The time to buy a new computer is NEVER - Page 8

Why in the world are you reading it?!

Sorry, I was referring to whatever the hell underlying OS MS uses today (guess I'm not that geeky). My understanding was Windows still had an underlying MS-DOS OS. Whatever the hell it is, it still continues to be incomprehensible and opaque, and that makes it all kind of sludgy. I learned MS-Dos back when I was a kid, but I continue to prefer Unix when I have a need to go troubleshooting some stupid GUI-unfriendly problem.

Yes, we're geeks, but well-dressed ones.

I'm looking at buying a new computer mostly for gaming and I've priced that $800 should get me a good rig (buying the parts and putting it together myself). But now i'm thinking of leasing a computer. I'm interested in leasing since computers depreciate in value so quickly.


Do any of you know other gaming-oriented computer companies that make quality PCs which I can lease? Or do you think I'm better off spending the $800 on a very upgradable system which I can put new parts into as I need in the future?

The idea of leasing a computer is absolutely ridiculous, IMO. Just buy the new one.

I need a new gaming system too, but the one I priced out is like $1.3K.

Why do you think leasing one would be such a bad idea?

I don't know if any companies "lease" gaming-quality PCs. I have seen ads on TVs for "rent to own" PCs but those are probably horrible economically and performance-wise.

I built my last PC from the ground up. It is true that PCs depreciate horribly. However, I don't think there is any way around it. If you lease, why would the company lease to you at a rate that would not cover the depreciation? Much like leasing or buying a car (another rapidly depreciating item), the smarter economic decision is to buy the car.

Unless you are a person who really should buy rather than build, I think building/upgrading your own is the only way to go.

A lot of parts can be reused, and this will save you $ in the long run:

1. Case (doubtful they will change the mobo standard -- ATX 2.0 I think);

2. Power supply (assuming you bought enough power to start, say at least 500-600W for SLI/Crossfire);

3. Cooling system (again assuming you bought higher quality fans or a liquid system);

4. Ancillary stuff (keyboards, mice, etc.).

The stuff that goes obsolete and requires upgrading ... well, it's a lot cheaper and easier to yank a mobo, CPU, memory, hard/optical drive or video card than trashing the entire gig and buying a new computer.

Right now my current system (built in 2005) could use an upgrade, if I were so inclined. It is not critical, as I can generally play any current release games. I'm running an AMD based system (939 socket mobo) with a GeForce 7800GT video card.

If I wanted to be bleeding edge I could buy a GeForce 8800 and sell the 7800GT and keep chugging along. Even if I wanted to ditch the current CPU (Athlon 64) and go for a faster dual core, I only need to replace the CPU and mobo ... everything else can stay as is.

Don't believe the PC horror stories

My gf's 233 mhz PC still works fine
My own desktop is an 1800+ AMD
Macs get viruses too. They just don't come with anti-virus software so users don't know about them there's usually a large outcry of viruses from PC users because the base is larger so the # of whiners are larger.

Personally, I haven't had a virus affect my computer for more than a day because you can just google the virus's name (which you can find by hitting ctrl+alt+del and bringing up the task manager) and then find the specific anti-virus.

Btw, Macs are becoming closer to PCs every day...

I had windows Vista installed in my PC and for that I had massive upgradation costs for that- a 256Mb gfx card and a gig of RAM plus a 200gig hard disk.

Really? How much do you consider "massive"?

That is relatively "minor" as far as I'm concerned, as far as upgrading goes. You can acquire each of those things for around $150, and in some cases, $20-50 cheaper.

If you want to be able to play the newest games semi-decently, it's going to run you about 1.2k minimum. Anything less and you're going to have to sacrifice a fair bit of visual quality.

I can build a quad-core tower (completely unnecessary but very cool) with graphics cards (XFX geforce 8800 gts 580 320) and sound card and wireless for 1.2k (before taxes unfortunately) without any specials which will run most games at max. I wouldn't quite call it a minimum :P

Yeah Brian, this isn't Mac pricing here...

Being able to run *current* games at max settings is, IMO, the minimum, due to the nature of how quickly the requirements go up in games and how much PC computer parts depreciate over time. If you're going to drop money into building a gaming machine, you're basically throwing that out the window, so you better make certain it's going to be playing everything you want for the next couple years.

If your criteria is being able to run games that come out 2 or more years from now at max settings with the hardware you buy today, you are spending more than 1.5k. You are buying the majority shareholder stock in ATI or nVidia. For example, A computer sporting an Athlon FX-60 Dual Core CPU, and an SLI kit of two GeForce 7800 GTX cards (The top processor and card of 2005) would struggle mightily running Elder Scrolls: Oblivion today at the highest settings. Then again, I can load it up and play it fine at less than maximum settings with my Athlon64 2600 and ATI X850pro. (which cost me about $180 total, when I bought them in '05)

I'd say you should be able to play games at max settings that come out about 6 months after your purchase, and after that lower the settings a bit to accomodate your computer. You can do this with a top-end video card and a decent set-up the rest of the way, but it's going to cost at least 1.2k for the parts alone, not including monitor and peripherals.