What PC set up do you use?

[GRColin]

I was just wondering what the system specs are on the computers you use when playing the new PC games and if you have to shell out for them, if it's considered a tax write off or you're sponsored by companies such as Evga or anything?

On that note...Have game companies ever sent you new PC components in a way to "sweeten the deal" and get a high grade out of you?

 

[dUKE]

i built the office gaming rig myself

http://www.gamerevolution.com/manifesto/view.php?id=218
http://www.gamerevolution.com/manifesto/view.php?id=219
http://www.gamerevolution.com/manifesto/view.php?id=220

and it's still plenty robust to run the latest games.

at home i have an asus gaming laptop (yes it's a write-off) . i may have a new gaming laptop coming in from msi for testing soon though. sometimes they let you keep them. yay!

finally, yes, we do get parts sometimes, the two geforce cards in that rig were given to us by ms/nvidea.

we get sent stuff and go on wild trips / parties all the time. however, it never influences the final grade.

some journalists, just to make sure, like n'gai croal from newsweek, aren't allowed to accept anything. not even a sandwich. so he's always staying at different hotels and ordering in different food than the rest of us.

 

[GRColin]

i may have a new gaming laptop coming in from msi for testing soon though. sometimes they let you keep them. yay!

Duke, will you kindly post a review of this laptop if you get it? I know it's hard to keep up with hardware reviews which is why GR stopped with them but just for nostalgia? Please? /beg

 

[Rakon]

Shitty ones

 

[Eyebrowsbv31]

I built for about 1,200$ 2 months ago this set up:

Cooler Master Cosmos Full tower ATX case : 180$
Geforce 280 1gig DDR3 RAM GPU: around 400$
MSI Daimond P7N Mobo with Built in Soundblaster Audio: 179$
Intel Dual Core Wolfdale 3.16GHz (Can overclock to 4.0) CPU 189$
4 GB consair 1066 FSB RAM DDR2 90 bucks
Standard Segate 250gb SATA drive, 50 bucks
Antec 1000w PSU 170$ (got it as a deal with the RAM)
And pirated two disk drives from my old PC

QUite a beast, maxes out Far cry 2, Oblivion, COD4, STALKER, etc. DX10 enable, 64bit, and it's a mofo.

 

[Lateralus]

I have a run of the mill Dell Dimension E520 with a 128MB ATI Radeon card. I am 100% happy with it. I wanted to upgrade a while ago, but then again, I'd rather have a shitty PC than die a virgin.

 

[Eyebrowsbv31]

I have a run of the mill Dell Dimension E520 with a 128MB ATI Radeon card. I am 100% happy with it. I wanted to upgrade a while ago, but then again, I'd rather have a shitty PC than die a virgin.

Big PC's attract women.

Or is that a big penis? I get the two confused.

 

[Lateralus]

I have a run of the mill Dell Dimension E520 with a 128MB ATI Radeon card. I am 100% happy with it. I wanted to upgrade a while ago, but then again, I'd rather have a shitty PC than die a virgin.

Big PC's attract women.

Or is that a big penis? I get the two confused.

If you knew women, the answer is neither.

 

[Tylzen]

The 30/07-2008, I bought this.

DeZen Case TitanTower 850Watt, Black/Sil
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500, BOX
Samsung SP F1, 500GB, SATAII, 16MB
Asus DRW-2014L1, ATA, Black/Si, Retail
Inno3d GeForce 9800GTX, 512MB GDDR3 PCIe
Kingston DDR2-667, 2048MB x2
ASRock P45R2000, Intel P45, LGA 775

Pricetag:

$1059 (incl tax)

$843.99 (excl tax)

 

[Jackel585]

I built my current rig back in May of 07' (i think it was about a month after LOTRO was released I believe).

Sunbeam Transformer Case, had to upgrade to a 750 watt PSU i think
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700.. 2.66ghz
500gb Western Digital
Nvidia GeForce 800 Ultra 768mb
Can't remember type, i think Kingston, 2gb worth, kept meaning to add a 3rd but never needed.
And of course, XP pro

don't remember my price tag on it..

I am building a new computer probably by January and I get to write the entire thing off on my taxes because it will be work computer too If you use your computer to do work, even a little, than you can usually write off some amount.

 

[GRColin]

Wow.

I didn't know we had so many GR staff here!

 

[Eyebrowsbv31]

Wow.

I didn't know we had so many GR staff here!

I know right! GR doesn't quite do PC game reviews anymore, it's up to us!

Okay, okay, you do. but if it's a multi platform release you guys play the 360 and PS3 versions.

 

[geoff_hunt]

I'm regularly upgrading because I'm a hardware enthusiast. Here's my current rig, though...

