I have ordered a new desk top!

[Strix]

GF,

I got the 875W power supply. The computer also comes with a liquid cooling system.

[Grey Fox]

The extra money isn't that major an issue. If I were single I would build my own. I am married and the extra dough it costs to prevent my wife from nagging and stating I told you so for every mishap that occurred while building a new computer is well worth it.

I just want something to run WoW better and STO plus any new games coming out. I am replacing something about 5-6 years out of date (Athalon AMD 1.6 GHz). A lot of the added cost is a new monitor and speaker system.

I approve of you getting the 875w version !

As for WoW improving, don't buy a SLI system.  WoW doesn't support SLI.

[Caliga]

Strix and Beeb, I don't think anyone is saying that this PC is a piece of shit.  Going by the specs you listed it most definitely *is not*... it's modern and will run most stuff without a problem.  Only unknown to me is the gfx setup, but it should be decent I would think.

My concern is only that you got taken to the cleaners, but since you don't seem to care about that, then that's cool.

[Caliga]

*checks* It looks like the GT 240 is a budget card.... so it's weird that Alienware would put that into an SLI config. 

[Grey Fox]

*checks* It looks like the GT 240 is a budget card.... so it's weird that Alienware would put that into an SLI config. 

Dell puts GTS 240. The only references I could find to it are on Nvidia's website.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/product_geforce_gts_240_us.html

[Iormlund]

... it's way too much money to spend on any computer, let alone a mac.

If I were to get a new, non-mobile, rig today I would get this combo...

motherboard: ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO
processor: AMD Phenom II X2 550

The processor is 2x3.1GHz but with this motherboard it's possible to unlock the two extra dormant cores of the phenom and get 4x3.1GHz. Price for motherboard and processor, 1800SEK (that's 240USD) at my local store. That's half the cost of the intel i7 processor alone!

If you throw in 4GB of DDR3 PC12800 RAM, a cheap 1GB graphics card and use a pre-existing chassi/HDD you're sitting pretty for less than 450USD.

I'm slightly out of the loop regarding AMD. Do they have anything with triple channel? I'm going to get a new Linux rendering rig, and thus it needs as much memory as possible (without going into workstation-grade prices).
My initial idea was obviously a 920 with 12 Gb.

[Vricklund]

... it's way too much money to spend on any computer, let alone a mac.

If I were to get a new, non-mobile, rig today I would get this combo...

motherboard: ASUS M4A785TD-M EVO
processor: AMD Phenom II X2 550

The processor is 2x3.1GHz but with this motherboard it's possible to unlock the two extra dormant cores of the phenom and get 4x3.1GHz. Price for motherboard and processor, 1800SEK (that's 240USD) at my local store. That's half the cost of the intel i7 processor alone!

If you throw in 4GB of DDR3 PC12800 RAM, a cheap 1GB graphics card and use a pre-existing chassi/HDD you're sitting pretty for less than 450USD.

I'm slightly out of the loop regarding AMD. Do they have anything with triple channel? I'm going to get a new Linux rendering rig, and thus it needs as much memory as possible (without going into workstation-grade prices).
My initial idea was obviously a 920 with 12 Gb.

I think some AM3-socket motherboards now supports tripple channel. This one does not however.

I was looking at this processor/motherboard-combo for CFD simulations. DDR2 sticks are cheaper so I could get 8 or 16 GB working in 2xdual channel. Is tripple channel really that much better (considering the price)?

[Iormlund]

Not directly, no. I just want a lot of memory, because once you run out (and you will run out) performance dies a horrible death. So you spend most of the time worrying about memory usage instead of how to make your render look good.

[Barrister]

Iorm, if you ever come to Yukon you can do renders to your heart's content with my 10GB RAM.   

[grumbler]

Iorm, if you ever come to Yukon you can do renders to your heart's content with my 10GB RAM.   

Except that your memory is still just dual channel, which Vrickland notes you can get working in 16GB pretty cheaply, but it isn't triple channel no matter how big (unless, of course, Iorm goes with a triple-channel board).

And, does your rig even support Linux?

[DontSayBanana]

Except that your memory is still just dual channel, which Vrickland notes you can get working in 16GB pretty cheaply, but it isn't triple channel no matter how big (unless, of course, Iorm goes with a triple-channel board).

And, does your rig even support Linux?

Jumping to Beeb's defense, Boot Camp.

Also, it's not readily recognizable, but Mac OSX, being a Unix-derived platform, is way closer to Linux than any Windows rig.

[Barrister]

Iorm, if you ever come to Yukon you can do renders to your heart's content with my 10GB RAM.   

Except that your memory is still just dual channel, which Vrickland notes you can get working in 16GB pretty cheaply, but it isn't triple channel no matter how big (unless, of course, Iorm goes with a triple-channel board).

And, does your rig even support Linux?

It does.

And honestly I'm not sure how to compare the triple-channel stuff with my fully buffered memory.   

[Iormlund]

They are two very different approaches. Fully buffered sticks are slower (both increased latency and decreased bandwidth). They were designed to cram as many sticks as you could buy (and boy are they expensive) on a workstation or server. You sacrifice a bit of performance and a kidney to be able to load massive amounts of data to memory.

[Barrister]

They are two very different approaches. Fully buffered sticks are slower (both increased latency and decreased bandwidth). They were designed to cram as many sticks as you could buy (and boy are they expensive) on a workstation or server. You sacrifice a bit of performance and a kidney to be able to load massive amounts of data to memory.

The memory wasn't that bad for price.  It was $200 for the extra 8GB.

[DGuller]

I hate micro-ATX.  You need to be a surgeon to ever get anything done inside the case, and you'll probably need to sooner or later.  It also limits you severely in your choice of video cards, should you want to upgrade down the road.