Yeah I read articles and whatnot constantly, visit various tech sites and PC/Mac forums, and I'm just over OCZ. They're guaranteed to look good on the spec sheet no matter what they build, there's just always some kind of problem. And that goes back before they started making SSDs at all. I've seen the Agility 3s work and the V2's before that and they are/were excellent performers, but with their history how am I supposed to recommend them? Piece of mind is worth something too, and you kind of become the bad guy when some piece of kit you suggested starts flaking out.

Not that Intel or whoever else doesn't have issues--Cougar Point bug ftl--but OCZ really needs to sharpen up. And while I'm ranting their rebate service was god awful last I used it.

Yes the success rates for DIY builds is pretty high, the real hazard is the occasional bad part you have to isolate and return, but 9/10 times it goes together pretty smooth in my experience provided you avoid high risk stuff like bargain bin power supplies.

With a gaming PC I usually start with the video card and work from there. If you don't need this for any hard processor number crunching or mass tabling/HEM type work, just basic use and gaming, you can get an awful lot for $700 building yourself. I think that's the way to go, you'll get a more reliable PSU and have control over what case you get, and the cooling in your setup.

A true gaming system can get by fine with a more entry-level type CPU and modest amount of RAM so no real problem there.

Before I even get all into this I'm just going to refer you to two articles which I read every month:

Tom's Hardware Best Gaming CPUs for the Money (Nov 2011)
Tom's Hardware Best Graphics Cards for the Money (Dec 2011)

The first should have a December update in a week or so. These only roughly keep up with pricing but it should give you a solid idea of what your range is and what they can do. If you also need this computer as a grinding station or doing more CPU-intensive things that can be adjusted.

Very roughly you should have at least $275 of your $700 budget going toward a CPU and video card, possibly more, shouldn't be too hard to see what kind of combos are available to you for around that range. The rest will go toward everything else and I included the cost of Windows.

It was an AMD Turion X2 RM72 Dual Core Mobile 2.1GHz. To be honest I dont really remember how happy I was with it as its been like this for some time and Ive been using my phone more as a computer after black friday. I think I was fairly satisfied with it.

I currently dont own a 30in but it will be a future addition, probably not until we get poker legislation though.

Those Turion X2s weren't anything special, about in the range of a Core2Duo give or take.

What I was thinking was just going with a nup-to-date dual core, nothing too fancy but it would run circles around what you had. 4-6 RAM is fine, Windows 7 64-bit. You don't need a video card but you want to ensure a DisplayPort connection comes with the thing for if and when you add a 30".

A system with one of the better i5 mobile CPUs or lower-end i7s (dual core version) should fit in your budget, and might allow you to squeeze a reasonable 120gb solid-state drive too if you can find a deal. In other words if you can find a notebook like I'm describing and keep it to $560 base price, the rest gets you the SSD and you're in pretty good shape.

I don't know what your storage requirements are though, or how much emphasis you want on battery life. Do you usually use it plugged in or rarely?

As far as specific processors to look for, the mobile ones that start with i5-25xxM or i7-26xxM are in that range. The 2400s and 2300s are okayish if the deal is really good but a little weaker than you want to go. Narrow these down more to the ones with a base clock of at least 2.0 GHz and I think that's about right for what you want.

Im not too concerned with battery life, if I could get an hour unplugged Ill be happy. So a quad core would be over kill for what I want out of it?

An hour of battery life isn't a problem.

I wouldn't say a quad-core is overkill necessarily, but if I think if a decent dual core option works I'd be more inclined to put the extra money into an SSD, which would net more system speed overall in most uses. The newer dual mobile chips have hyperthreading which helps in more heavily threaded applications too, unlike the older dual cores which didn't. But budgets are usually limited and you can't have everything.

Budget : $1k-$1.5k for laptop

Uses: poker, hem 2

The main things I am looking for is:
ssd (128 gb is fine),
1900x1080 resolution at least, and
something that has a video card that isn't integrated graphics (I only play dota 2 atm (ie not as computer intensive as starcraft 2 I'm assuming))

I don't care about battery life or the weight of the laptop. I just have to carry it pass the airport

The problem I'm having right now is that I have to customize all these options, but I don't know if one is particularly better than the other. IE: When I do this on dell its $1500 but on HP its $1200. Some Asus ones are around the same price.

