Octopus Overlords

Now that 1080's are affordable again, I can buy Alienware Aurora i7 w/ 1080 for $1600 as part of labor day sale. I can pick a 1070 for $1400, or i5/1060 for 1049. Dell will even finance it for 12 months interest-free.

Or perhaps, I can go Dell Outlet Alienware Aurora i7/1070 for 1170 but it has only 8GB RAM, and no SSD. There's XPS 8930 for 1160 that has i7 (8th gen) 2TB, 256GB M.2 SSD, 16GB RAM, and 6gb 1060. Hmmm...

I look at iBuyPower and their sales end up about the same price, within 100-200 bucks. i5 / 8GB / 1060 6GB for $1200. Argh. Maybe I can wait a bit longer as there will probably Halloween or Black Friday sale by the time I clear my credit card balance. Hahaha.

that doesn't sound like 'now that i can afford one' to me...

I was persuaded by people smarter than me that i5 is better for gaming than i7. You don't need to pay for two extra i's.

Also, shop eCollege.

hitbyambulance wrote: ↑Mon Sep 03, 2018 12:18 am that doesn't sound like 'now that i can afford one' to me...

Good point. I can pay off half of my credit card balance now, and keep a decent reserve. I should probably wait for another few weeks to clear my balance, THEN worry about the new PC.

Kraken wrote: ↑Mon Sep 03, 2018 2:01 am I was persuaded by people smarter than me that i5 is better for gaming than i7. You don't need to pay for two extra i's.
Also, shop eCollege.

Hmmm... Seems eCollege gives a HAIR better system for the price. $1334 for Z370 MB, 16GB, 240GB SSD, Blu-Ray, 3GB 1060, i5, premium heatsink. I have a 1.5TB HD lying around here somewhere. But with the 2000's series GPUs coming out, I'm *kinda* worried 1060 may not be good enough. *sigh*

Kraken wrote:I was persuaded by people smarter than me that i5 is better for gaming than i7. You don't need to pay for two extra i's.

Also, shop eCollege.

A high-end i5 is better value than a high-end i7 if the primary task is gaming (because the bottleneck is almost always going to be the video card). But the i7 will still be a little faster, and over time the gap will grow because eventually the CPU will start to be the bottleneck. Just clarifying that it’s not better in terms of performance, but better in terms of value. If looking at CPUs from the same family.

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Mon Sep 03, 2018 5:16 am

Kraken wrote: ↑Mon Sep 03, 2018 2:01 am I was persuaded by people smarter than me that i5 is better for gaming than i7. You don't need to pay for two extra i's.
Also, shop eCollege.

Hmmm... Seems eCollege gives a HAIR better system for the price. $1334 for Z370 MB, 16GB, 240GB SSD, Blu-Ray, 3GB 1060, i5, premium heatsink. I have a 1.5TB HD lying around here somewhere. But with the 2000's series GPUs coming out, I'm *kinda* worried 1060 may not be good enough. *sigh*

You noticed that eCollege machines are customizable, right? (their website leaves something to be desired IMO). You want a 1080 in that machine, you can get it. 'Course, it's a fair-sized price bump.

I'd pick an i7, those extra threads will be more and more important shortly.
I'd be happy with 8gb ram, as long as the motherboard still has two free slots. Ram is expensive right now, you can add more later when it's cheap.
I would not pay for an SSD equipped model. SSDs are cheap now. So you'd do better to pick and choose exactly what you want and add it yourself later, it's not difficult.
I would get a 1070 at least. You never know when you might feel like moving up to 1440p, or ultra widescreen, or high refresh rates.

1070 ti are like $429 now. Saw a 1080 for that same price. Both not needing mail in rebates.

on eCollege, 1070 ti and 1080 has difference of only $30.

By going with I5 8600K, 8GB of RAM, and no SSD (no HD either), and 1080 w/ copy of Win10 Home, and change the Mainboard, I got it down to 1373. I don't think I can push it any lower. I did get a slightly better HSF upgrade (CM Hyper 212 EVO) as I'm not sure about the stock cooler. 8600K is for overclocking anyway. Or I can go with just the regular i5 8400, skip the HSF, and get the system down to 1260. Which means I can get Win10 Pro (if I want it) for just over 1300.

