HOLY MOLEY!!!

My son is a gamer, he's constintly at Games Are Us. Gets a couple on Friday, Turns them for new ones the next week.
He's on a very old computer and were looking to get him a new one for school and play.
I found American Made gaming computers eariler today.
CybertronPC.com. So I went for it, built him the best of best Ultimate AMD gaming machine.
Liquid cooled, dual vid boards, MSI gaming Mother board, 4 HD's, 32 gigs ram, western digital vel. raptor HD's.
Guess what the price would have been with only 3 monitors?
Well over 600k of pennies!!!
Crap, I'd buy a newer truck with kind of doe!!!
And I'm thinking 449 is a bunch for a new lap top for me?
Kids these days, they need to get out and mow n rake yards like I use too, and get the understanding of the value of money in a real way.

That sounds about right for a high end gaming computer.

Having said that, realize that consumer level computing when it came out (like a very low end IBM XT in 1983) was $1565.00, or $3688.15 in 2015 dollars which had no floppy drives at all, and used a TV for a monitor.

A typical system was closer to $3000.00 ($7069.94 in 2015 dollars) which had one floppy drive and a B&W monitor included.

A high end system for business with a color monitor, two floppy drives and a printer was $4500 ($10,604.91 in 2015 dollars)!

So for a high end gaming system (that will do just about everything else with speed) with a triple monitor setup is actually not out of line in terms of the span of pricing possible.

BUT, there is no way I would spend that kind of money on a computer. I used to build my own systems 20 years ago...and it was very easy to get stuck on the upgrade-o-round, in combination with the 'gotta get it on release day' gaming want. I figured out sometime later that getting a 9/10ths system usually chopped the price in half, and waiting 6-9 months for a game usually dropped the price by 75%.

The alternative...get him a console gaming machine like an X-Box One or a PS4 AND a cheap laptop or desktop to do his non-gaming stuff on. You can buy both and not crack 3 figures total. Way the hell cheaper. Unless you are gaming, video editing, have massive Photoshop projects, or doing 3d rendering, there is no reason to have a smoking computer anymore.

FC

Actually a bleeding edge Gaming PC can easily cost $2000. My gaming machine cost about $1200 and half was motherboard and processor, a quarter was graphics card, an 128GB SSD, and a case and power supply. Every other piece was reused from the machine it replaced, and that machine is now the general purpose family computer. Reusing parts is one of the advantages of not buying proprietary machines like Dell or HP etc where parts may or may not be standard form factors.

As for consoles you can easily spend as much or more on accessories. Also a high end computer barring a component failure can last about 5 years before requiring replacement for meeting minimum requirements for new software.

"Dad, my car is old and I need a newer, faster one to drive around in. I like to drive places and race with my friends because I'm an avid 'driver'".
"Sure, son. Let's get you a Lamborghini or Ferrari."

Uh...

You'll get more value from a desktop (especially for gaming & upgradability) but you can't lug it around. You can certainly get a decent laptop for $450 - $900 or an awesome desktop for that price. Like typical cars (not the high-end collector ones), laptops & desktops will drop in value the moment you get them. Perhaps get a mid-range laptop that won't go obsolete in 2-3 years? Concentrate on the school aspect and he will make do for gaming regardless of what he gets (turn off features, drop resolution, dial down colors, etc.)

If he wants something more than the base system you picked out (like a mid-range Ford), how about suggesting that he work & make up the difference in cost (don't forget tax & shipping) for the one he'd like (the tricked out Toyota or BMW)? Or start off with a lower budget so he will develop a good work ethic and learn to value money?

Just some thoughts. I'll have to cross this bridge in a few short years as well. Good luck!

Woody's Workshop said:

Kids these days, they need to get out and mow n rake yards like I use too, and get the understanding of the value of money in a real way.

Click to expand...

Don't tell us. Tell him.

enable much???

If you know how to build computers, you can look for components on pricewatch.com and build something cheaper. If you already have a monitor, keyboard and mouse, you don't need those. You may be able to reuse your case.

You need a motherboard, CPU, RAM, hard drive, and audio/video cards.

Just a thought.

Anything AMD will not be a "High End Gaming" machine....

