Out of the three you listed I would get

*NOTE: Cannot upgrade to dual vid cards, but I get the monitor"

It seems you have to go with Dell for your own reasons. If you want something thats decent and will game the above will do it and hopefully not rape your wallet too badly with Dell.

There are other options, but if you must go with Dell and the choice is between the 3 you listed, then that would be my choice.

If you have other options than those I would explore them tho.

Originally posted by Zorgo

PROCESSOR	2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3820 (10M Cache, Overclocked up to 4.1 GHz)
OPERATING SYSTEM	Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64Bit, English
MEMORY	8GB (4 X 2GB) Quad Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz
VIDEO CARD	1.25GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 560 Ti
HARD DRIVE	256GB SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive

*NOTE: Can upgrade to 2 vid cards

-or - 

 

 

PROCESSOR	3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i5-3330 (6M Cache, up to 3.0 GHz)
MEMORY	8GB (2 X 4GB) Dual Channel DDR3 up to 1600MHz
HARD DRIVE	256GB SATA 6Gb/s Samsung Solid State Drive
	1.5GB GDDR5 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 660
	Dell U2410 Ultrasharp Monitor 27"

*NOTE: Cannot upgrade to dual vid cards, but I get the monitor

 

-or-

 

3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3770 (8M Cache, up to 3.4 GHz)

MEMORY8GB (2 X 4GB) Dual Channel DDR3 up to 1600MHz
HARD DRIVE256GB SATA 6Gb/s Samsung Solid State Drive

 

NOTE* This has an i7 processor instead of the i5, but not sure it's worth the extra money.
 

This is a correction to an earlier post;

the last 2 options have a gtx 660, NOT the 560ti

just as a note. I have been looking into video cards for myself recently and I have yet to find anything that is better price/performance ratio than the radeon 6870.

Originally posted by Zorgo

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by Zorgo

Good info so far.

To continue:

it seems going a single vid card is a.o.k.

Therefore, I'm wondering about the deals I've seen for the 'slimline' (for lack of a better term) gaming comps which have much more reasonable prices, yet seem to have all the gaming power.

Seems like it may be worth the price difference to have 1 good vid card, a 4 or 6 core processor and smaller power supply; with the disadvantage being that you can't ever upgrade to 2 cards. 

Any thoughts?

Any desktop with the word "slim" in it isn't likely to be a gaming desktop or a gaming anything else.  Standard video cards won't fit in the extra slim cases.  A lot of other standard hardware won't fit in slim cases, either, so you end up paying extra to get custom parts that give you inferior performance.

You can get some ultra small form factor cases from Silverstone or Lian Li that are meant to handle gaming rigs, but those are roughly cubical in shape:  short, not slim.

You shouldn't worry about upgrading to two video cards later.  The only situation I'm aware of where it makes sense to add a second card for SLI or CrossFire later but not to set it up that way initially is if you're buying two computers at once, and plan to eventually move both video cards to the same computer while buying a higher end video card (that didn't exist at the time of the original purchase) for the other computer.

What you should, however, worry about is upgrading to one faster single card a few years down the line.  And a slim case will probably make that impossible.

Understood on the slim stuff - but this is actually an alienware 'budget' gaming system; so in my post above you'll see the options I'm looking at. 

The alienware case actually accomodates all 'current' vid cards - so I spose I'd be taking a bit of a gamble for the future.

And before anyone rolls their eyes at the dell/alienware choice; 

with a 10% coupon

10% gov't employee discount

cyber monday deals

+ other account advantages;

I won't get a better value for the price; trust me, this is all I've done this weekend

It is exceedingly rare to find a good deal from Dell, let alone Alienware.  In fact, the last time I saw an Alienware system at a good price was... probably never.

Don't be fooled by their claims of discounts.  That's their business model.  Things are always, always, always at a "discount".  All that changes is what the special deal is that week.  But taking something you could get elsewhere for $1000, claiming it's nominally worth $2000, and then offering you a combination of a bunch of special deals to let you have it for $1300 isn't really giving you a great deal.

Speaking of which, how much are you looking at paying for those systems?  Because it wouldn't be hard to put together something better than any of them for gaming purposes for $1000.

shakymo you can get a 6870 at new egg for $119 with rebate. The 7850 is going for about $175 atm. That is a very large price difference for a similar video card.

Just on a side note. I found a 7850 for $155 with rebates.

