I need a new PC.. HP?

[retiredgord]

 ???  :-[ Ok I hope I'm in the right forum. I have a question I think you fellows can answer easily, quickly and without needing a commission, hehehe.
I'm looking at one of the new HP Elite series of desk top as a new means of playing some of the newer PC games. The two I looked at at Best Buy seemed to have some of the features you fellows have suggested or that some of the other members have posted about having on their units.
When you have a chance can you look at and suggest a couple of these "packages" for me to think about purchasing.
Thanks for the info.

[deadman1]

???  :-[ Ok I hope I'm in the right forum. I have a question I think you fellows can answer easily, quickly and without needing a commission, hehehe.
I'm looking at one of the new HP Elite series of desk top as a new means of playing some of the newer PC games. The two I looked at at Best Buy seemed to have some of the features you fellows have suggested or that some of the other members have posted about having on their units.
When you have a chance can you look at and suggest a couple of these "packages" for me to think about purchasing.
Thanks for the info.

Do you have any links for us so we can exactly what these "packages" contain?

[PZ]

Yes, links or model numbers/names would be handy.  Just as a note of preface, I've not known HP to produce a machine that is ideal to gaming.

[mandru]

The HP systems are excellent computers but be aware that they come with one of the fattest packages of bloatware that I think I've ever seen.   ???

We bought my wife a top of the line HP Pavilion laptop for our business computer a couple years ago prepackaged with the full Windows Office suite plus an accounting program we use to track inventory and sales for taxes.  Every time we turned it on we spent the first five minutes of each session shutting off unwanted HP services.  Even accessing Minesweeper in the Games folder was linked through the HP online game server.   ????

It took me quite a bit of effort putting silver bullets into overly helpful HP pop up software and an extra gig of memory upgrade to  get it to the point it could handle Vista on top of the HP services running in the background.  There's still a folder on her desk top labeled BloatWare because I have been afraid to delete anything that might turn out to be essential.

Since we had an HP comp for our office, the next natural though was that an HP Officejet All-in-One for copying, scanning and printing would be perfect, right?  Guess how that went.   >:D

When we want to print something after restarting her HP it's forgotten what a printer is and what it's supposed to do with it.  We have to spend five minutes reloading the Print system program from disc.    :D  There's nothing wrong with the printer.  When I have to print from my computer I just swap the USB connection and my built from scratch goes "Oh, an HP 6310!  Here you go.  :)"   Pure plug and play, it connects faster than I can sit back down after hooking it up.  I've never loaded the HP print driver on my comp and wouldn't if you paid me.

It seems that HP software wants you to compute their way, which is not always perfectly compatible with the way Windows views personal computing.  We've encountered some tricky w@&k-arounds to get the two philosophies to play nice with each other.   ::)

I can't suggest between HP systems, as I said above they are typically top notch but if you can get Best Buy to give you a clean install of your operating system without including anything but absolutely essential HP-ware, I think you'll be far happier.   :-X

[retiredgord]

Ok. thanks for the heads up mandru. It's been suggested by otheres that some of the HP line can be "unfriendly". Some friends go one but they think it's great tho they only play the casino-style games. If anyone can suggest a line please feel free to post.

[JRD]

If you are looking for a single brand system like HP, you might take a look at Dell systems, even if only for the sake of comparison. Dell is a pretty reliable company and I'm very happy with my laptop. My father bought himself a Dell desktop which is very solid... although he'll play nothing but onlyne chess :-()

Since you can easily peruse their website, it can be really handy to compare components and prices  ;)

[Art Blade]

OK, now I had to split this off the board's intro post ;)

[mandru]

Gord, if you do go with one of the HP desk tops from Best Buy first make sure that it has enough Memory sticks, a powerful enough Graphics Card to play the games you want (with a bit of headroom for growth, eh?) and a system Power Supply with enough juice to support the graphics upgrade and your drives.

It is entirely possible that the service desk at Best Buy could handle the minor upgrades, install the memory, graphics card you select and if needed a larger power supply as well as give you a total price before buying so that you know the damages before reaching the cash register.

Since your asking us here I'll assume you don't have access to a freelance Techie Geek.  If you knew someone who could advise you as well as pop in any upgrades you select it would actually save you a lot over having Best Buy do the w@&k but I understand sometimes you have to take the help where you can find it.

