need help with a poker computer

[thizzSantaCruz]

i need a comp just for poker. im looking to spend the minimum but still have damn good looking monitors to make my playing experience as smooth as possible. i used to be into comps but havent been following lately. what do i need processor wise? RAM wise? graphics card wise? what are some good companies?

[animal_chin]

i need a comp just for poker. im looking to spend the minimum but still have damn good looking monitors to make my playing experience as smooth as possible. i used to be into comps but havent been following lately. what do i need processor wise? RAM wise? graphics card wise? what are some good companies?

How many monitors are you planning on running? You could get a nice 24" or 30" monitor. Or multiple smaller ones.

[thizzSantaCruz]

im thinking 2 22" monitors

those i can find easily. really just the computer is what i need to figure out.

[animal_chin]

Ok for a good setup on the cheap I would get this.

Motherboard $89
CPU$124
Memory $45(2gb should be good for XP 4gb might be nice for vista)
Case $70[
DVD Burner $24
Hard Drive $65

Basically the case, hard drive and dvd burner don't matter that much. If you need more space get a bigger hard drive.. if you don't like that case get a different one. Throw in a copy of Vista or XP for $90 and the total comes out to be $508.

Heres a review on some 22 LCDs, choose a pair of nice ones.

For monitors Acer are cheap and cheerful. Very realiable too.

[euphoricism]

animal, that computer is about 300% too good for a poker-only computer.

[vaks]

I heard a lot of bad things about 22" monitors... first off the TN panels (means if you look up at your monitor you cant see shit) are bad... and also a 22" monitor gives you 1600x1056 (or something) whereas a 20.1" gives you 1600x1200 (u can fit 9tbles easily with no overlap) the 24" is a 1900x1200 (so u can fit 9 tables easily with no overlap and bigger)

[Pythonic]

Go on ebay and pick one up. I got a dell on there for $250 and that included shipping. P4, 1.7 ghz, 1 gig RAM, Windows XP. It does what I need it to do.

[euphoricism]

Go on ebay and pick one up. I got a dell on there for $250 and that included shipping. P4, 1.7 ghz, 1 gig RAM, Windows XP. It does what I need it to do.

THIS. Also check craigslist. Poker doesnt take much resources. Buying anything but whats needed is a waste of money and probably an incentive to put non-poker stuff on your poker computer which defeats the point.

I heard a lot of bad things about 22" monitors... first off the TN panels (means if you look up at your monitor you cant see shit) are bad... and also a 22" monitor gives you 1600x1056 (or something) whereas a 20.1" gives you 1600x1200 (u can fit 9tbles easily with no overlap) the 24" is a 1900x1200 (so u can fit 9 tables easily with no overlap and bigger)

I get 1600x1200 with my Acer 22" widescreen.

[bode]

I heard a lot of bad things about 22" monitors... first off the TN panels (means if you look up at your monitor you cant see shit) are bad... and also a 22" monitor gives you 1600x1056 (or something) whereas a 20.1" gives you 1600x1200 (u can fit 9tbles easily with no overlap) the 24" is a 1900x1200 (so u can fit 9 tables easily with no overlap and bigger)

I get 1600x1200 with my Acer 22" widescreen.

doesn not compute. thats a 4:3 aspect ratio and WS's are 16:9

[animal_chin]

animal, that computer is about 300% too good for a poker-only computer.

But with that mobo you don't need to buy a dedicated graphics card to run two monitors... I guess you could get a cheaper cpu though...

[thizzSantaCruz]

Ok for a good setup on the cheap I would get this.

Motherboard $89
CPU$124
Memory $45(2gb should be good for XP 4gb might be nice for vista)
Case $70[
DVD Burner $24
Hard Drive $65

Basically the case, hard drive and dvd burner don't matter that much. If you need more space get a bigger hard drive.. if you don't like that case get a different one. Throw in a copy of Vista or XP for $90 and the total comes out to be $508.