If you check out Tom's Hardware CPU recommendations, only one AMD CPU makes the list, and that's as an honorable mention at the low end.

I just built an OC'ed 5960X machine with 64GB DDR4, a 512GB M.2 PCIe SSD and a GTX-980 GPU ... that's modestly high end gaming (as I only have one GPU)

I built a high end i7 quad core with 32gb ram, ssd, high end video card, extra drives and still kept it under $3k.

You built an AMD for double?! wow. Liquid cooled isnt needed at all. It is amazing what they can do just with aircooled for a fraction of the price.

I was just sayin, I went online and built it vertually. It's not like I would ever buy something like that.
I'm actually looking at the Borg 709 for him with upgrades to the mother board, power supply, Hard drives and memories.
Keeping it around 1200 bucks.
The trick is to convince the wife to put the price out now, instead of 500 bucks for a base system, do it again year after year.
By putting that 1200 into it now, it's upgradable from now until he's through college.
He's going into computer programing, I'm pretty sure. He's 12 in 6yh grade right now, and has been running computers since he was 3.
He use to blow bubbles with his spit as a baby, thus givin the name bubba, and since he was 3, my button pushin bubba.
He's very intelligent for his age, we are so very lucky to be gifted with such a son.
As for game machines, he's had several. He blows through games like crazy. He now has the Sony 3 something or other. He's only has a few games left to blow through, so we are also getting him the 4 something or other. Like I said in another post somewheres, he gets 2 or 3 games a week, beats them, turns em in at Games are Us and gets 2 or 3 new ones. Even his friends that come over can't believe he beats them so easy. He just has the nack for it.
Like someone that has the nack for woodworking, like myself, or someone that has the nack for metel working, or anything else.
I do not want to discourage him in any way, it's his future. It may be that your grand kids could be playing his games someday. Who knows.
The thing is, I want a machine that can keep up with him. A machine that can grow with him. I'm sure he will get into 3D imagine and will need the power.
When he gets in college, they will demand he have a certain machine for his classes, but he will have something even better or the possibility of expanding as needed.
The Borg is a Hex core, with the MB upgrade, he can upgrade the CPU to Oct, or 8 core CPU. With the availability of haveing 12 case fans alone, it should stay plenty cool. And if you want to, you can colored lighting to the case either by LED or dual tubes.
As for Intell vs AMD, I have several Intell machines, 3 I built myself. I have never had very good luck with them.
The 1st AMD machine I built I was not expecting the speed I got from it, and was sold from then on.
As far as I'm concerned, it's a personal preference. But I will say for Hot Laptop, AMD can't get enough cooling so Intell is wisely used in the Hot Laptops.

Ok, sorry. I guess I misread the op.

I was a huge amd fan and currently only chops from them I like are the APU's.

The amd vs Intel thing boils down to what you are going to be doing. If you are going to be running virtual machines on normal consumer CPU the normal AMD cpu is the best choice. Most would say i5 Intel is the best choice for gaming, but I know many that loves their amd gaming box. For gaming it boils down to ssd and gpu, but for dev work its CPU, memory, and ssd.

To be honest I'd sick with your original choice of and CPU. For the price point it isn't a bad deal. He can do everything with it and learn to upgrade it in the future for pretty cheap.

This may sound stupid, but what is SSD? I don't recognize the sym.
Pre built super machines from CybertronPC has i7's in em.
They don't do any laptops with AMD, over heating issues as I have read.

Woody's Workshop said:

This may sound stupid, but what is SSD? I don't recognize the sym.
Pre built super machines from CybertronPC has i7's in em.
They don't do any laptops with AMD, over heating issues as I have read.

Click to expand...

