help, which of these two rigs?

I

Intel182

New Member
Ok so I have the choice of two PC's to buy right now with gaming in mind, i'm not building one so don't bother, i have a choice of two dells, the studio XPS and the XPS 630.

Both are roughly the same price, the studio being a few hundred more.

the studio XPS contains: an i7-920 processor @ 2.66ghz, 8gb dual channel DDR3 1066 mhz, and an ATI HD4850

the XPS 360 is apparently more a dedicated gaming machine than the studio XPS which is more geared towards multimedia and contains: a Q9400 @ 2.66ghz, 4gb dual channel DDR2 800mhz, and 2 9800GT's in SLI.

now, i know that the studio has a more powerful processor and ram, but is the SLI in the 630 really that much better than the HD4850 in that it will make a huge difference to gaming?

I would like to be able to run games such as bioshock, supreme commander, and newer games such as sacred 2 or sarcraft 2 at playable frame rates on max settings at a decent resolution, antialiasing doesn't bother me.

thanks very much :)
 
*shutters at Dell"

I would have to say the I7...sure the SLI 9800GT are attractive but if your not gaming on a resolution above 1440x900 with the games you mentioned you don't need a SLI set up. Especially if you don't care about AA.

To boot its a superior CPU that will perform better at stock speeds then the Q9400 which since its a Dell you wont be overclocking it...since you can't so the performance boost is worth while. Especially if they are in the same price range.
 
Chose the one with the SLI'ed 9800GT's.
Trust me, I always make the right decision.

EDIT: Wait, buy both and then make 1 super computer hehehehehehehehehehehehe
 
Last edited:
hmm, the i7 seems like a better future proofing machine but i hate these graphics card bottlenecks. i'm only choosing dell for the weekly payments option. despite the 4gb ram and the Q9400 on the 630 would the aforementioned games still run at max settings at higher resolutions, with the 9800GT's?
 
I would say that sinlge 4850 is faster than single 9800GT (which is more like 4830). Now 4850 is comparable to 9800GTX+ in terms of performance - just check benchmarks, and in any given day I will take better single card over 2 cheaper once in SLI (that's also MaximumPC's staff recommendation). Plus if it's accompanied by better CPU - I don't even have to think, also more memory will help with Vista, oh if it would just be Triple Channel instead of dual. By the way here is a sample - I have ran Crysis 1680x1050 with Q9400 and 9800GTX with 4Gb DDR2-800 with all settings set on High (which is DX9), now when I played it on Core i7 (overclocked to 3.2Ghz) with same 9800GTX and 3Gb DDR3-1600 I set everything on Highest - which is DX10 and got same FPS. Better CPU does make the difference, oh and I've seen real fog over the ocean in first level of Crysis, did not see it before with High settings.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top