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My Stupid Dumb Friend Decided To Upgrade His PC to These Specs at the Cost of $1360 USD (PC GAF, Get ITT!!!)

I could probably build my own PC if I had actual patience and steady hands. I suck at cable management and handing small screws and connectors though. I get so frustrated if/when something goes wrong, that I just decided to have my latest rig custom built. I just picked my parts on Cyber Power PC, had them build it, and was happy with the results.

I was actually able to get a really good deal on a EVGA 1080 TI this way when everybody else was sold out due to all that mining BS.
 

TacosNSalsa

Member
AMD Radeon RX 570X on a $1360 PC AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
Exactly ..that's a bad GPU to have in a PC that price . Alienware is like the Jack Daniels of PCs. You're paying for the name and the way it looks rather than what's on the inside .

If your friend is intent on going down the prebuilt route always look to system integrators like Cyberpower PC or IBuyPower ,at least at first. Builds like Alienware and HP Omen usually use custom parts built by the lowest bidder . The S.I.s use off the shelf parts that anyone can get and depending on the time of year and/or what ever promotions they are running you can definitely get them at a great price
 
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VertigoOA

Banned
I’ve been looking at Evolve PCs lately. Next-gen rigs are upwards of $2500.

I’m seriously considering abandoning consoles these days.

if Ps5 is underpowered compared to Series X as expected... it’ll make the choice easier.
 

Mahadev

Member
I’ve been looking at Evolve PCs lately. Next-gen rigs are upwards of $2500.

I’m seriously considering abandoning consoles these days.

if Ps5 is underpowered compared to Series X as expected... it’ll make the choice easier.


Buy a custom PC, prebuilds are scams. A couple of hours on youtube TOPS will make you more than competent to build your own or you can pay someone to do it for you.
 
I have two brothers who work in IT, and consequently am now running a core i7 with (excessive) 24 gigs of RAM, over 1 terabyte of storage, a brand new RTX 2060, a new sound card, and a new BENQ monitor.

I paid less than $600 total.

(my younger brother gave me some of the stuff for free, I'm lucky)
 
Building PCs really is a piece of piss. Anyone who avoids doing it is just being lazy - which is fine. I pay a premium to be lazy with shit I don't want to do too.
 

Krappadizzle

Gold Member
People saying that building a PC is easy are
right.
it's just not a quick "pop it together in 15 mins." process. Been building for years and years and it's still a 4 hours process(at a minimum, usually longer). Anyone can do it, it is as easy as people say, but it just takes time. If one is willing to invest the tiny bit of brain power it takes to learn the process, one could save a lot of money.
 
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Hinedorf

Banned
Rig looks fine, he's the dumb one who spent the money. If he's happy with it than it's clearly worth what he paid for it.

There's tons of suckers every day, if you don't know jack about a PC and you buy something that works for you, then it's worth the price of your ignorance.
 

V4skunk

Banned
If you are not willing to build your own pc you shouldn't be pc gaming to be honest.
Building a pc is literally this.
0575MD.jpg


Also if you are in USA shouldn't you be using Newegg to build a pc?
 
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Chromata

Member
People saying that building a PC is easy are
right.
it's just not a quick "pop it together in 15 mins. process. Been building for years and years and it's still a 4 hours process(at a minimum, usually longer). Anyone can do it, it is as easy as people say, but it just takes time. If one is willing to invest the tiny bit of brain power it takes to learn the process, one could save a lot of money.

Yup. Not only will you save money, but you'll learn a lot about how a PC works. This will be invaluable when you need to change parts or if you run into a hardware related issue.

Plus there's a different kind of joy in seeing a PC you planned and built run like a dream.
 

Kamina

Golden Boy
If you are not willing to build your own pc you shouldn't be pc gaming to be honest.
Building a pc is literally this.
0575MD.jpg


Also if you are in USA shouldn't you be using Newegg to build a pc?
Bullshit.
If someone is willing to pay to not have to put up with things like “which is the best CPU, GPU, Mainboard, etc“, or “which PSU is right for my system” then let them. Not putting up with this doesn't effect ones skill to install and play a game via steam.
 

Mahadev

Member
Bullshit.
If someone is willing to pay to not have to put up with things like “which is the best CPU, GPU, Mainboard, etc“, or “which PSU is right for my system” then let them. Not putting up with this doesn't effect ones skill to install and play a game via steam.

But not putting up with these things gets you a $1360 PC with a 570X GPU. All you have to do is google this for every component if you want to be lazy "best CPU under 400 dollars 2020" (change according to peripheral, budget or year) read a couple of articles for an hour tops and you'll DEFINITELY have made a better decision than buying a prebuild. Hell, even if you spend 5 mins and picked the first part you skimmed in those articles you'd still make a better decision.
 

