Anti Alienware rant and even more System Requirement Questions + findings + pic.

[Zainag]

This is my first post ... please be merciful :bounce:
Rant first:
Ugh ... ok so I bought an Alienware about 2 years ago and it totally sucked ass.
-The (OEM) GeForce2 that I got with it died in about a month.
The replacement they sent me was another (OEM) GeForce2
-The freakin cheapass MSI mobo died on me the week after my one year warranty expired.
-Another week later the IBM HD sputtered and died.
All in all ... it was the worst experience of me and my co-workers' lives. (The three of us bought from Alienware together)

The things we learnt from the experience were .... never buy from Alienware .. ever .... EVER!! And ... build your own system .. much cheaper and a whole lot more stable.

Now to my question at hand .... I just built a new machine and here are my specs ... the only things that could possibly hold me back is my vid card .... do you guys think I'll have a problem with this configuration, I plan to run at 1024x768 with everything turned on:

P4C 2.4 GHz Oced to 3.2 (Stable 24 hours Prime and CPU Burn)
ABIT IS7 865P
512mb Kingston HyperX PC3500
FIC Radeon 9500 PRO

Also ... I got my 9500 pro before I upgraded my machine which was an AMD Athlon 1.2 GHz w/1G PC100 SDRAM. I benchmarked 3DMark2001 and 3DMark2003 perfomance and here is what I discovered:

3DMark2001 AMD1.2 - Intel 3.2 = 109% performace increase.
(3DMark 2001 score on the Intel was something like 13700)

3DMark2003 AMD1.2 - Intel 3.2 = 59% performance increase.
(Something like 3500 on the Intel ... I think.)

What I found interesting was that the performance increase on my new Intel for 3Dmark2003 did not vary much (1-2%) going from 2.4GHz to 3.2Ghz or even 3.4 ..... which was just not stable enough.

I've tried to attach a pic of my system ... lemme know what you guys think

 

[MoJo|Night]

"-The freakin cheapass MSI mobo died on me the week after my one year warranty expired. " Blame that on weebles (ok weibul but it's close enough). They do it on purpose to make money of warrenties.

You'd probably get a better response in a hardware forum than a half life 2 forum to be honest.

Specs look fine to me but to get the detail levels in the movies that have been released I'd recommend upgrading the gfx card.

 

[Zainag]

Damn .... I knew I should've spent a 100bux more and gotten a 9700pro instead! ;(

Maybe I'll OC my vid card and see what that does

 

[impakt]

This doesnt belong under HL2 discussion ?

 

[nico851]

you can do a flash upgrade on your video card and make it to a 9700 for 0 bucks

and a little mor ram should be useful

 

[Zainag]

nico851 That'll only work for a 9500 non pro version.
The best I can hope for is to do a flash upgrade to get it to overclock some more.

 

[nico851]

sorry, i didn't see the pro
little hint: sell your card at ebay and buy another non pro at ebay for less money
then tweak it and it will be fine

 

[DimitriPopov]

Why do people think that their experience with a company is the same as everyone elses? The computer was 2 years old. Plus noone knows what you yourself did to it. Hell id say by building your own youre just as susceptible or even more seceptible to similar failures.

THis thread is ignorant.

 

[jhero]

Zainag, i was gonna get the exact same case, until i saw the aspire turbo x-dreamer

 

[Scaramanga]

You won't be able to turn everything on cause your card doesn't support dx9.

 

[Arn]

the reason that the 3dmark 2003 score didnt change very much is because it is only dependent on the video card. 2003 is a video card benchmark, unlike 2001 where it is a whole system benchmark.

EDIT: the 9500 pro does support dx9

 

[jat]

it doesnt matter if it does or doesnt hl2 mainly uses dx 8 effects, it will only use a few direct x 9 effects, unless there is infor on this, i bet im right

 

[djkanuk]

Ummm... hardware forum?

 

[droper]

9500 , 9700,9800 all same stuff just faster then the other.

i have a 9500 pro to and i doubt you will need anything higher for hl2 if you do then about 90%+ of the gamers who don't have top of the line won't be able to play it either and i doubt valve would do that.

go here to oc
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=33681382


9700 will only give you like 10 more fps avg over 9500 pro overclocked if its worth the time and problems go ahead and upgrade

 

[ShinRa]

Alienware IS bullshit. OMG COOLING SYSTEM! NO WAY! I CAN JUST GET ONE FOR $200! THEN BUY ALL THE PARTS MY SELF FOR CHEAPER! ABOUT $1000 CHEAPER! **** alienware man, they're just a name. Oh, unless you want the cheap ass alien case. :\

 

[Sat]

h a r d w a r e

...forum

 

[ShinRa]

Sat, you called it lol

 

[righte0us]

hey man sorry to inform you but.. MSI blows.
who the on his sane mind buys an MSI movo? >_<

 

[Zainag]

jhero ... that is an AWESOME case. I might have bought it had I seen it before ..... but I was getting this case with a 400W power supply for $45 shipped .... .and I wanted to really go on the cheap so I figured why not!

righte0us - dude ... this is the mobo that Aliencrap gave me. I haven't had many good experiences with MSI motherboards.

 

[jhero]

Thnx, the silver version is amazing, its nice and cool, and says the case temperature!

 

[Draklyne]

Yeah, recently alienware has let me down. I went to all the "boutique" computer resellers and made custom computers as expensive as I could....and alienware's most expensive was at a low 14,000 USD, while voodoo pc was at a more respectable 17,000 USD. Falcon Northwest hit an embarrassing 11,000 USD.
Hmmmph.

 

[jhero]

hmmm...that would be an insano computer to buy.

 

[Zainag]

Damn ... my tco was much smaller:

$179 - CPU
$50 - Case
$108 - Mobo
$130 - Memory
$160 - Vid Card
$30 - Extra Fans and a floppy

Total comes out to less than $700 ... but I used my old hard drives and CD-R DVD-R drives. I figure even if I went all out though with a 9800 Pro and new drives it would still be under $1500 ..... these people are crazy!!

 

[Shockwave]

IMO honestly VPR matrix computers and Dell ones are the best deals on the market..I always used to build my own but saw my VPR for $1200 a BB.

VPR actually uses ALL quality parts unlike all the other systems out there.

 

[SidewinderX]

Love your case!

I'll buy that 9500 PRO from you if you're gonna sell it...