Originally posted by Quizzical

Don't be fooled by their claims of discounts.  That's their business model.  Things are always, always, always at a "discount".  All that changes is what the special deal is that week.  But taking something you could get elsewhere for $1000, claiming it's nominally worth $2000, and then offering you a combination of a bunch of special deals to let you have it for $1300 isn't really giving you a great deal...

 

Heh.. Sounds like "Black Friday" and "Cyber Monday"...

I never did like Alienware.. Bloated over inflated prices that only serve those who want to be the 1% that can say "yeah, I got one of those.."..

Like a Rolex watch..

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by Zorgo

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by Zorgo

Good info so far.

To continue:

it seems going a single vid card is a.o.k.

Therefore, I'm wondering about the deals I've seen for the 'slimline' (for lack of a better term) gaming comps which have much more reasonable prices, yet seem to have all the gaming power.

Seems like it may be worth the price difference to have 1 good vid card, a 4 or 6 core processor and smaller power supply; with the disadvantage being that you can't ever upgrade to 2 cards. 

Any thoughts?

Any desktop with the word "slim" in it isn't likely to be a gaming desktop or a gaming anything else.  Standard video cards won't fit in the extra slim cases.  A lot of other standard hardware won't fit in slim cases, either, so you end up paying extra to get custom parts that give you inferior performance.

You can get some ultra small form factor cases from Silverstone or Lian Li that are meant to handle gaming rigs, but those are roughly cubical in shape:  short, not slim.

You shouldn't worry about upgrading to two video cards later.  The only situation I'm aware of where it makes sense to add a second card for SLI or CrossFire later but not to set it up that way initially is if you're buying two computers at once, and plan to eventually move both video cards to the same computer while buying a higher end video card (that didn't exist at the time of the original purchase) for the other computer.

What you should, however, worry about is upgrading to one faster single card a few years down the line.  And a slim case will probably make that impossible.

Understood on the slim stuff - but this is actually an alienware 'budget' gaming system; so in my post above you'll see the options I'm looking at. 

The alienware case actually accomodates all 'current' vid cards - so I spose I'd be taking a bit of a gamble for the future.

And before anyone rolls their eyes at the dell/alienware choice; 

with a 10% coupon

10% gov't employee discount

cyber monday deals

+ other account advantages;

I won't get a better value for the price; trust me, this is all I've done this weekend

It is exceedingly rare to find a good deal from Dell, let alone Alienware.  In fact, the last time I saw an Alienware system at a good price was... probably never.

Don't be fooled by their claims of discounts.  That's their business model.  Things are always, always, always at a "discount".  All that changes is what the special deal is that week.  But taking something you could get elsewhere for $1000, claiming it's nominally worth $2000, and then offering you a combination of a bunch of special deals to let you have it for $1300 isn't really giving you a great deal.

Speaking of which, how much are you looking at paying for those systems?  Because it wouldn't be hard to put together something better than any of them for gaming purposes for $1000.

Well, I know you are right about dell/alienware; and I hope that another option presents itself; but essentially, my dell account is the best option for me without having 2k in the bank for this. Your point about the 1300 comp is well taken, but it looks as though with the incentives I have, they are taking  a 1k comp, saying its a 2k comp and I'm getting it for 1k. So.....no real deal, but better than a normal dell/alienware deal.

I'd much rather have the cash on hand and go through newegg - but without going into the dirty details, I have a dell account. 

So either wait 3 or 4 months to save the cash and have no comp, or get a dell/alienware.

Just as a side note; my old rig is an alienware that I paid way tooo much for - yet; it has been the best gaming rig I've had -  years with zero problems, i'd still be using it today if not for a horrid user error involving cats, dogs and hot coffee.

Soooo......

the real question is, can I stop gaming for a few months to get a sound deal? or spend a little more and game sooner.....

Originally posted by jdnewell
Go with the middle option . I5 with 660GTX IMO

Good call IMO. I did the same when the GTX4xx was 'hot' and the 470/480 were way over prized (for my budget) and the GTX460 was new and pretty cheap. No (2 year later) I'm still enjoying the power the 460 gives (in SLI now though).

EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti FPB (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5
16 GB G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB 240-Pin DDR3
Intel Core i5-2550K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor

I haven't played any game yet that has made this setup stutter at max settings. GW2, SWTOR, Firefall(Beta),Planetside 2, Borderlands 2, Assassins Creed I, II and III...
 