ASUS Rampage Formula MoBo (LGA775 / Intel X48)
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale (Overclocked to 4 GHz)
8 GBs of Corsair Dominator DDR2 1066 MHz
XFX GeForce GTX280
SupremeFX Audio card
2 Western Digital VelociRaptor 10,000 RPM hard drives

I run (a heavily bitchslapped install of) Vista Ultimate.

It's a goodly rig. Conquers Crysis on max settings.

 

[Squiggy]

My computer:

Pre-built, HP Media Center PC

AMD Athlon 64 3.4GHz dual-core processor
4GB RAM
250GB hard drive
nVidia GeForce 8500 GT 512MB
20" HP LCD flatscreen monitor, 1680x1050 resolution
Unknown motherboard. Probably some mid-range nVidia board. I dunno.

OS: Windows Vista Home Premium, with Service Pack 1. 32-bit version. I realize that the 32-bit Vista doesn't support full-use of RAM, but I see that 3.5GB out of a total 4.0 is still pretty good.

If the demos are enough to judge, then Bioshock runs relatively well on high settings, although not realy the best framerate. Crysis demo is unplayable on anything higher than all of the low settings (however super-high physics runs fine).

Mid-range games like The Sims 2 (with four expansion packs), Fable, and anything made on Source run near-flawlessly though.

Hmm, says something about graphics tech advancement when you start to call Half-Life 2 a 'mid-range' game.

In the future, I plan on getting a new graphics card. Probably one of the Geforce 280's. I also would like to get a bigger hard drive, I'm thinking a good terabyte should be more than enough. But by the time I have the money for it all, better stuff will more than likely be available.

Hell, I'll bet Windows 7 will be out by then, so I may as well just get a new computer while I'm at it. Though next time I'll look into building my own.

Would save me some money, too. Powerful , fast computer, no preloaded crap from the manufacturer, no extra costs beyond the price of the parts.

But this is all personal fantasy. I doubt I'll be able to afford a good machine for quite a while. So for now, I'll just set my sights on a new graphics card for my current machine.

 

[madster111]

Laptop -
Toshiba Qosmio X305

QX9300 @ 3.2ghz
4gb DDR3 1066mhz
128GB SSD + 320GB - 7200rpm
2x 9800M GTS overclocked.
Chopped up version of Vista Ultimate SP1
4.1 "surround" sound (sounds pretty damn good actually)

picked it like 4 days ago.
Playing Crysis on High settings with no lag is actually kinda scary.

Duke - you need to try one of these laptops. they are INSANE. 17" screen with 1200p and 2 desktop spec nvidia 9800 GTS', and a fast quad core makes it stupidly fast.
The battery life has scared me a lot too.. it lasts over 3 hours on low power mode. insane.

 

[lokness]

I built my rig a while ago - May or June, cant really remember.

Gigabyte EX38 DS4 | Corsair XMS2 4GB | Gigabyte 9800GTX | 250GB + 500GB Seagate | Corsair HX 520 | Intel E8400 | Inwin B2 Bomber | 24inch Benq LCD G2400W

I'm semi happy with it, 'cept for the video card and the processor. 9800GTX still QQ's in most of the recent titles at native res (Its really more suited to a 22inch) and plus my CPU could use a bit of an OC.

Farcry 2 runs sluggish - averaging 35 fps. :/

 

[Ivory_Soul]

Let's see...well I have a pretty shitty computer since it was from my old online school that forgot to send me return shipping labels at the end of my last year.

HP dx5150 Small Form Factor Casing
AMD Sempron 3000+ 1.8 GHz
756 MB RAM
ATI RADEON Xpress 200 128 MB @ 400 MHz
40 GB HDD that's always full
Micro ATX Mobo
PCI eXpress slots (gaaaay)
HP 1502 15" Plasma Monitor
Shitty Lite-On DVD-DL Writer
Altec Lansing speakers
600 USB slots (well it seems like it)

I want a top of the line laptop but I need to fork out about $2300 for that...damn it!

The only "newer" games I can really run are Half-Life 2, Unreal Tournament 2004, and Battlefield 1942. I can't even get Far Cry 1 to play with mid range settings! I tried Call of Duty 4 demo just for laughs and it ran at 3-5 FPS on lowest settings...BWAHAHAH...took me over 30 minutes just to boot up and shut the stupid game down.

 

[LinksOcarina]

Your all speaking Greek to me....

 

[Kiristo]

^Then get your console loving ass outta here.

 

[Ivory_Soul]

^Then get your console loving ass outta here.

Yeah!! Get out!! Well...I'm a console lover but that's only because I have a shitty PC. Otherwise I'd be playing the PC versions of the multi-platform games since you can do mods, skinning, cheat consoles etc. I mainly just play my 360 now for all my next-gen fixes.