[PZ]

mandru gives good advice, Gord, but in my humble opinion, you'll not be satisfied with an out of the box HP product if you want a gaming rig that will last you for a while.  Playing casino-style games can be done with a low performance netbook, so that capability is no indication that a PC will be capable of playing something like FC2, let alone the newer DX 10/11 games.  You might check out the gaming rigs at newegg.com to see a comparison of prices versus performance.   You'll need to do a bit of research, but I'd recommend that you look at each computer listed and then do a Google search of the graphics card it contains.  For instance, the ATI Radeon HD 5870 is an outstanding graphics card for gaming.  Here is the link to newegg gaming rigs - it will give you an idea of the possibilities.

Gaming computers at newegg.com

One final thought - choose the best gaming rig that you can afford - if it does gaming, then it will do any other home/business application that you want - with blazing performance.

Good luck my friend, making the correct PC choice for a gaming rig is not an easy choice.

[deadman1]

mandru gives good advice, Gord, but in my humble opinion, you'll not be satisfied with an out of the box HP product if you want a gaming rig that will last you for a while.  Playing casino-style games can be done with a low performance netbook, so that capability is no indication that a PC will be capable of playing something like FC2, let alone the newer DX 10/11 games.  You might check out the gaming rigs at newegg.com to see a comparison of prices versus performance.   You'll need to do a bit of research, but I'd recommend that you look at each computer listed and then do a Google search of the graphics card it contains.  For instance, the ATI Radeon HD 5870 is an outstanding graphics card for gaming.  Here is the link to newegg gaming rigs - it will give you an idea of the possibilities.

Gaming computers at newegg.com

One final thought - choose the best gaming rig that you can afford - if it does gaming, then it will do any other home/business application that you want - with blazing performance.

Good luck my friend, making the correct PC choice for a gaming rig is not an easy choice.

I agree with PZ and mandru. If you feel up to it you might consider building your system yourself, like I and I believe PZ has done. It´s not as hard as one might think and it may save you a few $ in the process. One other thing I would like to add is that if you choose an Nvidia graphics card don´t go below the GTX 460, preferably a 470 or if you can afford it an 480.

[PZ]

I agree with PZ and mandru. If you feel up to it you might consider building your system yourself, like I and I believe PZ has done. It´s not as hard as one might think and it may save you a few $ in the process. One other thing I would like to add is that if you choose an Nvidia graphics card don´t go below the GTX 460, preferably a 470 or if you can afford it an 480.

deadman is so correct - building a PC these days is not much of a challenge, but selecting the right parts can be.  However, there is plenty of free advice here at OWG, so should you decide to embark on one of these adventures, you'll get lots of help choosing parts.  The most difficult part for me was the parts selection (there is so much to choose from, and many price tiers), but once they were delivered, building the PC was a simple casual evening of entertainment.

[mandru]

Build it yourself? Possibly but I know I'm not up to that project.  The thought of trying to correctly run the numbers and figure out the distribution bus grid from the power supply to the different hook up hot points throughout a computer so that the whole thing doesn't flash into flame the second I plug it in frankly scares me silly.   :-\\

It might be worth your while Gord to look at the web site http://www.ibuypower.com/.  Not that I am suggesting that you buy from them but as a tool to give you an idea of all of the components in one easy list that are involved in assembling a computer and a rough idea of how much it will cost you to get the system you want.

This is the company I had custom assemble my computer and over the course of a year or more using their Custom Configurator.  I'm sure they though I was a ghost I was on their website so often  >:D.

With their Configurator I was able to compare the different options for each component by looking up review sites that would often put my choices side by side so I could make good component choices and avoid over the top crazy expensive upgrades that were more horsepower than I really needed.  By avoiding unnecessary overkill on many small things I was able to splurge and go big on the important things like the Motherboard, the fast Intel i7 CPU, a muscular power supply and the over the top crazy expensive Graphics card I talked myself into.  :-D

Right under their logo in the upper left of page there's an menu bar that starts out  Desktop - Laptop -  and so on.  If you hover you mouse over the Desktop selection it drops down and branch to allow you to select between the AMD and Intel CPUs.  Then it goes to a page where you add component selections and the floating column on the right side of the screen shows you how your choices affect the price.

You can also start with a prepackaged computer and completely customize it so that it reflects the features you want but be aware if you add a larger Graphics card like the ATI Radeon HD 5870 as PZ suggested above that will increase the power demand for the system but this Configurator tool will warn you of how much wattage each card requires so that you can later select a Power Supply that will allow the system to run properly.