Edit: Just read earlier posts where you suggest to manually get a ssd laptop drive, and put it in myself? Will I need a separate Windows 7 cd to install that? Do I just reformat my new laptop right away? Ty ^^

For the SSD, im assuming I purchase that separately and do a fresh install of windows on it? Should I put the hd that comes with the computer in a case and use it for music, movies, etc?

Also are there any laptop manufacturers I should avoid or a specific few I should stick to?

Ok, I'm a noob but I've read through a lot of this thread and am debating between building or buying. I'm feeling more comfortable being ok with building my own after reading here but only if I can save $150 in cost or added value.

My info:
Desktop. Looking to play Poker, HEM, Netflix at same time.
Budget: 800-1000.
No gaming.
Presently have a 21' monitor- would like to have the option to run 2 24's at the same time.
Speed is most important thing. I don't store movies or music so storage not that important. Just ability to run several programs at same time.
In USA.

I used HP's site to build the following:
Operating system Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium [64-bit]
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500 quad-core processor [3.3GHz, 6MB cache]
Memory FREE UPGRADE to 6GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM [2 DIMMs] from 4GB
Hard drive 128GB Solid State Drive
Office software No additional office software
Graphics card 512MB DDR3 AMD Radeon HD 6450 [DVI, HDMI. VGA adapter]
Primary optical drive SuperMulti DVD Burner
Networking Wireless-N LAN card (1x1)
Productivity ports 15-in-1 memory card reader, 2 USB, audio
Sound Card Integrated sound

For $830.

Few questions:

1) I believe this is sufficient to run the programs I listed based on what I've read here. Am I correct?
2) will this give me the ability to run 2 monitors?
3) For the Hard Drive. Is it optimal to have a SSD in addition, or to replace a basic hard drive? I can get a 1TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive, save $150 on this build, and then buy a 128 SSD but don't know if that's the right play.
4) At this price, could I improve much or build my own for under $700? From my quick calcs I don't think I could or it would be close.

Thanks again!

I just ordered a Dellgx620 from Amazon for $89. I will mostly use it to play poker and basic browsing. Do any of you know if it is a decent pc.

Start by reading post #995, we can narrow from there what you need/what's in your budget. And when you buy an SSD you just swap it out and install Windows with the disc that came with the notebook (a few smaller manufacturers don't come with one but it's still pretty standard from Dell, etc.). I recommend doing it that way because it's relatively fast & easy, plus cheaper and you get a better quality part. And you want to load Windows fresh on a new PC anyway just because of all of the crapware they come loaded with normally.

See above re: SSD. The stock drive you can use an an external backup with a USB enclosure you can buy anywhere. I find most people can get by with a 120GB drive if it's not filled up with movies and things like that, which don't really benefit from SSD speed anyway.

1) Absolutely
2) Yes, provided that they are DVI & HDMI compatible with your displays
3) You could and it's done that way pretty often
4) Yes - there's a little more to this answer though...

As far as price, building is "usually" cheaper, but sometimes it's the same money but you get more/better quality parts/more features. Also individual parts can have warranties in the 3-5 year range where a Dell might be one year.

I'm a little tired and not in the mood to price hunt, but real quick let's see what I can throw together for $800. Prices off the top of my head, these are all common/known parts I have in mind and I know the money's right.

Windows 7 64-bit OEM. ($90)
Antec 300 or Rosewood Challenger case ($50)
Intel i5-2500k ($220 - small price drop seems imminent per yesterday's news btw)
Hyper 212+ CPU cooler ($28)
z68 motherboard ($100)
DVD burner ($20) - bluray optional maybe $40 more instead
8GB DDR3 1600 speed RAM ($35)
Power supply ($50)
Same video card ($45)
120GB SSD ($140)

I get $780 but you could get that down a bit doing some hard shopping or if you live near a Micro Center. This machine would be better for a load of reasons: Quality RAM, modest but decent PSU compared to stock, includes SSD right off, processor can be clocked to at least to 4.3 GHz instead of stock 3.3GHz for huge speed increase. No crapware installed. The board will also be sure to have USB 3.0 and more importantly SATA 6gb/s if you decide to throw in a new SSD later and want a faster one (the store bought PC may only have 3gb/s and possibly not USB 3.0).