Solid State Drive

Orders placed with CybertronPC tonight. 1199 for my boys, 800 for mine
He ended with and expensive gigabyte z97x gaming board, intell i5 4670k at 3.5ghz, 16g ripjaws x ram, WD 1tb HD, nvidea GeForce GTX750 TI 2GD5 X16 2DVI HDMI 3DP, will handle 3 monitors, 750w PSU, 24x dvd/cd rw, 7 led lighted fans and a 12" dual tube inside the case light bar (pretty!) fans n light bar n trim on case all in Red. It's what he wanted!
I got a lower end gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 board, AMD FX 6300 3.50GHz C6 AM3+ RET2, 8g ripjaw x ram, WD 1tb HD, nvidea GeForce GT740 2GD3 DVI HDMI VGA, will handle up to 3 monitors as well, 750w PSU, 24x dvd/cd rw, 7 led lighted fans in blue, case triimmed in blue
Both cases are X-Sniper2.
I did get a wireless network card cuz we can't run cables through the apartment. wireless modem is in Josh's room.
Picked out a 24" monitor at walmart for 130 bucks. Josh already has my HP 2207w 24" monitor.
Inital quotes came in just under 2500. The people at CybertronPC knocked off 500 bucks to give us our custom built units we wanted.
Made in USA, Kansas. Really good people to deal with, I would highly recommend them.
On thing that brought them to my attention is, looking at reviews at Amazon, Best buy, tiger and others...
They were the only manuf/seller that bothered to respond to reviews. That takes time to find, read, and comment on reviews!
If they care enough for the customers to follow up on reviews, then the statements made on the reviews about their 100% make it is true.
Sales manager told me they ship out 4000 units a month. That's not bad. 4002 this month!!!

Sounds like you got a good deal! And the sellers sound good, too.

My experience has been all those $400 and $500 PC's aren't worth a crap; they low ball you, but then if you really want to do anything, you need to $$$.

It sounds like you got regular HD's, in a couple years, when you are ready to upgrade or replace your computer, try an SSD first...

I have no idea what your boy plays...

I got a rather mid range PC for gaming, had a ATI Radeon HD7770 video card. It had a crappy AMD Athalon X4 750 but I ended up swapping the motherboard/cpu to Intel Core i5 4960K and it made a huge difference in Dragon Age Inquisition. It's nothing near 1000 dollars either (more like 500 dollars for the whole system).

The difference between mid range and high end system in performance is rather marginal, like 25% at best, however the price will be more than 4 times.

Yea the ssd's will come later.
The i5 4690k gave the most performance vs price. the next cpu almost doubled in price, but performance was only 7%. (gaming)
As for AMD, I could've went with an A10, but when looking at performance (not gaming) the FX 6300 at the top of the mid price range.
As for games, it's hard to tell what he's playing day to day. But he seemed to know what every graphic was and named them by name and by game that was on the CybertronPC website. He's probably played them all. That is that doesn't charge a monthly fee to play. Were not goin that route.
Several years ago I played Ultima Online for about 3 years. Got the wife into it. When we sold everything we 4 accounts, 20 GM characters, a castle, very successful business, 2 story waring house and a tower. We ended up with almost 3k in real cash for digital crap you could never hold in your hand. That was just before Everquest got popular. Oh, and had over 100 million gold pieces that went with the accounts.

I don't waste my time with MMORPG. It has no real story and the only reason people play them is for competition (pvp). It also requires an insane amount of time to level up, and that's doing really boring stuff behind a screen. I ended up using bots but a lot of servers prohibit them, especially ones run by Westerners (Asian MMORPG on the other hand do not enforce the no-bot rule so much). But even then I lost interest and stuck with games like GTA series, COD, and stuff like that. You know games that have stories.

I'd just buy a Macbook Air/Pro and a Xbox one + screen and be done with it.

Both our new computers came today. Josh (my 12 year old son) and I set his up and it is running just fine. Windows 8.1 is going to take some getting use to.
With 7 red led lighted fans and 2 12" tubes in red, his system makes his room glow red in the dark.
He is just loving how fast it is, and how much better the graphics are and the speed at which he can play his online games.
My research did him well. I hope mine will be just as much as I expect it to be.
Though I'm not a gamer, I just want a faster system. I waste so much time waiting, and encountering errors because my current system is so old and can't handle the data that is fed to it.
With the deal Bill gave us on both computers, I would highly recommend www.cybertronpc.com computers to anyone that is looking for a new system. You can pick and choose every aspect of the system to meet your needs or your budget and still get the performance you want. Bill was exceptional in pointing out places to look at professional reviews of each component ordered for both machines.
And the best part is, if you like getting your hands into the case, you can easily upgrade each and every component without it having to be a propriety item.
Josh got a great vid card from nVidia, but the MB also has video on it. So there is a back up system for video output, a plus if the card goes bad. Unlike my laptop that flipped it's friggin wig and burned out it's onboard video and now I'm screwed for anything to do with that heap.
PM if anyone is interested in Bill's personal line a cybertronPC to get your next system.

