June 7, 2005
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I want my… I want my new PC
I’m upgrading my 5-year-old PC (550P3, Win98, 256MB,
40+100GB, CD-RW, DVD, 32MB video).My new requirements are: 1GB, 80GB, DVD+-RW, 128MB video.
Things to note:
- I don’t care about processor speed. Anything new these days is
fine. Most of the heavy-duty processing will be done by the video card
anyway. -
I’m downgrading my hard drive size. I can’t fill the space I have
now, and I’m not planning on editing digital video anytime soon. -
I don’t care about the operating system. WinXP, MacOS, Media
Center, whatever. As long as it runs World of Warcraft. -
I’m going to re-use my 19″ LCD monitor — no need to upgrade it.
These are the options I’ve found. Any comments?
- Shuttle PC G4300h ($940): with WinXP and a 128MB ATI Radeon 9600 XT. (and an integrated 8-in-1 card reader)
-
Dell Dimension 4700
($960): with WinXP and an inferior 128MB ATI X300SE. - [edit] Alienware Area-51 5300 ($1030) with WinXP and an inferior 128MB ATI X300.
- Power Mac G5 ($1695): with Mac OS Tiger and a 128MB ATI Radeon 9600 XT.
And two lighter notes:
-
comment by an MIT professor:
“If you’re not missing a few flights, you’re spending too much time at airports” - recent T-shirt sighting:
“We prefer to be called Buccaneer-Americans”
- I don’t care about processor speed. Anything new these days is
Comments (11)
Will any of the 3rd generation gaming consoles run World of Warcraft? Because I’ve read a lot of articles stating that the 3rd generation gaming consoles, which will probably sell for around $500, are equivalent to $2000 gaming PC’s, because they are sold at a loss and are built in such bulk. Unless you need the PC for other things, which it doesn’t sound like you do, then I’d wait to buy the next XBox or PlayStation.
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/03/1510223&from=rss
Interesting article! But here are reasons why that won’t work for me:
1) I want to play WoW with June now, not wait until November.
2) In November, the Xbox360 comes out. PS3 comes out next year. WoW will not be available for either by then.
3) WoW, like many RPG’s, plays much better with a keyboard, compared to a 2-hand controller. On a keyboard I can do complex commands as well as type messages to my guildmates. (I’ve played through a few Xbox RPG’s like KOTOR and The Bard’s Tale, and the controls were painfully inadequate.) Because RPG’s and RTS’s are so much better suited for keyboards, PC’s will remain firmly entrenched in gaming, even if the graphics drops a bit behind consoles in price/performance.
4) The article just speculates that PC game developers will depart in droves for consoles. From my reasoning above, I give this forecast a mere 1% chance of coming true in the next 5 years. Maybe 10% for FPS (first person shooter) games.
5) I’m also replacing my PC as a life insurance against the old machine crashing or dying.
As much as I like Macs, you’re paying a premium for the box and OS design (Mac OS X, no spyware). If you’re not going to use iMovie or GarageBand or the unix underpinnings, I would save a couple hundred and go with a windows box. There are mixed reviews about the framerate of WOW on Macs. Have you considered Alienware?
Hey Rich, thanks for the tip! I went to Alienware’s site and configured a small-form-factor PC. Turns out it’s a bit more expensive than Shuttle for a bit less performance, unfortunately. I would love to try out a Mac, but for a $760 price differential, I could buy a whole new computer!
I’m not sure but my old office computer might be worth considering. Here are the specs:
Dell Precision WorkStation 530
PROCESSOR, 80528, 1.7G, 256K, 400, SOCKET F, D0
RAMBUS INLINE MEMORY MODULE, 512, 400M, 256X18
COMPACT DISK DRIVE, 128K, I, 5.25″ FORM FACTOR, 20/48X
COMPACT DISK READ WRITE, 680M, I, 16X, HITACHI
CARD (CIRCUIT), GRAPHICS, NVIDIA, QUADRO2, PRECISION WORKSTATION
HARD DRIVE, 36GB
FLOPPY DRIVE, 1.44M, 3.5″
REMOVABLE MEDIA STORAGE, ZIP DRIVE, 250M
I think the video card has 128MB, but I can make sure.
4GB RAM: not too shabby.
No DVD-RW though; you’d have to get one. And the HD would need upgrading.
the buccaneer shirt wasn’t from a tampa bucs shirt, was it??
i like shuttle just because its sff..and that graphics card would run wow in some good settings
but you can build your own sff system for cheaper (non shuttle case and motherboard, amd cpu) and you get the satisfaction that you did it yourself…
but then again a few dollars saved isn’t very much worth it is it?
can’t you get a keyboard for consoles? i would be surprised if you couldn’t for the XBox because my impression is their strategy is to move gamers to the XBox platform. i think game developers prefer it as a platform because you are only developing for one hardware platform, much easier for both development and QA.
plus i want you to buy it so i can play with it.
but yes, if you have to have it now, shuttle sounds cool. check out ABS too, good reviews on PCWorld.com, though PCWorld.com likes Alienware the best i think.
you should buy the mac too.
“If you’re not getting enough names, numbers, and emails, you’re spending too much time near LAX, SFO, SJC, JFK, LGA, HKG, ICN, TPE, TSA….” What said MIT professor REALLY meant.
MB: Thanks for the tip; I’ll come check out your old machine.
JC: Nope, it was a plain white T-shirt with the Jolly Roger and that caption.
RK: Yeah, I don’t want the hassle of building my own machine now — less time for WoW.
FK: Nope, no keyboards available for consoles yet. Let me know if you hear differently.
JWKC: Haha, you’re thinking of a different MIT professor! =D
Pirates in Boston be too sensitive. They shame ye old tradition of plunderin’ and huntin’ fer boooty. Yargggh.
Times’er changin’.