Heres a review on some 22 LCDs, choose a pair of nice ones.

Looks like a nice set up. I still have a couple questions, sorry for my computer retardedness. No video card? I thought I needed one to support 2 monitors. Allthough I am now thinking about maybe just getting one 30" monitor.

And I did assemble a computer with my dad back in the day, but theres no way I would be able to do it from scratch.

[animal_chin]

Ok for a good setup on the cheap I would get this.

Motherboard $89
CPU$124
Memory $45(2gb should be good for XP 4gb might be nice for vista)
Case $70[
DVD Burner $24
Hard Drive $65

Basically the case, hard drive and dvd burner don't matter that much. If you need more space get a bigger hard drive.. if you don't like that case get a different one. Throw in a copy of Vista or XP for $90 and the total comes out to be $508.

Heres a review on some 22 LCDs, choose a pair of nice ones.

Looks like a nice set up. I still have a couple questions, sorry for my computer retardedness. No video card? I thought I needed one to support 2 monitors. Allthough I am now thinking about maybe just getting one 30" monitor.

And I did assemble a computer with my dad back in the day, but theres no way I would be able to do it from scratch.

Yeah you don't need a dedicated video card to run two monitors with this board. The 3200 integrated graphics is great. It can run two monitors at once. One monitor would be hooked up to the d-sub port and the other to either the hdmi or the dvi port. I bet you could build it yourself. There are many great websites that tell you how to build your own computer. Also forums like tomshardware.com will help you if you run into any issues (btw it might be nice to ask about your setup there too to get some real expert opinions).

[Jack Sawyer]

dude, get a dell

I heard a lot of bad things about 22" monitors... first off the TN panels (means if you look up at your monitor you cant see shit) are bad... and also a 22" monitor gives you 1600x1056 (or something) whereas a 20.1" gives you 1600x1200 (u can fit 9tbles easily with no overlap) the 24" is a 1900x1200 (so u can fit 9 tables easily with no overlap and bigger)

I get 1600x1200 with my Acer 22" widescreen.

doesn not compute. thats a 4:3 aspect ratio and WS's are 16:9

I'm not computer literate so I can't offer any technical explanation, but I know for a fact I have a 22" widescreen monitor and I know for a fact it supports 1600x1200... thats the res I use to play poker

[animal_chin]

I heard a lot of bad things about 22" monitors... first off the TN panels (means if you look up at your monitor you cant see shit) are bad... and also a 22" monitor gives you 1600x1056 (or something) whereas a 20.1" gives you 1600x1200 (u can fit 9tbles easily with no overlap) the 24" is a 1900x1200 (so u can fit 9 tables easily with no overlap and bigger)

I get 1600x1200 with my Acer 22" widescreen.

doesn not compute. thats a 4:3 aspect ratio and WS's are 16:9

I'm not computer literate so I can't offer any technical explanation, but I know for a fact I have a 22" widescreen monitor and I know for a fact it supports 1600x1200... thats the res I use to play poker

Are you sure its not 1680 x 1050?

I heard a lot of bad things about 22" monitors... first off the TN panels (means if you look up at your monitor you cant see shit) are bad... and also a 22" monitor gives you 1600x1056 (or something) whereas a 20.1" gives you 1600x1200 (u can fit 9tbles easily with no overlap) the 24" is a 1900x1200 (so u can fit 9 tables easily with no overlap and bigger)

I get 1600x1200 with my Acer 22" widescreen.

doesn not compute. thats a 4:3 aspect ratio and WS's are 16:9

I'm not computer literate so I can't offer any technical explanation, but I know for a fact I have a 22" widescreen monitor and I know for a fact it supports 1600x1200... thats the res I use to play poker

Are you sure its not 1680 x 1050?

It's 1600x1200 lol, I'm not THAT stupid with computers

Granted it looks a little distorted because its on a widescreen monitor, but still fine for tiling 9 tables on.