Kamina

Golden Boy
But not putting up with these things gets you a $1360 PC with a 570X GPU. All you have to do is google this for every component if you want to be lazy "best CPU under 400 dollars 2020" (change according to peripheral, budget or year) read a couple of articles for an hour tops and you'll DEFINITELY have made a better decision than buying a prebuild. Hell, even if you spend 5 mins and picked the first part you skimmed in those articles you'd still make a better decision.
I also used to buy prebuilt.
Last time i did was 2015. I ended up with paying about 150 more than if i had built it myself. Since i didnt know much about actually assembling back then it was well worth it from my point of view.
I wouldn’t do it again as i acquired knowledge and skill since then, but back then it was okay.
 

Rickyiez

Member
CPU is fine , but the 570x and 256GB SSD are pitiful . Just fyi I got a used 1080Ti (2 times faster than rx570) last year for $500
 
The GPU and SSD are actually the only thing that are really egregious here for the price. That 570x should be a 2070 or 5700XT, however... it's still a custom build case, PSU and the mainboard isn't off the shelf stuff either, so it's always hard to judge the price properly.

That proprietary stuff comes at a price (on top of it being more expensive), though... you won't be able to replace Mainboard and PSU, so that makes upgrading the CPU in around 4 years (or sooner) impossible. In the unlikely event that either fails (and you're out of warranty), you're SOL... you have to buy from DELL.

You can't just replace the mainboard from a DELL PC, you'd have to buy a new case and PSU since off the shelf MoBos won't fit and the PSU most likely uses proprietary connectors, which means you can't simply replace the PSU either (it's usually the 24-pin ATX connector that is different)... replacing the PSU is most likely impossible anyways, since the case here has also a custom place for the PSU.

You can't simply throw the internals into a new case either, because frontpanel connectors most likely won't fit... so you end up buying almost everything new, except for RAM and GPU. You can make everything fit in another case, but you'd have to frankenstein something together to make it work.

This makes it actually a lot harder to upgrade in the future... except for GPU, RAM and SSD... I mean, depending on Next-Gen consoles that i7 9700 could last for 6, 7 or 8 years for 60fps gaming, but who knows.

If I were your friend, I'd buy a pre-built from someone who uses off the shelf parts... the best one would be a shop that lets you pick the parts and THEY built the PC for you if you really don't want to build one for yourself. I think iBuyPower.com lets you do something like this, here in Germany we have Alternate.de for example.
 
Building a PC takes time, and making everything look nice with cable management isn't that easy, especially for a newbie. That's why I prefer having the store do it. Saves time and you know it'll look good.
The essential thing is that you pick the parts yourself. With pre-builts you usually get really weak parts for a ridiculously high price.
 
making everything look nice with cable management isn't that easy, especially for a newbie
And of course, making it look nice is super important to the performance of the machine, or whether or not it works at all. Get some RGB for +15% to your framerates.
Of note...companies like Dell often do the bare minimum on that front...so if you care about cable management...probably don't want to go for them.
 
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And of course, making it look nice is super important to the performance of the machine, or whether or not it works at all.

Never said that, but if you got a window you don't want it to look like shit. Also makes cleaning it from dust a lot easier.

Of note...companies like Dell often do the bare minimum on that front...so if you care about cable management...probably don't want to go for them.

Well yeah I got it done from a PC focused store which I know is professional. Cost me about $50. For me that's worth it for the time save alone.
 

NOLA_Gaffer

Banned
Can't even be mad, honestly. Its his money, let him do what he wants with it.

Folks buy stupid shit all the goddamn time.
 

kiphalfton

Member
Alienware PSU and 570 graphics card is crap.

Could have got amd 5700 graphics card, amd 3600 cpu, motherboard, ram, 750w seasonic or evga psu, fractal case, etc. for like $1k.
 

kiphalfton

Member
Wow beautiful stats, posters in here aren't supposed to be salty, whatever gripes you have with Alienware I think some people just know building a PC gaming computer is deeper than most know.

Watching a couple instructional videos on YouTube and reading directions is hard?
 
I don't think that is such a bad deal. I'm lazy when it comes to building a PC too and I don't care for the latest and greatest.

So my thoughts would be:
Go on ebay and get an HP workstation with a Xeon E5-1650 V4, Win 10 Pro, 64GB Ram, 1TB HDD, and probably a decent Quadro GPU for around $600.
If the GPU is fairly recent like a P2000 you could sell it really quickly for a few hundred. Or at least enough to get you an SSD and probably a new PSU if it's needed.
So total cost without a GPU would be around $600 or less. Mind you, PSUs (600 to 800watt) in these things will probably come with 2x 6 pin connectors so I would recommend something like an RTX 2060 Super as I think they use 2x 6 pin or 1x 8 pin (not sure though).
So, in total, that would be around $1,000, maybe less, and it would be a little weaker cpu than the Alienware but more powerful GPU.

But if you aren't in the states then I'm not sure if that kind of thing would be workable, but Alienware is really overpriced.
 

ethomaz

Banned
If you are not willing to build your own pc you shouldn't be pc gaming to be honest.
Building a pc is literally this.
0575MD.jpg


Also if you are in USA shouldn't you be using Newegg to build a pc?
It definitely not like that.
Took me a lot of time to build my mother PC and lucky I did not break anything but the parts are confusing and sometimes you try to force and end breaking it.

Tou have to look a lot of pin manuals from
Motherboard too.
 
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