Daddy Arkham needs a new PC
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Hello, community. I seem to have found myself in a bit of a jam, and I'm coming to you for help. Some background for those interested:
I previously owned a MacBook Pro that was given to me for Christmas some time ago. Now, obviously, PCs are far superior gaming machines, but I was enjoying all the fancy doo-dads that Apple had to offer. With CoA, I would either run it as a Virtual Machine with a copy of WinXP or, later on, use Crossover specifically for NWN. Alas, due to an unfortunate falling accident that knocked it at just the right angle, the general diagnosis is that the logic board is cracked and the hard drive has passed on to silicon heaven.
So, this leads me to my current dilemma. Where do I go? Given that I'm a LoL addict and also want to actually play all these wonderful games I've missed out on over the years, I want a PC again. I'm also a bit illiterate when it comes to technology, so I'm hoping for a sympathetic helping hand here, from you. My ideal situation is that I can pick up Skyrim on it without too much of a fuss, or something comparable. I don't anything need terribly fancy - just something that can keep up with games. I'll worry about the clerical utilities.
This is the machine I was using prior to the MacBook, which I still use now, but time has not been friendly to it.
So, uh…halp?
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Desk or laptop?
What sort of price range you looking at?
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Oh, right.
Has to be a laptop. Also…this is going to sound incredibly naive, but the closer I can get to $500, the better.
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You can rarely go wrong with Ars Technica.
Here's their December system guide:http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/12/ ... mber-2012/
You may also want to peruse their recent review of two gaming oriented laptops, although the price of those two may well be out of your desired range. Still, check out the system guide "Budget Box", above:
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There is a laptop on ibuypower that I'm buying when I get back to the states. Can't get it shipped here unfortunately or I'd already have it.
http://www.ibuypower.com/Store/Battalio ... ing_Laptop <== this will play some stuff you want, but you aren't going to be able to play skyrim and such on full graphics because the video card is meh. Only reason I bring it up is because it will run the stuff and its about your price range
http://www.ibuypower.com/Store/Battalio ... ing_Laptop <== This is the laptop I am buying because it will play NWN, Skyrim, Diablo 3 etc with little problems. I have an X-Box so I don't need something to be my primary gaming machine, but its worth the price for what I need it for. (NWN, D3, Guild wars 2, school work, running Linix for class, etc)
I've unfortunately been out of the computer gaming field of work since I joined the Air Force so I'm not a graphics card guru anymore but I don't foresee any problems with the 859 one.
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generally with a laptop. you have to get what you want in advance, all you can do later is increase the RAM and change out the hard drive
desktops are generally more flexible, as long as you do not buy a bargain basement machine, some of those do not even have expansion slots for video cards (lower end emachines and acers are really bad for this) forcing you to stick with what you have, the same as a laptop, the desktop does give you the most bang for the buck, and offers some future proofing if you choose right
another alternative might be a slightly more expensive mac mini, again, basically just a laptop, and when you have spec'd it to the level you need to play games and purchased a copy of windows 7 or 8 the price rises considerably, but on a mac, run boot camp if you play games, holding the "option" key while the system boots will give you the option of which os you wish to use….i do not recommend running with parallels or programs like that, they are resource hogs, with a mac you have the luxury of leaving as one or the other on bootup
macs can make decent gamining machines and offer the luxury of being able to dual boot, mind you...i know a guy who helps me with my windows issues who dual boots a pc, windows for games, linux for everything else, a little research and that may be the best route, and you will have a more secure machine than even a mac (the security through obscurity is slowly vanishing for the mac) and with linux..it costs only the bandwidth to download it, and the time to learn it
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I'm also looking for a new laptop that will last a while and that is capable of running stuff (i.e. D3) decently. I have an xbox as my main console for gaming too, but its nice to be able to play some PC only games from time to time. I don't have any space for a desktop, sadly, otherwise I'd build myself one, so I'll have to settle for a laptop. Sadly I need something to ship in Europe, and that seems to be harder to come by. I'm working within the 800-900 euro range, I guess. Do anyone have any ideas/recommendations?
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My love to you all for your aid. I'm on Sherry's computer at the moment - it seems I am not destined to be technologically satisfied. The incredulously cheap power cord I bought for my Toshiba has exposed wiring now, so I am waiting to fix that before I even touch it (the battery is dead in that machine, in case I didn't mention that).
On the bright side, my parents are going to buy a new PC for my Christmas present this year. I can't express my gratitude enough to them.
Your suggestions have all been helpful, and I will post the details of whatever machine I get. Thank you all, and if I do not post again for another few days, happy holidays.
With love, from New York,
Sherry and Arkham -
Good ole Mom n Dad