Now if you were trying to build the same exact thing as HP, basically you'd buy a cheap PSU, scale back $30 on the CPU for a non-overclockable 2500, go with a cheaper-chipset board that may not have SATA 6gb/s, put a slow mechanical drive in there for half the cost instead of the SSD, and use the stock CPU fan. I don't recommend doing that at all, but just to compare apples to apples accurately you could replicate their build for far less.

As far as a DIY build that's pretty vanilla too, a ton of people have done it and it's pretty similar to my own setup which has a tutorial thread for it.

Plus you could make all kinds of changes if they suit you better. Maybe you don't want to overclock the CPU and go with a regular 2500 or 2400, and don't care about SATA 6gb/s, and can live with fewer features on the motherboard - but still want an SSD and a decent PSU. You can season to taste across the board.

Depends on the specific hardware configuration you have. It looks like a serviceable enough Facebook/homework computer. You won't want to try and play games on it or turn it into a grinding station. Basic use should be okay, just try and keep it cool. I'd shut it down when not in use as they can get hot and there's not much airflow in those.

Hey guys. I'm looking to buy a new Desktop that I will use for virtually only Poker, but I don't mass grind, I only play like 4-10 tables mostly (Pokerstars, maybe some Euro sites), HEM2, Poker browsing (2p2, poker sites), skype, word/excel, email, and some other Poker software possibly (Pokerstove, Cardrunners EV).

I already have a 28" 1920*1200 screen and will probably be buying a 22 or 23" with that, not sure on the resolution for the new screen.

For Hard-drive size It will mostly be my Poker database so 100 Gigs is probably enough.
I used to have a laptop (Sony VAIO) and it was a bit slow etc..., + I really want a desktop that I only use for Poker stuff.

No gaming, size/noise is not an issue and I prefer off-the-shelf as I can't really be bothered to build the PC.

Budget : As cheap as possible, preferably under 500$ (excluding monitor price).

I live in the UK, but I also need the same setup in Switzerland so I will also buy the same or same-ish setup in Switzerland probably.

Thanks

See if you can narrow it down to a few machines with maybe an i5-2300/2400 processor and 4GB RAM in it, if that fits in your budget.

If running multiple displays you're either going to have to have a DisplayPort connection on everything, use a crappy VGA connection for one of the displays, or (ideally) buy yourself a very low-end video card with the appropriate outputs.

Sorry I don't know where to shop there other than Dell.uk, at a quick glance it looks like £449 will definitely get you what you need (not factoring in a video card). That's not on sale or anything. I don't know what currency you're buying in when you say 500$, if that's US Dollars you'll be in for a tougher time.

Anyway narrow it down to some contender with those basic CPU/RAM specs and post links, can probably get you taken care of. In fact even an i3 processor will probably do if you're not playing a ton of tables.

Thanks. Video quality doesn't matter so I don't care if one screen is VGA and not DVI. but do these pre-made custom PC's have 2 output video ports ? That might be an issue. They often do have a HDMI port, so I could have one screen with HDMI and the other in VGA ?

Say this computer : http://www.ldlc.com/fiche/PB00121601.html
(Sorry it's in french but I guess you know how to read the specs since that's what matters).

Here is the specs for another one, price is like 350 GBP.
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/comput...o-home-office/

Would I be able to get 2 screens on that ? I seriously don't care if one screen is VGA quality, I think I've been using VGA on my other screen before since thats the only video output my laptop has anyway.

They're having sales here in Switzerland after christmas so I'm going to check some of the electronics shops if they have some good deals

If I were to build it myself, how much could I save ? I built one myself like 6 years ago so I shouldn't have too much trouble, but if it just saves like $100 it's not worth the hassle imo.

I would like to add 1-2 gb ram and run windows 7.

Specs

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 300+
Motherboard: Winfast C51GK8MA
Chipset: Nvidia Geforce 6150(c51)+MCP51
GPU: Asus EAX1300 pro
Ati Readeon x1300 pro (RV515 pro) 256mb
Ram: 2x 512 PC3200 DDr-SDRAM

Yea its old.

Can I add dd2 or dd3? Will I have any lag running 16-24 tables + hem on windows 7 ? (I currently run 16-20 tables +hem + tn without much lag)?

