Any computer guys here?
 

Hey, I used to be up to date on all the latest and greatest computer gear like 5 years ago, but I really haven't been following what's the best processor and graphics card, etc.

I have an old Alienware computer and I'm about to buy a new one. Yes, Alienware is overpriced and yes, I could save money if I just built one from scratch, but it's much easier this way to just have them build it for me. And plus, it looks damn cool.

I'm looking to play the latest games and also I do music production and need alot of processing power. What are your opinions on this:

POWER SUPPLY: 875W Multi-GPU Approved Power Supply
PROCESSOR: Intel® Core™ i7-2600K (8MB Cache) Overclocked Turbo Boost to 4.1GHz
OPERATING SYSTEM: Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
MEMORY: 16GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz
VIDEO CARD: Dual 2GB ATI Radeon™ HD 6950 - ATI CrossFireX™
HARD DRIVE: 2TB SATA 6Gb/s (7,200RPM) 32MB Cache

Anything you would recommend instead? Thanks in advance

That looks pretty good... see if you can upgrade to a vid card with GDDR5 maybe?

im suprised the 6950 dont have ddr5..

my laptop with a 5870 has ddr5

also dump the sata drives and get a SDD for your OS/Games/photoshop or stuff like that.
add sata drives as secondary drives for storage of videos/music etc.

Just go to ibuypower.com instead. You will save more from them than alienware.

you know...you could just buy the parts you want, go to a computer store and go "hey put this together" and it will still be shitloads cheaper than alienware.

only thing they are is brandname and design

like a beamer.

I myself am waiting since intell is supposed to show the sandy bridge 6-core in some months

A few things:

12GB of Triple-Channel RAM would be better than the 16 GB of Dual-Channel.

Also, is 875W enough to power both of those cards and the rest of your system? I would almost consider 1000-1200W.

Last, you're not going to see any benefits in performance by using 6Gbps 7200rpm drives. The only way to take advantage of the faster SATA-6Gb spec would be SSD. Ultimately, I would suggest a single 160-256GB SSD for primary OS drive, and multiple RAID 7200rpm drives for media/storage.

What monitor setup are you going to go with?

Alienware is made by Dell, they bought them a good couple years ago....so your just buying a dell...and dell kinda sucks.

If you are really going to drop coin on 16gb of ram - do yourself a solid and get an SSD while you are at it...

Get your RAM and SSD elsewhere then spend the rest on the video card and other HW you like.

The i7-2600k only has two memory channels so triple channel isn't an option.

I question the need for dual video cards - most of the time a single card is more cost effective unless you are looking for ultimate performance for this month (e.g. have money to burn). You can buy a new single card a couple of years from now and typically get better performance again than adding a second card unless you are at the very low end.

SSDs are nice but still expensive, and I leave my PC on 24x7, so a fast boot is rarely important. I'd suggest getting a 3 drive setup with 3x WD Black 2TB drives, run one as a boot drive, setup a RAID 0 for the other two, add a fourth for dedicated swap drive if it is in the budget.

Since you are talking audio, a high quality name brand power supply like PC Power and Cooling will help keep the noise out and be stable under load at it's rated power, where a cheap 875W won't really support it. Also consider a larger quieter fan setup and may be a sealed water cooler or total water cooling to quiet the whole system.

Boot speeds? An SSD dramatically speeds up load times of any file / program running on your machine not just boot speeds. These days Ram and processor power is rarely a bottleneck - SSDs are almost a must...

Yup. And since they are expensive can get a smaller one and put os, games and mostly used programs. Media goes on secondary regular drive

If you wanna go dual video card go nvidia SLI not crossfire/ATI. I have heard lots of things about how crossfire has microlag issues and lots of tearing and i know a few people who switched to nvidia for multiple video card setups. ATI is fine (and a great option for multiple monitors) if you go with a single card.

This oh god this....Alienware has gone down hill the last few years due to the Dell buyout. Plus god forbid you want to upgrade it yourself. I bought a dell and ended up ripping it apart and rebuilding it with a new MB because of all the crap that is "only" dell. Newegg has combo deals if you are comfortable putting something together.

yes i would stay away from Alienware as well and either have some shop put one together or look online for something. the i7 is a GREAT processor as i have the 960. i do run triple channel memory and also a SSD. the SSD is were i received the best performance boost I've seen in a while... its just amazing how much quicker that thing is