[a500lbgorilla]

FTR refuses to believe your monitors run 1600x1200

[animal_chin]

FTR refuses to believe your monitors run 1600x1200

Yes, because the only 22" widescreen monitor that I know of that physically has 1200 vertical pixels is this one.

FTR refuses to believe your monitors run 1600x1200

Yes, because the only 22" widescreen monitor that I know of that physically has 1200 vertical pixels is this one.

But mine too!

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b1...canrun1600.jpg

[Halv]

Poker doesnt take much resources.

Here comes halv with the old "it depends". The lag I get running HM + SpadeEye + EyePoker + PartyPoker + NoIQpoker + scripts + Camtasia + 6 tables + 30"+20" monitors makes me want to upgrade my 1.8ghz C2D/2GB ram/GF7950GT.

Not sure where the bottleneck is, but I think a faster CPU and a solid-state HD for the OS and database would be a good start.

[Jack Sawyer]

Poker doesnt take much resources.

Here comes halv with the old "it depends". The lag I get running HM + SpadeEye + EyePoker + PartyPoker + NoIQpoker + scripts + Camtasia + 6 tables + 30"+20" monitors makes me want to upgrade my 1.8ghz C2D/2GB ram/GF7950GT.

Not sure where the bottleneck is, but I think a faster CPU and a solid-state HD for the OS and database would be a good start.

balla-speak

ban

[Jack Sawyer]

About SSHD; get the biggest one your cash can afford, since it will last longer than smaller versions. Probably like 50+ years, without breaking a sweat.
Goog "SSHD life expectancy" to get the full picture on what I'm talking about

Also, just an FYI, a 2.5" laptop size SSHD of 128GB retails for about $5K (WHich is more than most full computers)

[Jack Sawyer]

This configuration is the top end for poker


Inspiron 530
Intel® Core™2 Q9300 Quad-Core (6MB L2 cache,2.5GHz,1333FSB)
Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate
24 inch E248WFP Entry Widescreen Digital Flat Panel Monitor
4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz- 4DIMMs
500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
16X DVD+/-RW Drive
ATI Radeon HD 2400 PRO 128MB
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
Dell USB Keyboard and Dell Optical USB Mouse
No Floppy Drive Included
No Modem Option
Dell 1505 Wireless-N PCIe Card
My Software & Accessories
No speakers (Speakers are required to hear audio from your system)


$1699 from Dell store


If you need truly accurate colors, then skip the E248FP, and get a 2408WFP. Both are 24", but there is difference in the panel used, and the cheapness (or expensiveness)

[Halv]

About SSHD; get the biggest one your cash can afford, since it will last longer than smaller versions. Probably like 50+ years, without breaking a sweat.
Goog "SSHD life expectancy" to get the full picture on what I'm talking about

Also, just an FYI, a 2.5" laptop size SSHD of 128GB retails for about $5K (WHich is more than most full computers)

How much hard drive space do we need? I think right now you'd probably be better off getting two 32GB's for ~$300 a pop and use one for OS/apps and one for the database (woops, my db is actually close to 60GB, but I have no real need for mined hands that are older than say three months, so I could probably slim it down to fit into 32GB). A big point for me if I were to buy a SSD would be to quit down the PC - my harddrives are easily the most noisy components in my PC.

I do agree that spending that money on disks instead of processing power and maybe RAM is madness, but it's the good kind of madness! Besides, prices are bound to drop at some point, right?

Btw, I think HM has an issue with Quad-core's, so if you're gonna use HM you might want to look into that.

[Silly String]

I prefer this monitor to the Acers:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824155054

[thizzSantaCruz]

Ok, I have been looking around a lot lately and it seems to me a 30" monitor would be my best investment. Its only a couple hundred more than 2 24" monitors and will take up less room. If I am serious about poker this will pay for itself in time and plus it will be great to watch movies on. From my understanding to display a 30" monitor at its native resolution of 2560x1600 I need a decent graphics card. What kind of card will I be looking at?