Originally posted by Reizla

Originally posted by jdnewell
Go with the middle option . I5 with 660GTX IMO

Good call IMO. I did the same when the GTX4xx was 'hot' and the 470/480 were way over prized (for my budget) and the GTX460 was new and pretty cheap. No (2 year later) I'm still enjoying the power the 460 gives (in SLI now though).

I run the 480's in sli or 2d surround.  these things blow nearly ANYTHING on the market away.  Price for performance of gtx 480's in SLI or Dual is well worht 400 bucks.  You can't get the same performance in a single for that price..

I am WC, though, and my temps are frigid even with everything OC'd

Originally posted by bulldog1963

Originally posted by Reizla

Originally posted by jdnewell
Go with the middle option . I5 with 660GTX IMO

Good call IMO. I did the same when the GTX4xx was 'hot' and the 470/480 were way over prized (for my budget) and the GTX460 was new and pretty cheap. No (2 year later) I'm still enjoying the power the 460 gives (in SLI now though).

I run the 480's in sli or 2d surround.  these things blow nearly ANYTHING on the market away.  Price for performance of gtx 480's in SLI or Dual is well worht 400 bucks.  You can't get the same performance in a single for that price..

 

I am WC, though, and my temps are frigid even with everything OC'd

As far as I know, if you don't play your games on mutli-monitors or on a single one but with a resolution higher than 1920x1080, you don't get more performances whatsoever (maybe a little one but nothing noticeable) from SLi. I've tried SLi with two 8800 GT before both overheat and there's was no difference. Not sure if this changed since I've tried it but I really doubt it. Just look at some benchmarks, they nearly always compared both GPU (one single and the other in SLi) in games at a resolution of 1920x1200. Sure at this resolution (or even higher) the SLi cards will always perform better, when you try it at a normal resolution, you don't see any difference. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Originally posted by bulldog1963

Originally posted by Reizla

Originally posted by jdnewell
Go with the middle option . I5 with 660GTX IMO

Good call IMO. I did the same when the GTX4xx was 'hot' and the 470/480 were way over prized (for my budget) and the GTX460 was new and pretty cheap. No (2 year later) I'm still enjoying the power the 460 gives (in SLI now though).

I run the 480's in sli or 2d surround.  these things blow nearly ANYTHING on the market away.  Price for performance of gtx 480's in SLI or Dual is well worht 400 bucks.  You can't get the same performance in a single for that price..

 

I am WC, though, and my temps are frigid even with everything OC'd

Unfortunately, they also blow away your room temperatures and electric bills.

Yeah, people who are WAY smarter than YOU, and about as smart as me have determined that running 2 gtx 480s at stock cooling will add about 20 bucks to your ANNUAL energy usage if compared to using NOTHING at all.  Hardly a ball buster as far as energy goes.

And no, they don't heat up a room like a steam radiator.  sorry, the surface area and the heat they do generate while idle isn't squat.  You would get much more ambient heat increase by using your toaster a lot.

Become educated upon the subject you wish to comment on.

Originally posted by SirFubar

Originally posted by bulldog1963

Originally posted by Reizla

Originally posted by jdnewell
Go with the middle option . I5 with 660GTX IMO

Good call IMO. I did the same when the GTX4xx was 'hot' and the 470/480 were way over prized (for my budget) and the GTX460 was new and pretty cheap. No (2 year later) I'm still enjoying the power the 460 gives (in SLI now though).

I run the 480's in sli or 2d surround.  these things blow nearly ANYTHING on the market away.  Price for performance of gtx 480's in SLI or Dual is well worht 400 bucks.  You can't get the same performance in a single for that price..

 

I am WC, though, and my temps are frigid even with everything OC'd

As far as I know, if you don't play your games on mutli-monitors or on a single one but with a resolution higher than 1920x1080, you don't get more performances whatsoever (maybe a little one but nothing noticeable) from SLi. I've tried SLi with two 8800 GT before both overheat and there's was no difference. Not sure if this changed since I've tried it but I really doubt it. Just look at some benchmarks, they nearly always compared both GPU (one single and the other in SLi) in games at a resolution of 1920x1200. Sure at this resolution (or even higher) the SLi cards will always perform better, when you try it at a normal resolution, you don't see any difference. Correct me if I'm wrong.

this isnt true.  SLI improves p[erformance at lower resolotions considerably.  You need yto us a benchmark that actually uses both cards.  each is different and not all do.  and SLI 8800's  is like running dual Stanley Steamers .  Not gonna get a lot from something that doesn't have it to start with.  GTX 460'sand 480s are outstanding in SLI.  Go to an OC board.  learn.