I actually "downgraded" to Windows 7 because for some reason, a lot of hardware and programs do not work in Windows 8.1. For example, dropbox would be stuck on "connecting" and I have a wifi dongle that refuses to work (because the existing driver does not work in Windows 8). Also I find Windows 8 much more susceptible to malware... so much so that I had to constantly remove videos that would play from out of nowhere.

taiwanluthiers said:

I actually "downgraded" to Windows 7 because for some reason, a lot of hardware and programs do not work in Windows 8.1. For example, dropbox would be stuck on "connecting" and I have a wifi dongle that refuses to work (because the existing driver does not work in Windows 8). Also I find Windows 8 much more susceptible to malware... so much so that I had to constantly remove videos that would play from out of nowhere.

Click to expand...

I actually requested W7 Pro, but it was $100 each for both systems. It was either give up something else, or live with 8.1. W10 will be out soon, we'll see how things go. I still have to get office for both systems, that's a cost not figured into the budget. Looks like I'll be taking back all the tin cans and everything else early this year for software.
Late last summer auto body (tin as it's called) was up to $265 net ton. Over the winter it was down to $35 net ton.
It's coming back, currently at $95 net ton. I was hoping I could hold on until it breaks $200. Makes it worth while saving all your canned goods, cans, bottle tops, anything magnetic. Aluminum is the prize, along with yellow brass...when they are clean. Also copper wire w/o magnetic ends pays good.
And helps the enviroment.

Woody, before spending $ on MS Office, look into the free open source packages LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice. Both are free, powerful products from the open source community. LibreOffice seems to be the go-to these days.

Check them out!

Marc

Marc_G said:

Woody, before spending $ on MS Office, look into the free open source packages LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice. Both are free, powerful products from the open source community. LibreOffice seems to be the go-to these days.

Check them out!

Marc

Click to expand...

Can you work with Office files on these free programs and save them?
Josh will be doing homework brought home on a flash drive.
They use Office 2010 at his school. He turns in his flash drive and the teacher looks at his work and grades it and gives him back his flash drive.
As long as he is able to work on a single project with both softwares, that would be great.
If not, he has to have Office.

Woody's Workshop said:

Can you work with Office files on these free programs and save them?
Josh will be doing homework brought home on a flash drive.
They use Office 2010 at his school. He turns in his flash drive and the teacher looks at his work and grades it and gives him back his flash drive.
As long as he is able to work on a single project with both softwares, that would be great.
If not, he has to have Office.

Click to expand...

Yes he can, but sometimes there are some format issues with some files. Microshaft doesnt play nice sometimes.

Format issues, like what?
Tab spacing, header/footer, line spacing, borders, bullets?
Probably the things that he is scored on I imagine?

Mostly the formats are compatible. Some fancy features occasionally may not translate but for routine stuff it should be fine.
In Josh's case as a documented student he may be eligible for free or reduced cost MS Office. Check with the school.

No programs like that here.
They just have 300+ kids share 10 computers in the library.
Those lucky enough to have one at home don't have to wait in line.

I suggest try libreoffice and see if it works for his needs. I expect he'll be fine with it.

If you are in school (all you need is a .edu email address) you can get educational version that are slightly cheaper than regular.

taiwanluthiers said:

If you are in school (all you need is a .edu email address) you can get educational version that are slightly cheaper than regular.

Click to expand...

I know the wife checks things online for his homework and such.
I don't think they emails for 6th graders.
Perhaps you were thinking he was college age already.
But I will check with the wife.
I was thinking the Office 365. Guy at staples says you can install it on 5 systems, about $100 per year per system.
Since I use spreedsheets quite often myself. I'm still using office 2000, so I'm a little out dated.