[Silly String]

One with two DVI out ports. That will be you biggest jump in computer prices unless you are building your own. That is finding a computer w/ dedicated graphics card offering 2 DVI's out will put you into a category of computers that have higher class processors, RAM, HDs, burners etc.

[thizzSantaCruz]

Hows this look guys?

PROCESSOR Intel® Pentium® Conroe Dual Core Processor E2200 (1MB, 2.2GHz) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic edit
MONITOR No Monitor edit
MEMORY 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 4DIMMs edit
HARD DRIVE 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™ edit
OPTICAL DRIVE 16X DVD+/-RW Drive edit
VIDEO CARD ATI RADEON HD 2400 XT 256MB edit
SOUND Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio edit
KEYBOARD & MOUSE Dell USB Keyboard and Dell Premium Optical USB Mouse edit
FLOPPY & MEDIA READER Dell 19 in 1 Media Card Reader edit
MODEM No Modem Option edit
WIRELESS Internal PCI 802.11g Wireless Network Card

[thizzSantaCruz]

that graphics card says it has 1 DVI dual link... is that 2 DVI ouputs or 1? The dual is throwing me off.

[Silly String]

It appears to have one DVI out and one VGA out:
http://computershopper.com/reviews/a...cs-card-review

[thizzSantaCruz]

So does that mean no dice?

It says in the article "The back of the card features a dual-link DVI port that supports resolutions up to 2,560x1,600, as well as a VGA port (single-link DVI on some third-party models) that supports analog monitors at resolutions up to 2,048x1,536. "

2560x1600 is the native resolution.

[thizzSantaCruz]

This is the monitor I am looking at.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/p...9&sku=222-7175

[Silly String]

Hell, I don't know. Now we're getting over my head. Nice monitor by the way.

[will641]

Hell, I don't know. Now we're getting over my head. Nice monitor by the way.

god damn, $1200. am i reading that correctly?

[thizzSantaCruz]

Hell, I don't know. Now we're getting over my head. Nice monitor by the way.

god damn, $1200. am i reading that correctly?

Yes sir. 2 24" will cost me around 400 a piece. So its about 400 more. I'm looking at it as a long term investment, plus I just got a bunch of money off a stake so its almost free.

[thizzSantaCruz]

lol wow i can't make up my mind. i could get 2 samsung 204Bs for 300 a pop and save a bunch of money. Probably would be just as sexy. But then I need to find a graphics card with 2 DVI outputs.

[will641]

im actually casually looking into getting a poker computer too, that will be dedicated to only poker, to lower the risk of my account getting hacked again. i was thinking just one 24" will be plenty, because i never play more than 12 tables.

[thizzSantaCruz]

Yea will. I don't even play that many tables. I decided to go with 2 Samsung 204Bs and this set up.