On paper, if you make a list of the components you've select from the Configurator then as PZ suggested above you would be able to go to his Newegg.com link and either compare against prepackaged systems  or on a different part of the Newegg site buy the components (order all at once to avoid being nickle and dimed to death with individual shipping) and assemble yourself or if you know someone who's actually already building computers for fun bribe them to build it for you.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OK, I'm starting over here. ???

Heh, I just noticed on Newegg there's some great deals on Ibuypower systems and many others included among their possible choices.  Even some that come equipped with the ATI Graphics Card PZ mentioned (me, I'm a NVIDIA kinda guy  8-X ).  It looks like there's some way better prices than I received dealing direct with Ibuypower if I factor in the two years since my purchase and my shipping and handling costs.

OK PZ has the better idea.  I'll admit it.  :-[  It's just that I spent about 2 hours last night +/- 4 hours this morning getting this all typed up and edited in Wordpad before I researched the link PZ offered.  The thought of deleting it after all that w@&k was more than I could handle.   ^+-+

[Art Blade]

 ??? ^+-+ :-X

[PZ]

...  The thought of deleting it after all that w@&k was more than I could handle.   ^+-+

That's OK, mandru - you I've left many a post (instead of deleting it) for exactly the same reason  ;)

On an aside, while I was checking the specs on some of those gaming rigs, one of them even has a solid state boot drive with a 1tb data drive.  I'll bet that thing loads rather quickly

[Art Blade]

you I've left many a post (instead of deleting it) for exactly the same reason  ;)

You bet. Picture this: I'm checking the forum's stats (who's online) and notice mandru is posting somewhere. Then I think great, let's see what he comes up with again, and check that topic. Once. Twice. Five minutes later. 10 minutes later. Quite a bit later I check who's online and see mandru's down to the bottom of the list because it didn't update (because he didn't move). The next time I check he's gone off the list. No post. So one hour later I check the topic, nothing. I check who's online and oh, there's mandru again (probably due to checking a preview of his post), posting in that very topic. Again? Can't be. Must be "still." So after hours there's three possible outcomes. A) No post because he realised it was all rubbish for some reason and decided to discard or B) there's a post like the one we're joking about right now or C) he really managed to write something cool you need three monitors to see the entire post at once.

I love it  ;D :-X

[mandru]

 ;D

I did hover on site for a long time working on that post.  Hey the FC2 boards have been really slow and I have to do something to stay in the mix.  :-D

The unedited version while not really that cool was growing to resemble the part of Art's option C requiring three monitors to view  but as i was making sure all my ducks were in a row before posting I happened to check PZ's Newegg link and it changed my mind set of how best to advise Gord.  There's no need to make him jump hurdles he doesn't need to so I did trim some unnecessary preachy obsolete chatter but still kept the tone of the direction I was headed in.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Additional to Gord

Something to consider is that while HP makes excellent computers they are more oriented towards business solutions, word processing and accounting.  They are not really known for Gaming systems which are a "whole 'nother animal", quite literally.  Sure you can upgrade an HP into a game system but you are effectively rebuilding it and you will never get back the value of the components that you have to take out and replace to get it up to speed.

Also remember that a gaming system can always drop back and perform the business solutions, word processing and accounting functions but is way to expensive (as well as over powered for that purpose alone).  Besides when you can drop in the latest title and play run it at a glassy 45+ frames a second who has time to waste on business, word processing and accounting?   >:D

Gord, If it's the after purchase service aspect that is steering you towards getting your computer from Best Buy it might help to know that most locations will service computers even if they're bought elsewhere, it's part of their GeekSquad in store or in home service.

Though I would warn you that to upgrade the memory in my wife's HP laptop Best Buy offered a free scan with the service after I had bought the Ram Sticks and it turned up what they claimed was a virus that I'm pretty sure was the HP service package lurking in the background as I was running Windows Defender, Norton, AdAware and Spybot search and destroy (all reporting clean).  Best Buy threw the brakes on the memory stick installation halting the transaction unless I first paid them an additional $350 to fix a virus only their scan seemed to be able to spot.  Let's just say I less than politely suggested they attempt two impractical immoral organic functions and one impossible one, demanded the laptop back and took it to a friend who installed the memory sticks for free.

[PZ]

...  Let's just say I less than politely suggested they attempt two impractical immoral organic functions and one impossible one...

^+-+ ^+-+ ^+-+