New Rig for Christmas

[{(.:A.o.S:.)}DeathFromAbove]

Nobody's posted a new gaming rig here in a while. Well, Christmas is coming so I've decided it's time for a new Deathstation.

Tonight, I ordered a 17.3" behemoth from Sager:

Core i7-4700MQ
nVidia GTX 770M
16 GB Ram
240 GB SSD boot drive
1TB HDD for everything else
Blu-Ray burner
Wireless everything

That oughta do it. Should keep the room warm, too. I just decided my old eyes were getting tired of looking at a 15-inch monitor. I need bigger targets. Should make a better flight simulator, too. Totally unnecessary for grad school paper-writing, though.

This is basically the same rig that Alienware sells as the Alienware 17, but for about a grand less. I like Sager since they're basically factory direct from the ODM. It's amazing how few companies actually make all the laptops sold under all the different brands.

By the time I was done shopping, clan night was over, though.

When it gets here, I'll run some benchmarks.

I may turn the current Deathstation into a server, again, too.

--DFA

[{(.:A.o.S:.)}ELITE Lazerblade]

Very nice, Death. I've started saving up for a new rig. I have my eye on some Alienware Desktops, but I know they can be built from scratch for much cheaper than what Alienware charges.

[{(.:A.o.S:.)}DeathFromAbove]

Yeah, you should look at Sager's website. I can't find a single custom combination that they don't offer. Dell/Alienware has really shrunk down their customization options. They really want you to buy preconfigured from the stock pile. HP is all preconfigured retail boxes full of crapware now.

If you're looking for a desktop, my last tower computer was from Velocity Micro. They're set up the same way -- every single component is customizable. And VM doesn't put one ounce of crapware on the computer, it's all plain vanilla Windows. And they give you the original DVDs for every single scrap of software they put on it, right down to the motherboard drivers. They even toss in a bag full of spare parts they didn't use that come with the original components. A Velocity Micro tower was cheaper than building it myself.

New beastie is supposed to be here Wednesday, according to UPS. I hope they don't smash it along the way.

--DFA

[{(.:A.o.S:.)}DeathFromAbove]

New computer is here! I've been so busy between work and school that all I've been able to do is turn it on. I can say two things: it is enormous, and it boots in 12 seconds. Beyond that, I have no idea.

It did come built pretty much the way Velocity Micro builds theirs. I got all the parts and disks that I would have if I built it myself. And the keyboard is way sturdier than the Asus I'm typing this on.

--DFA

[{(.:A.o.S:.)}DeathFromAbove]

I haven't run any benchmarks, but I installed steam and CS:S. CS:S comes with a "video stress test" option to test your settings.

On the old computer, I was getting 93.73 fps on the stress test. Same settings on new computer gets 130.10 fps. When I set everything to max, including full antialiasing, full HDR, full reflections, everything, it gets 128.95 fps.

Nice.

--DFA