Unless you are into overclocking I'd skip paying extra for a "K" CPU. And if you are into overclocking, I'd want something better than that 212. That's kind of a goto budget cooler, which causes me to raise an eyebrow. If overclocking is your thing, the cooling and the power supply are two things you don't want to cheap out on.

Not really into overclocking, but I don't trust the Intel factory cooler. If I want to overclock, I would have splurged for a waterblock.

I am almost tempted to buy a used one. A guy locally (well, Cupertino is kinda local) is selling a i7 -6700K w 16GB and NVIDIA 1070, plus 2 24 inch 1080p monitors for $1000, and I may be able to negotiate him down slightly. The story he gave was a bit off... "only used for 2 weeks", yet this PC should be about over a year old. Hmmm...

Another guy has i5 7600K w/ 16GB and GTX1070 for $900. El Cerrito is not that far.

There's an Alienware Aurora R7 at Dell Outlet for $1184. i5-8400, 1TB HD, 16GB DDR4, GeForce 1080. No SSD, but it's not hard to add one.

There's a similar system, same CPU, 1TB HD, 8GB RAM, Geforce 1070 for $968.

Another choice is XPS8930, same CPU, 512GB SSD, 8GB RAM, GeForce 1080 for 1160. <<--- probably better deal, I have an HD I can add to this. I can add 8GB later.

Or XPS8930, i7 8700K (that's the unlocked CPU, I think) Win10 Pro, 1TB HD, 16GB RAM, GeForce 1080 for 1302.

Same CPU, 2TB HD, 16 GB RAM, same video GF1080 for $1320 <<-- better than 1302 deal, but it seems the 1160 deal above is better.

I think that you, like myself ,enjoy the shopping more than the buying

I can afford it now, that I paid off a good chunk of my credit card, but I don't want to empty my account doing so. *sigh*

Just fooling around I built a nice new gen i5 on parts picker for a little over $1000 and that includes a $400 1070 ti. But without kb, mouse, OS...had case psu cpu mem vid ssd and all

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Sat Oct 13, 2018 1:02 pm I can afford it now, that I paid off a good chunk of my credit card, but I don't want to empty my account doing so. *sigh*

IMHO if you have any credit card debt, you shouldn't buy anything but the essentials until you have no credit card debt.

Having said that, those deals with 1080s did seem fairly reasonable.

I agree in principle, but let's just say my current machine is 8 years old. (it's an old Dell XPS laptop I bought off ebay, it's not even 1080p screen. First gen i7, GF 445 M) I need an upgrade badly. I already have all the peripherals, so I just need the chasis/CPU, which is what that Dell deal was all about.

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Sun Oct 14, 2018 3:09 pm I agree in principle, but let's just say my current machine is 8 years old. (it's an old Dell XPS laptop I bought off ebay, it's not even 1080p screen. First gen i7, GF 445 M) I need an upgrade badly. I already have all the peripherals, so I just need the chasis/CPU, which is what that Dell deal was all about.

my machine (yes, the one i'm still using) is 9 years old, first gen i7 with a 1280x1020 resolution 4:3 monitor from 2005. i upgraded the video card a few times so i'm now on a GeForce 970 that i purchased second-hand. i'm borrowing VR peripherals from work to use with it and it's fine.

Can't upgrade video card on a laptop.

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Sun Dec 02, 2018 2:42 pm Can't upgrade video card on a laptop.

Is that always true? I suspect that somewhere there are laptops which allow upgrades. I'm thinking some of the more boutique computer makers. I'll have to look that up.

Nowadays, it's possible to have external video chasis.

Darn, the prices seem to be going up. A decent system is in the $1600 range. There's an iBuyPower system, i77-9700K, RTX 2070, 16GB RAM, 240 GB SSD plus 1 TB HD, for $1600. That price is same as used system with much worse specs in Dell Outlet. Can't seem to find anything worth buying in there.

