04-10-2012, 02:40 PM
I agree with all of the previously made assessments. When building a gaming PC the most important component is going to be the graphics card(s). Second behind this follows the CPU/RAM/MB, though generally most reasonably modern CPUs are going to be powerful enough such that they won't throttle the graphics card until you start going very high end. You don't really need a top of the line CPU unless you plan on using your system for a lot of heavy CPU-based tasks like video encoding/compression or encryption on a large scale--sounds like you just wanna frag some stuff, though. Most current games do not utilize more than 2-3 cores reliably, thus a reasonably high clocked quad core CPU is sufficient to meet the needs of most games.
The first system you linked is an AMD-based system. While I really like to see AMD thrive to give Intel's CPU biz some competition I agree with Diggles that their CPUs just simply do not live up to their performance expectations--buy Intel. Additionally the first system uses AMD 5570 cards in CF. AMD does build pretty solid graphics cards, however, the 5570 isn't much of a gaming card on its own.
Between the two systems, the 2x 5570's and the 1x 550 Ti are going to be somewhat close performance-wise. Since you really aren't gaining anything performance-wise by having the dual video cards it is always preferable to go with a single card (a lot of games also prefer NVidia architecture because they provide a lot of support to game developers). A single card will also generally produce less noise/heat and consume less power than two cards (not always, though!). If the 2nd system's MB supports SLI (don't recall seeing a brand/model number--I really don't like preconfigured systems!) there's always the option of doubling up the 550 Ti's down the road for even more performance.
Here's a link to a comparison between the 550 Ti and 2x 5570's in CF:
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2011-...5375%5D=on
I went to ibuypower.com and configured a system approximately the same as the 2nd one that was linked. It ended up being about $50 bucks more in USD so unless you want to reconfigure the components more thoroughly I don't think you're saving anything vs. buying from tiger--but I would still encourage you to shop around a bit more if you haven't already. I'm assuming your budget is around $1000 since the two systems you linked were right in that price range. If you did want to configure the system yourself, however, I'm sure you could squeeze out some additional gaming performance for a somewhat minimal price increase by cutting back slightly on the CPU power (the i5 sandy bridge CPUs are still awesome) and stepping up to the next tier of graphics.
The first system you linked is an AMD-based system. While I really like to see AMD thrive to give Intel's CPU biz some competition I agree with Diggles that their CPUs just simply do not live up to their performance expectations--buy Intel. Additionally the first system uses AMD 5570 cards in CF. AMD does build pretty solid graphics cards, however, the 5570 isn't much of a gaming card on its own.
Between the two systems, the 2x 5570's and the 1x 550 Ti are going to be somewhat close performance-wise. Since you really aren't gaining anything performance-wise by having the dual video cards it is always preferable to go with a single card (a lot of games also prefer NVidia architecture because they provide a lot of support to game developers). A single card will also generally produce less noise/heat and consume less power than two cards (not always, though!). If the 2nd system's MB supports SLI (don't recall seeing a brand/model number--I really don't like preconfigured systems!) there's always the option of doubling up the 550 Ti's down the road for even more performance.
Here's a link to a comparison between the 550 Ti and 2x 5570's in CF:
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2011-...5375%5D=on
I went to ibuypower.com and configured a system approximately the same as the 2nd one that was linked. It ended up being about $50 bucks more in USD so unless you want to reconfigure the components more thoroughly I don't think you're saving anything vs. buying from tiger--but I would still encourage you to shop around a bit more if you haven't already. I'm assuming your budget is around $1000 since the two systems you linked were right in that price range. If you did want to configure the system yourself, however, I'm sure you could squeeze out some additional gaming performance for a somewhat minimal price increase by cutting back slightly on the CPU power (the i5 sandy bridge CPUs are still awesome) and stepping up to the next tier of graphics.