to All Computer Geniuses out there........

[Sheena]

fuckin hard drive prices are killing this under 500 stuff

[Maxim]

fuckin hard drive prices are killing this under 500 stuff

Yeah when I built this thing a 500-gig drive was like $40 on sale. Now it's double that for half the capacity.

[Sheena]

oh.. you said dont forget about the $150 PSU because only ones over $150 are good, so i thought a $300 would be REALLY good....? see where i was going?

[Maxim]

oh.. you said dont forget about the $150 PSU because only ones over $150 are good, so i thought a $300 would be REALLY good....? see where i was going?

You clever motherfu-

Now I see what you did there. Well played. Well played.

[Hifonics]

Im going to assume talking about desktops is on topic because it is the solution to the op's problem. I agree a computer can be built for ~$500 or so, and that it can be good at gaming. Ive done it. Is it spectacular? no. Is it better than any console out right now? Yes. Im gaming on a 3 year old build (920 i7, gtx285 etc) and stepped into someone's room the other day and couldn't figure out what version of portal they were playing because the graphics were so much worse than portal 1 I played when I first built my rig. Turns out it was just portal 2 being played on a ps3. lol.

Come on guys, it's like saying "ya I go to comps I got me some bump in the trunk... 2 12" sony's from walmart! Man they rock!" You're saying that for 500 dollars you can build a reliable/serious gaming rig that plays at native on high for lets say... BF3? I would love to see that. What you guys are describing is a normal PC that plays occasional games. Not a dedicated gaming rig.

PC's are not consoles. Not every machine plays every game the same. With that said, not every person plays Battlefield 3 either. You don't need to spend over $600-$700 to enjoy Portal, Skyrim, and other mainstream games at 1080p. You match the hardware to the requirements. This isn't the equivalent of buying Boss Audio and Pyle stuff. The components I'm talking about are more akin to AudioQue (a GREAT on-a-budget manufacturer). "Comps" for audio would be like benchmarking for gaming. You build a different system dependent on whether you're building a one-note-wonder or a groudpounder. And a budget computer build is just that. A budget build. Nobody buys a $500 computer expecting $2000 performance. Nobody buys a $500 system expecting $2000 performance. But when you're on a budget you live within your means and get the most for your dollar. The audio analogy ends there. You can't compare computers and audio like that because they don't operate in the same scaling manner. The idea of multiple subs and amps doesn't translate into anything in the computer world. There isn't that type of linear scalability.

You you're saying that in car audio you can scale performance -> money spent, but in computers you can't? lol? And yes, many people do buy computers thinking that they can do much more than they actually can. Very much like in car audio. It's actually a very valid comparison imo.

Bottom line: for 500 dollars you WILL NOT get a performance machine. Yes you will play games, but you will most likely have to upgrade much more frequently to keep up with the newer games that come out..

You will experience slow load times, lagg and low frame rates. If that's ok with you then fine. For an extra 300 bucks why not just go with the better equipment, have better performance and a better computing experience?

[Sheena]

Im going to assume talking about desktops is on topic because it is the solution to the op's problem. I agree a computer can be built for ~$500 or so, and that it can be good at gaming. Ive done it. Is it spectacular? no. Is it better than any console out right now? Yes. Im gaming on a 3 year old build (920 i7, gtx285 etc) and stepped into someone's room the other day and couldn't figure out what version of portal they were playing because the graphics were so much worse than portal 1 I played when I first built my rig. Turns out it was just portal 2 being played on a ps3. lol.

Come on guys, it's like saying "ya I go to comps I got me some bump in the trunk... 2 12" sony's from walmart! Man they rock!" You're saying that for 500 dollars you can build a reliable/serious gaming rig that plays at native on high for lets say... BF3? I would love to see that. What you guys are describing is a normal PC that plays occasional games. Not a dedicated gaming rig.

PC's are not consoles. Not every machine plays every game the same. With that said, not every person plays Battlefield 3 either. You don't need to spend over $600-$700 to enjoy Portal, Skyrim, and other mainstream games at 1080p. You match the hardware to the requirements. This isn't the equivalent of buying Boss Audio and Pyle stuff. The components I'm talking about are more akin to AudioQue (a GREAT on-a-budget manufacturer). "Comps" for audio would be like benchmarking for gaming. You build a different system dependent on whether you're building a one-note-wonder or a groudpounder. And a budget computer build is just that. A budget build. Nobody buys a $500 computer expecting $2000 performance. Nobody buys a $500 system expecting $2000 performance. But when you're on a budget you live within your means and get the most for your dollar. The audio analogy ends there. You can't compare computers and audio like that because they don't operate in the same scaling manner. The idea of multiple subs and amps doesn't translate into anything in the computer world. There isn't that type of linear scalability.

You you're saying that in car audio you can scale performance -> money spent, but in computers you can't? lol? And yes, many people do buy computers thinking that they can do much more than they actually can. Very much like in car audio. It's actually a very valid comparison imo.

Bottom line: for 500 dollars you WILL NOT get a performance machine. Yes you will play games, but you will most likely have to upgrade much more frequently to keep up with the newer games that come out..

