I've never owned a Xion or Sparkle product, but I would say everything else sounds good. As far as the Sparkle video card, it shouldn't matter as they don't really differ from the reference cards that Nvidia provides.

 

-----signature-----

Ignoring the cases, I would spend the extra $100 for the better CPU, memory, and graphics card. Because at the very least I'm sure I'd add more memory eventually anyway.

Both graphics cards should have about the same performance. I favor the Nvidia for marginal reasons. For a single mid range card, both of these reasons probably will not have much real impact. But Nvidia is quicker to release updated beta drivers for new games. This isn't too important for a single card as these drivers are mostly need for their SLI profiles. But they sometimes add 5 to 10% more performance for single cards too. Also I like the cooler on Nvidia cards. AMD coolers are less efficient and nosier. I think it's a non issue on mid range cards because they output much less heat than high end cards, so either cooler will probably be fine and quiet enough anyway.

As brands. ASRock makes the motherboard. It's actually pretty decent. Not ASUS, Gigabyte, or MSI good. But ASRock is owned by ASUS and is their lower end brand and has lately been doing some decent things with their motherboards.

XFX makes the Radeon 6870 card in one of the systems. I love XFX, great customer service. I have no idea who makes the GTX 560 in the other system.

The power supplies in both are naturally nothing to write home about.

Ah, the GTX 560 is from Sparkle? That's a Taiwanese company, you'll likely have to deal with a third party contractor in the United States for customer support. Chances are you might even have to pay a service fee if you ever need to have the card RMA'ed. Though you may never need to do this. And since the card is purchased with a prebuilt iBuypower PC, I imagine you'd go for them for support or RMA service anyway at least for the first year.

Ravynmagi,

Speaking of warranties, do you have any experience with Newegg warranties with regard to prebuilt systems?

I have the following option:

Service Net Desktop PC Onsite Extended Warranty Plan
Desktops serviced via onsite repair or by authorized repair facility if applicable. All shipping charges are covered.(more info)

1 year: $79.99
2 year: $125.99

Is this worth it?


Also, what you said earlier is striking home with regard to the case. It appears to have one on the back & top, and according to one reviewer, one on the bottom? That makes no sense at all! Is that enough airflow, as I am used to having one on the side as well. (this is for gaming)

I have no idea how long it will take Newegg to get the original system (1st discussed) back in stock. It's been over 5 yrs since I bought anything from them.


Im trying to think of other negatives for the smaller case...


If my thoughts are in order, the pro & cons of the smaller case build (2nd one discussed) are:

Pro's: better CPU, 2x the RAM and a slightly better graphics card

Con's: Less airflow (but by how much?), inability to expand the system further or as much as possible.


I may be simplifying this, but I like the idea of a larger case for airflow more than anything. The probability of me upgrading parts on a yearly basis is not very good. I might upgrade the RAM, depending how the 4x4gb RAM sticks that come with the 2nd system performed (if I went with that system), and at some point I would put in a Blu Ray drive.

So I guess at this point I am stumped at how much worse the airflow would be for the 2nd system compared to the first, and whether or not it would make that much of a difference.


Thoughts?

I haven't dealt with their warranties. For me I usually skip the warranties and take my chances. For $80 it sounds like you are paying for the convenience and time savings of having someone come to your home to fix/replace the issue. I'd probably just take my chances and deal with maybe a $15 to $30 shipping fee if I had to RMA something to the manufacture instead. Usually everything should come with at least a 1 year manufacture warranty for free.


As for the cases. If you are not overclocking the CPU, not going to put in a second video card, then the smaller case will probably provide sufficient air flow. If it doesn't, you can spend $30 for three Scythe Slipstream fans.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185059

Though an advantage of having more fans is that you can use lower RPM fans and keep things quieter as well. But the Slipstream fans are pretty good and don't add too much noise.


Regarding RAM. You should have no need to replace the memory for performance. There is very little performance gained from faster memory these days on the Intel platform.

Ok, I just saw something that doesn't make sense, and I need another opinion. I was looking at the motherboard and where I would put the wireless adapter I need to purchase with the machine (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833127218).

If you look at the side picture of this system (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227382) with the side panels off, so you can get a good look at the motherboard.

Then compare it to this picture of the motherboard itself (http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/fullimage.php?image=31622), what I see is that the PSU is covering the three remaining PCI-e slots.

Unless the two pictures are of two different ASROCK motherboards, for the computer in question, I do not see any additional PCI-e slots.

Are you seeing the same thing, or am I missing something?

They are different motherboards.

The one in the Ibuypower system only has 2 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (PCIE2 @ x16 mode; PCIE4@ x4 mode) and 2 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots.

The motherboard image you linked has 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot, 3 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots, and 3 x PCI Slots.

Sadly I can't find info about what MB is in the Ibuypower system. It seems they send off old/outdated models to Newegg and other sites and remove them from their website. I can't find Gamer Supreme anywhere to look up possible parts.

It looks like the wireless card is PCI-e 1x. If thats the case, you can install it above the videocard after looking at the image of the motherboard. The 2nd PCI-e is covered by the video card cooler.

 

-----signature-----

It looks like Im back to square one...it's not on Newegg anymore.

Great...now to find another system. Any and all help is appreciated!

Edit:


Thoughts on this: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=851786&CatId=1886?


Now Im paying more for less it seems. Is this worthwhile?

Sweet, check this out... http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1277082&Sku=SYX-1113


Thoughts on this one compared to the other post above?