Forget about putting any money into that computer. That's DDR RAM (as in DDR1). The CPU is a very old single-core. To answer your question yes you can expect all kinds of lag and problems, and to even think about Windows 7 you'd need a set of four 1GB sticks of that RAM which is hard to come by and considerably more expensive than DDR3.

After 6 or 7 years it's probably on it's last legs anyway. For $400 you can find something much better with the RAM you need and Win7.

With integrated graphics systems the outputs are whatever the manufacturer put on the motherboard. You might see DVI+VGA+HDMI, or just DVI+VGA, or DVI+DisplayPort+VGA. In general (but not always) the integrated Intel graphics don't allow two digital connections to be used at once, for example DVI and HDMI may not run together.

The first PC the CPU is weaker than you'd want for a poker computer. As far as the 2nd one you're looking at I wouldn't go to one of those places nor do I care for that processor (it's got good integrated graphics, better than you need, but it comes at the expense of processing power). They would function but you could expect some lagging. Worst CPU I'd suggest for your use would be a newer Intel i3 or better AMD x4.

With a small budget and a need to buy windows it would probably be tough to save much more than that, and I have no idea what parts are there. I can tell you that in the range you're looking, a little extra money gets a lot more performance.

What do you think of this dualscreen laptop?
http://www.gscreenlaptop.com/

It's a novelty.

It starts at $1,900, which (going by the specs) means the cost of that 2nd display is about $1,300. And that's probably generous seeing as the CPU and some other components are prior generation parts, my notebook has the same i5-560m chip and similar specs and it ran me like $600 early in the year.

Beyond that there's not much hope for anything but terrible battery life so you basically need to keep it plugged in or only use it for short durations, and it weighs 10 lbs too so overall portability isn't a strong point. No Blu-Ray, USB 3.0, just 4GB RAM. Standard TN panels so not cut out for professional graphics work, weaker graphics so not suitable for serious gamers either. Heavy workstation users for CAD or something would want more under the hood and poker pros probably would also.

I'm sure this could be useful to someone out there but only in really, really specific circumstances. Maybe someone with a lot of disposable cash who does trading and travels often, but even then the battery wouldn't last very long on a flight. I don't know but I'm glad I don't have to sell them.

Cool, thanks a lot. Looks like I'm going to be forking out a bigger budget then. On pre-made computers, is there any way of knowing whether the graphics will allow 2 screens at the same time ?

I got an old ATI 850XT on my old computer, could I just put that in my new comp and run the two screens off of that ?

I am about to build a computer. My old desktop is about 2 and a half years old. I cant remember the exact spefics as I did not actually build that one, but it is a dell inspiron with 6 GB ram.

The new computer that I am going to build would have the following specs:

-Western Digital 1.5 TB hard drive
-EVGA Geforce GTX 570 2.5 GB
-16 GB (4 x 4GB) RAM
-Sony Optiarc Black 12X Half Height Tray Blu-ray Writer SATA
-OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-240G 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
-Coolermaster Silent Pro Gold series 1000W
-Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced Blue edition
-Intel Core i5-2500K
-MSI P67A-C43 (B3)


All of that is around $2k from newegg. My goal with building a new system here is to get a system that:
-can run just about any game on the highest settings
-run multiple programs that have very high quality graphics at the same time (an example I can think of is to be able to play a game on the highest settings on one screen while watching an HD video on the other screen)
-Be easily upgraded to future best components

So basically, I want a very good desktop computer that is not totally top of the line because I dont want to spend that much at this time, but I would like to have the option to make it a top of the line machine down the road. The issue I can see with this is a feel like I am going to have to basically just build a whole new system if I want to upgrade it to top of the line later.

I am not sure I got all of my points across but Ill just ask what people think about the computer? Did I miss anything I should add? Any recommendations to keep it more cost effective but still high quality?

-I'd stay away from ocz ssds.
- you won't use close to 16gb ram.
-that psu is insane overkill.
-A 750w corsair seasonic or comparable psu will be fine for ocing that system. 850w would be leaving room for future upgrades. 1kW would be if you plan on running 580s multi sli. Or 3 570s may pull close to that.
Other than that that's a solid system that will max most games with aa.