You will experience slow load times, lagg and low frame rates. If that's ok with you then fine. For an extra 300 bucks why not just go with the better equipment, have better performance and a better computing experience?

i'd be willing to sell my Q9550 for $499 just so you can be wrong. (even though the video card alone was $349.99)

[Hifonics]

oh.. you said dont forget about the $150 PSU because only ones over $150 are good, so i thought a $300 would be REALLY good....? see where i was going?

I didn't say that it was worth spending more on a PSU did I? If you want a really good solid foundation for a rig, don't cheap out on the PSU. If you wanna run a 330 watt PSU that comes with the 49 dollar garbage case you posted then thats perfectly fine. Good luck to you. But to those of us that are serious about gaming, we choose to use good parts that will not crap out on us during a raid/event.

[Hifonics]

Im going to assume talking about desktops is on topic because it is the solution to the op's problem. I agree a computer can be built for ~$500 or so, and that it can be good at gaming. Ive done it. Is it spectacular? no. Is it better than any console out right now? Yes. Im gaming on a 3 year old build (920 i7, gtx285 etc) and stepped into someone's room the other day and couldn't figure out what version of portal they were playing because the graphics were so much worse than portal 1 I played when I first built my rig. Turns out it was just portal 2 being played on a ps3. lol.

Come on guys, it's like saying "ya I go to comps I got me some bump in the trunk... 2 12" sony's from walmart! Man they rock!" You're saying that for 500 dollars you can build a reliable/serious gaming rig that plays at native on high for lets say... BF3? I would love to see that. What you guys are describing is a normal PC that plays occasional games. Not a dedicated gaming rig.

PC's are not consoles. Not every machine plays every game the same. With that said, not every person plays Battlefield 3 either. You don't need to spend over $600-$700 to enjoy Portal, Skyrim, and other mainstream games at 1080p. You match the hardware to the requirements. This isn't the equivalent of buying Boss Audio and Pyle stuff. The components I'm talking about are more akin to AudioQue (a GREAT on-a-budget manufacturer). "Comps" for audio would be like benchmarking for gaming. You build a different system dependent on whether you're building a one-note-wonder or a groudpounder. And a budget computer build is just that. A budget build. Nobody buys a $500 computer expecting $2000 performance. Nobody buys a $500 system expecting $2000 performance. But when you're on a budget you live within your means and get the most for your dollar. The audio analogy ends there. You can't compare computers and audio like that because they don't operate in the same scaling manner. The idea of multiple subs and amps doesn't translate into anything in the computer world. There isn't that type of linear scalability.

You you're saying that in car audio you can scale performance -> money spent, but in computers you can't? lol? And yes, many people do buy computers thinking that they can do much more than they actually can. Very much like in car audio. It's actually a very valid comparison imo. Bottom line: for 500 dollars you WILL NOT get a performance machine. Yes you will play games, but you will most likely have to upgrade much more frequently to keep up with the newer games that come out.. You will experience slow load times, lagg and low frame rates. If that's ok with you then fine. For an extra 300 bucks why not just go with the better equipment, have better performance and a better computing experience?

i'd be willing to sell my Q9550 for $499 just so you can be wrong. (even though the video card alone was $349.99)

Why are you trying to prove me wrong? Lol. All I'm saying is that you will not get a quality rig for 500 bucks. Just like you can't get a solid quality competition car audio system for 500 bucks.

[Sheena]

serious about gaming? LOL dont even make me post my rig(s) specs.

[Maxim]

You you're saying that in car audio you can scale performance -> money spent, but in computers you can't? lol? And yes, many people do buy computers thinking that they can do much more than they actually can. Very much like in car audio. It's actually a very valid comparison imo.

Bottom line: for 500 dollars you WILL NOT get a performance machine. Yes you will play games, but you will most likely have to upgrade much more frequently to keep up with the newer games that come out..

You will experience slow load times, lagg and low frame rates. If that's ok with you then fine. For an extra 300 bucks why not just go with the better equipment, have better performance and a better computing experience?

I meant it in terms of multiple subwoofer and amplifier setups. I figured someone would try to bring that point up to prove something but there's nothing in gaming the computer world that scales in that manner. You could say multiple subs is like multiple GPU's but then you're trying to compare 2 6750's to a 6990 and it's not the same. So then you go to graphics core counts, but even that is misleading as newer architectures become more efficient. CPU speeds don't work because we all know an i7 at 2.5 will beat a Pentium 4 at 3.0. So there's no way to make a good comparison between audio and computer stuff, so I figured we should stop making those analogies.

This was never about making a performance machine. This was about why his laptop was overheating. And then someone said consoles were better than PC's for whatever dumb reason he had. And then I told the OP that if he wants a better option than his laptop with better performance for less than a new gaming laptop would cost, he could build a cheap desktop for gaming and I figured he could keep the laptop as a mobile machine. We're still not sure what games he plays but if he's doing it on a laptop we can assume it's nothing major, probably something a budget gaming desktop with a decent graphics card could handle just fine. I even said that the $500 doesn't include the monitor.

Now, YOU were the one who came in and brought up the $500 graphics card argument. But when we're comparing a $500 desktop to a console, you know just as well as I that the desktop is still the better choice.