Which is better?

[camelsmaycry]

Hi

Ive been using Apple computers all my life but a few days ago Ive seen a computer that a mate if mine built for gaming and the idea grew on me (gaming using a computer, keep in mind that ive used consoles all these years) and since apple dont make a computer for gaming I was wondering what to buy :

1. Dell
2.Hp
3.Alienware
4.Custom bulit

I will plug it in in my game room (projector and 50 inch lcd) so What should I buy and my budget would be around $4000 i can go more if you recommend, and finally i will watch movies 1080p and use to download 24/7 so I need a big HDD ... thanx

 

[JoshWS]

A CUSTOM BUILT DEFINATELY ! With that amount of money you could build the one of the best PC's around. I will find parts for you if you want, just tell me what you would prefer ATI or nVidia, AMD or Intel ? You could even build an amazing PC for half that price.

JoshWS,

 

[hang-the-9]

With a 4k budget, you can get a top monitor and pretty much the best of everything in a PC. At that price point, almost any vendor will have good quality. If you want to compare some lesser known brands (ibuypower lets say), check some of the articles on Tom's or Maximum PC (they have many issues online with system reviews). 1080p resolution on a gaming system is child's play, so don't worry about that. Any real game card from the low range up will be able to run that resolution.

If this is the only system you will have, get an SSD for your main drive, and a pair or 1 / 2 /3 tb drives in RAID 1 for storage. Build out the system, install programs, image it, put that aside for recovery if needed. Move your files over to the RAID 1 drives, you have an automatic copy there as well.

 

[Raidur]

Good thing about custom PCs is you do NOT have to spend $4k for good performance.

For Apple and Alienware you are overpaying vastly for the same hardware, just for a fancy case (which IMO you can get better ones when building custom) and a title (and in Apple's case, an operating system).

You can play almost every game on absolute max settings with a mere $1500. With $2k you will have a remarkably 'uber' setup.