Wait a minute... Where did this come from? IBuyPower at Best Buy, $1300 for I7-8700, RTX2070, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD (!)

If I had to guess, I would say iBuyPower.

This Amazon system is slightly older (8th gen i7 instead of 9th gen) but it's also 100 cheaper. Hmmm...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07G77QHV8

According to Userbench, The 9th gen i7 is about 10% real world faster than the 8th gen i7 of same class (x700 series).

Prices are really fluctuating. The system I really want, i7 K w/ RTX 2070 is right now about 1500-1600 range. I prefer 16 GB RAM, 240SSD+1TB HD, and preferably liquid cooling. IbuyPower has a RDY (preassembled) system for $1599, and which is about the same on Amazon (1579). Given if I go any cheaper I'd end up with 8th gen i7 instead of 9th Gen (difference of about 10% performance) and probably older Z370 instead of a Z390 mainboard, I guess it's not bad. Still, I can hold out for a little longer... I've waited years after all.

I suggest a 500GB SSD. Mine is using 176GB just for the OS, a smattering of programs, and two games. Whoever thought we would live in a world where 250 gig feels tight? Yet here we are. Granted, if I "only" had 250GB I could've put more stuff on D:, but your C: might feel pinched sooner than you expected.

This Newegg system may be the lowest yet. RTX2070, i7-9700K, Z390 mainboard, 120mm liquid cooling, 16GB RAM, 240GB SSD + 1TD HD = $1500 + $10 S&H

Dell is LOUSY in prices, compared to other vendors.

Here's a Dell i7-8700 w/ 1060 6GB for 1099. The problem is it has a lot of OTHER stuff, like 32GB RAM, 16GB Optane, and Win10Pro, so the prices are very high for what's basically lousy specs.

The iBuyPower RDY system I listed earlier (i7 9700K, Z390 MB, RTX 2070, 16 GB RAM, 240GB SSD + 1TB HD, liquid cooler) is down to $1500. I don't see it going any lower. I'd imagine this system should last me 3-5 years if I have to upgrade video later.

And I have enough to pay for it. So why didn't I click "buy now"?

And the more I read, the more I wonder if I should save 1/3rd or more by going one generation behind...

There's a pre-config'ed system: i7-8700 with AMD RX-580 (4GB) with 8GB RAM and 1TB HD for $900. With PCI-E going gen 3, chances are by the time I need to upgrade this I'll have to buy a brand-new PC any way.

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Wed Jan 16, 2019 11:48 am And the more I read, the more I wonder if I should save 1/3rd or more by going one generation behind...

There's a pre-config'ed system: i7-8700 with AMD RX-580 (4GB) with 8GB RAM and 1TB HD for $900. With PCI-E going gen 3, chances are by the time I need to upgrade this I'll have to buy a brand-new PC any way.

The only thing I can recommend is that you upgrade to an SSD. Prices are pretty good right now and you might want to just buy one and do the swap yourself. Heck, if I can do it, it can't be that hard

Oh, I agree. I added an SSD to my current laptop (lucky for me, it is the late gen of L701X laptop and it has 4 SO-DIMM slots and 2 HD slots)

Just got paid. With enough reserve in my personal bank account, I just bit the bullet and ordered my dream system on Amazon. i7, liquid cooling, 16GB RAM, RX2070, 240SSD+1TBHD. It's 1600 plus tax, a little more than what I'd like to pay, but with tax and free 2-day shipping it's 1740 or so. Enough to last me many years. And I'll get it next Tuesday.

Time to retire my poor laptop, which lasted way longer than I expected. But I want to play stuff with a decent frame rate, darn it.

Sounds cool. Which i7 model?

Great choice of GPU. Congrats on getting your new PC

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 02, 2019 6:47 pm Sounds cool. Which i7 model?

i7-9700K, of course.

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Mon Feb 04, 2019 12:44 am

jztemple2 wrote: ↑Sat Feb 02, 2019 6:47 pm Sounds cool. Which i7 model?

i7-9700K, of course.

That's more than twice as good as my i7-4770K! Actually 2.03 times better