

As far as game recommendations... I'll do that in a day or two. Going to bed now.

It's solid but expensive and some of that expense is in the HP name alone rather than better parts

I agree with Sev the hard drive is a bit slow. You want a 7200rpm drive and 1TB would be more than plenty, 2TB is hugantic!

That video card could be better but should be fine for your 19" widescreen

I think if you bought parts yourself you could improve on the harddrive and video card all for the same cost. I priced out the box on newegg and came to $1100 and every part was quality. I worry about the ram which it doesnt list the brand of or the specs for.

I know you could build it yourself with just some general instruction from a youtube video.

I think overall I'd say if you wanted it simple this wouldn't be a bad way to go (the HP) but I think you can get more for your money if you build yourself or investigate some other pre built options.

Hope that helps.


Newegg build: Subtotal: $1,106.91 (Even the vid card I chose here could be changed to one slightly less expensive and still better than the 7770 chopping price another 50 or so)

I'd recommend Cyberpower PC if anything.

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It's building your computer, without actually building it.
My current computer is from there. Absolutely no complaints.

My power supply even failed shortly after getting it and they replaced it free of charge and free of hassle. And I probably wouldn't blame them for giving me a bad power supply, either... I skimped on it tbh.

Well thx for all advice. I was impulsive and bought (actually before posting) in the hopes that I did a decent job on my own without having to build!(Im such a girl.) That being said, I'm willing to upgrade my vid card if thats the best idea. That or I could just return the whole thing and do it myself but that doesnt sound fun to me

Jimmy wrote:It's solid but expensive and some of that expense is in the HP name alone rather than better parts

I agree with Sev the hard drive is a bit slow. You want a 7200rpm drive and 1TB would be more than plenty, 2TB is hugantic!

That video card could be better but should be fine for your 19" widescreen

I think if you bought parts yourself you could improve on the harddrive and video card all for the same cost. I priced out the box on newegg and came to $1100 and every part was quality. I worry about the ram which it doesnt list the brand of or the specs for.

I know you could build it yourself with just some general instruction from a youtube video.

I think overall I'd say if you wanted it simple this wouldn't be a bad way to go (the HP) but I think you can get more for your money if you build yourself or investigate some other pre built options.

Hope that helps.


Newegg build: Subtotal: $1,106.91 (Even the vid card I chose here could be changed to one slightly less expensive and still better than the 7770 chopping price another 50 or so)

ASUS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner
Item #: N82E16827135204

Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Item #: N82E16811129042

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
Item #: N82E16822136533

GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
Item #: N82E16813128514

EVGA SuperClocked GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0
Item #: N82E16814130595

CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 750W
Item #: N82E16817139021

G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866
Item #: N82E16820231460

AMD FX-8150 Zambezi 3.6GHz Socket AM3+ 125W Eight-Core Desktop Processor
Item #: N82E16819103960

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM
Item #: N82E16832116986

I know you say I could just watch a youtube vid but realistically, how hard/easy would it be for me(as you know me best) to put this together on my own? btw...ty for researching it

you're welcome.

The vid card in there with your 19" monitor would be good enough you wouldn't need to upgrade it immediately. It just doesn't carry much future proofiness (yes made that word up! #websters) and I know this is a big purchase that you will want to last. When I built mine last year that was one of the most important parts of each decision. I expect my whole rig to last 4 years with an upgrade of my vid card (7950) at the 2 year mark likely.

As for building it yourself. I absolutely believe you could do it with minor guidance from youtube (so you can visualize it) and the instructions that you get (motherboard came with instructions for the trickiest part which is installing the cpu into it). I remember when we opened up that Sony of yours.. like a boss!

As an added bonus you won't have all the bloatware (software you have no interest in) from HP on your computer.

Newegg has a tutorial video up with 3 parts. Here's part 1 which talks about the parts. Part 2 is building it. Part 3 is installing windows.

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Makes me nervous. I'll sleep on it. Although I know this new rig is coming tomorrow so hopefully the shine and ready-to-go'ness doesnt lure me before making an informed decision(oops should've done that before purchase?) and 4 yrs? My rig has gone 12. 12! Maybe I shouldve just bought another Viao I'm going to watch that video soon. thx

you're very welcome. If you do build I'll help all I can.

Ok thanks!

G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866
Item #: N82E16820231460 <---out of stock

found it elsewhere and am able to use my credit card bonus points on it

Oh yeaaaa...cant wait to CS 1.6 ya'll again! lol!

really.. 1.6?? really.. lol. you could at minimum source! (don't you have that?)

lots of games have gone free to play including games like Team Fortress 2, Combat Arms, and Battlefield Play4Free for example! There are others as well!

Here's a listing that includes some more:

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WoT is on that list as well but Zebug and Res didn't like it at all.. I'm almost afraid to even recommend it now. I still love it though and am looking forward to World of WarPlanes when it launches.

I was joking on the 1.6 I honestly want to get into COD series. Please tell me that I'll be able to handle that

with ease!

nice rig, that will do you just fine...more than fine actually for any game out there today. I agree with Jimmy in that building one yourself is the way to go and I know you can do it. But nothing wrong with going the prebuilt route as you've done. Enjoy it, don't look back and have fun.

COD Black Ops 2 is coming out (November I assume, didn't look it up) but it will have dedi ranked servers, my current clan will have our own server.

I currently play BF3, it 100000% better than any COD game, but I do have tons of fun playing COD (hence I will preorder my black ops 2 soon lol and I'll probably nearly drop BF3 once the new Black Ops comes out).

Counter Stike Global offensive will be out someday, I'm sure I'll play that one too (eventhough I don't wanna)

I sent back the HP already and decided on a self-build! This is what I got:

ASUS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner
Item #: N82E16827135204

Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Item #: N82E16811129042

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
Item #: N82E16822136533

ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Item #: N82E16813157271

EVGA SuperClocked GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0
Item #: N82E16814130595

CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 750W
Item #: N82E16817139021

G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866
Item #: N82E16820231460

Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 3000
Item #: N82E16819115072

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM
Item #: N82E16832116986

I am extremely nervous about this build only b/c I've never done one before and since I'm full of electricity I'm sure I'll short out the mobo. haha. Anyways...pretty sure I'll be able to own you all now, especially Ze.

And thx Jimmy for the suggestions.

very cool, you'll feel so happy when you fired that puppy up and it actually works. Then anytime something breaks, you'll be like, "hell I can fix that."

My dad's computer died (actually been dead for months unknown to me). Casual conversation he mentions it and says, I just need to get the pictures off of it so we don't loose those moments. I'm like, let me take that hard drive home, plug it into my rig and send you a thumb drive with all your crap on it.

It's so nice knowing that you can take care of anything computer related, and that comes right after you build your own.

Any questions you have a lot of friends here willing to offer help.

it's going to be pretty beastly.. that 570 on her 19" widescreen.. pretty much turn up every detail you want! when/if you ever decide to get a bigger monitor.. you have the rig to handle it.

all for the same cost as that HP - i'm excited for her! I've seen that old sony in action lol..it's going to be like night and day!