I am a gamer, and I just want something very good to play Sims 3 on. There are 2 desktops I am looking at with quite a price difference.
What I don’t know: Is there a major difference between these 2 PCs that is going to be noticeable when playing the Sims 3?
First one is $2,549 and specs are as follows.
Processor
Model: Intel® Core™ i7 975 Extreme Edition
Speed: 3.33GHz
# of Cores: 4
Cache: 8MB L3
Bus Speed: 4.8 GT/s
Chipset: Intel® X58
Memory:
Size: 12GB
Type: DDR3
Speed: 1333MHz
Total Slots: 6
Open Slots: 0
Storage
Hard Drive: 2 x 1TB SATA
Optical Drive: Blu-ray reader, 22x DVD RW with Lightscribe
Graphics
Type: PCI-Express x16 Video Card
GPU: ATI Radeon 5870
Memory: 1GB
Ports: DVI
Sound
Type: High Definition Audio
Channels: 8 (7.1)
Front Ports: Headphone
Back Ports: Digital Out, Microphone, Line-In, Line-Out;Rear Speaker Out;
USB
Front USB: 2
Back USB: 6
Networking
Wired: 10/100/1000
Wireless: None
Accessories:
Keyboard: Velocity Micro Ultimate Keyboard
Mouse: Velocity Micro 800dpi optical mouse
Remote: None
Expansion:
Slots: 2 PCI Expressx1
3 PCI Expressx16
Bays: 4 External 5.25"
2 External, 5 Internal 3.5"
Size
Dimensions: (HxWxD) 17.75" x 8.27" x 23.29"
Weight: 34.5 Lbs
Software
Operating System: Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 Bit)
Next one is $1,749 and specs are as follows.
Processor
Model: Intel® Core™ i7 950
Speed: 3.06GHz
# of Cores: 4
Cache: 8MB L3
Bus Speed: 4.8 GT/s
Chipset: Intel® X58
Memory:
Size: 9GB
Type: DDR3
Speed: 1333MHz
Total Slots: 6
Open Slots: 3
Storage
Hard Drive: 1TB SATA
Optical Drive: Blu-ray reader, 22x DVD RW with Lightscribe
Graphics
Type: PCI-Express x16 Video Card
GPU: GTX 275
Memory: 1792MB
Ports: DVI
Sound
Type: High Definition Audio
Channels: 8 (7.1)
Front Ports: Headphone
Back Ports: Digital Out, Microphone, Line-In, Line-Out;Rear Speaker Out;
USB
Front USB: 2
Back USB: 6
Networking
Wired: 10/100/1000
Wireless: None
Accessories:
Keyboard: Velocity Micro Ultimate Keyboard
Mouse: Velocity Micro 800dpi optical mouse
Remote: None
Expansion:
Slots: 2 PCI Expressx1
3 PCI Expressx16
Bays: 4 External 5.25"
2 External, 5 Internal 3.5"
Size
Dimensions: (HxWxD) 17.75" x 8.27" x 23.29"
Weight: 33.5 Lbs
Software
Operating System: Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 Bit)
The second one is a nice system and while it could be a lot for Sims3 both will be great for future games and especially for Sim4 I am sure if/when it comes out. I own a Z55 and a Z30, another Z30 soon and will own their new tablets once they come out, I am a very happy Velocity Micro customer, they have amazing machines and service. You might want to give their phone sales guys a call, they are very nice and pretty knowledgeable, they speak english too and can lean you towards the machine you need, very honest, they are based out of Virginia.
July 2nd, 2010 at 5:16 pm
I can’t tell if you’re serious as both these systems are absolute overkill for Sims 3. But I’d personally go with the 2nd cheaper one. The huge price difference for the extreme version of the i7 is not worth the relatively small increase in performance.
References :
July 2nd, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Are you serious? With the rigs you mentioned you could play Crysis 2 on either of these without any overclocking.
I suggest by downsizing your builds first, first thing I’d definitely look at is a lower end Core i5 or Phenom 2 system. You don’t need a Core i7 to play Sims 3… (although feel free to splurge on it if you want).
I wouldn’t recommend any of these 2 desktops — number one, it’s way too much for your needs, and
number 2, the higher end Core i7’s above the Core i7 930 costs a lot more and their price increase doesn’t justify the relatively small performance gains over the 920 / 930 i7 models.
The i7 930 is the "sweet spot" for a gaming CPU — it doesn’t cost a bomb and it’s pretty much all you need for games for the next year or 2.
Can you provide a link as to where you are getting these desktops from?
References :
July 2nd, 2010 at 5:54 pm
its only sims 3… if you want a good processor for an even lower pice look at the i7 930 they are still very good for around 300 but you realllly dont need that for sims 3. but im sure you will be using it for other things i wou8ld go for the 2nd one
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July 2nd, 2010 at 6:01 pm
both are overkill for sims 3…but the extreme edition cpu (the first one) has an unlocked multiplier and is .33 ghz faster to make for easy overclocking…so if you dont want to overclock then dont buy it. that’s the big difference. i could get into specifics about vid cards but like i said they are both over kill….as for the rest the first has 3 more gigs of ram and second harddrive (dont specify raid)….but really, if you just want to play sims 3 your throwing away money!
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July 2nd, 2010 at 6:41 pm
If all you want to do is play Sims 3, you don’t really need to spend that much money, but if these are the two that you are choosing from then go with the second PC. You’ll get the same performance from that particular game and you can save some money. If you don’t care about the price, go with the first PC. The CPU in the first PC is almost $1,000, that’s is a lot of the cost of the PC, but the ATI 5870 is a lot better than the GTX 275. It really all comes down to whether or not you prefer to spend $1,700 or $2,600 and how well you want the games to play on your new PC.
My honest opinion is that you should spend about $700 to $1,000 if all you want to do is play Sims 3.
References :
July 2nd, 2010 at 6:56 pm
I would go with the less expensive one unless you are planning to play some other intensive 3D games like Halo and such. Always look ahead into the future, but overkill is still overkill. You can always add more RAM later or upgrade the video card…But I prefer NVidia cards by far. 1 Gig is always a good bet as far as video card memory goes.
References :
July 2nd, 2010 at 7:32 pm
The second one is a nice system and while it could be a lot for Sims3 both will be great for future games and especially for Sim4 I am sure if/when it comes out. I own a Z55 and a Z30, another Z30 soon and will own their new tablets once they come out, I am a very happy Velocity Micro customer, they have amazing machines and service. You might want to give their phone sales guys a call, they are very nice and pretty knowledgeable, they speak english too and can lean you towards the machine you need, very honest, they are based out of Virginia.
References :