Item Number Quantity Item Description
223-2835
1 Inspiron 530,Intel Pentium Dual Core processor E2180 (2.00GHz,800FSB)
311-7239
1 2GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
310-9611
1 Dell USB Keyboard
310-7966
1 Dell Optical USB Mouse
320-3000
1 Video ready option w/o monitor
320-6181
1 256MB Radeon HD 2600 XT
341-4810
1 320GB Serial ATA 2 Hard Drive (7200RPM)
341-5517
1 Dell 19-in-1 Media Card Reader
412-0688
1 Image Restore
420-4834
1 Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition,Service Pack 2,English
420-4927
1 Windows Media Player 10
420-5769
1 Internet Search and Portal
420-5924
1 Icon Consolidation Application
463-2282
1 Dell Owners Manual installed on your system,click on icon after system set-up to access
310-8617
1 Thank you for choosing Dell
420-6577
1 Power DVD 7.0
420-7622
1 DELL SUPPORT CENTER 2.0
310-9440
1 Windows XP Home backup CD
313-5582
1 Dell Resource DVD with Application Backup
310-1966
1 Mouse included with Keyboard purchase
430-0412
1 Integrated NIC card
313-3137
1 No modem requested for Dell Dimension
420-7468
1 ADOBE ACROBAT READER 8.1 DIM/INSP
420-8152
1 Roxio Creator 10 Dell Edition
313-5270
1 16X DVD+/-RW Drive
313-2758
1 Integrated Audio
313-2198
1 No Speaker Requested
430-2761
1 Dell Wireless PCI 1505, Full Height Carrier, 1.2 Antenna Insp Desktop
410-1160
1 McAfee Security 9.0, 30-day Subscription, for Dell Inspiron / Dimension
420-8085
1 Microsoft Works 9.0, English
987-3137
1 Dell Hardware Warranty PlusOnsite Service, Initial Year
982-4310
1 Type 3- Third Party At Home Service, 24x7 Technical Support, Initial Year
987-6238
1 No Warranty, Year 2 and 3
960-3249
1 Banctec Service Agreement
983-3680
1 Warranty Support,Initial Year
990-8029
1 1 Year Limited Warranty and Next Business Day,Desktop
330-0172
1 S and P Drop-in-Box Marcom forDHS Desktops
466-7687 1 Thank you for choosing Dell
310-8591 1 You have chosen a Windows XP System
464-9572 1 No Entertainment software pre-installed
420-7091 1 DataSafe Online Dim/Ins/XPS
420-7092 1 DataSafe Online Dim/Ins/XPS 1YR-FREE
987-4817 1 Insp Datasafe 3GB,1YR(Incl in price),DHS
988-0099 1 To activate your online backupaccount, go to Start, Programs, DataSafe Online

[Silly String]

i need a comp just for poker. im looking to spend the minimum but still have damn good looking monitors to make my playing experience as smooth as possible.

Did you change you mind about spending the minimum? That setup could melt most poker software that you would need to run & 2 monitors. 256MB dedicated graphics card is overkill as is a (2.00GHz,800FSB) chipset. But if it's cheap or if you have the money then it should work fine, IMO.

[Jack Sawyer]

Hows this look guys?

PROCESSOR Intel® Pentium® Conroe Dual Core Processor E2200 (1MB, 2.2GHz) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic edit
MONITOR No Monitor edit
MEMORY 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 4DIMMs edit
HARD DRIVE 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™ edit
OPTICAL DRIVE 16X DVD+/-RW Drive edit
VIDEO CARD ATI RADEON HD 2400 XT 256MB edit
SOUND Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio edit
KEYBOARD & MOUSE Dell USB Keyboard and Dell Premium Optical USB Mouse edit
FLOPPY & MEDIA READER Dell 19 in 1 Media Card Reader edit
MODEM No Modem Option edit
WIRELESS Internal PCI 802.11g Wireless Network Card

Its fine. You need a dual link DVI for output to monitors bigger than 1920x1200

You can always upgrade to a quaddie (Q9300 or Q6600) down the road if the proc is (or starts being) too slow

[Jack Sawyer]

get the best warranty possible though, whatever you end up buying

[Jack Sawyer]

How much hard drive space do we need?

<<============






that said, I myself am going to snatch up one of those 128GB thingies as soon as it hit around 1K~1.5K, and stuff it in a macbook pro, for work

For poker, I use laptops hooked to external monitor. I have a dedicated fileserver on S3 standby on my home lan, on which I store all sorts of shit, and have different servers (such as Version Cue, Apache etc.) running. Naturally, HHs fall under that category.

just remember halv: the bigger the SSD, the longer it will last. You can then reuse it on your older computers when the time comes.
For a poker only computer, 32GB is more than enough, just refrain from using "scratch disk", try and keep everything in ram (4GB, 8GB setups) all the time.

[Jack Sawyer]

So does that mean no dice?

It says in the article "The back of the card features a dual-link DVI port that supports resolutions up to 2,560x1,600, as well as a VGA port (single-link DVI on some third-party models) that supports analog monitors at resolutions up to 2,048x1,536. "

2560x1600 is the native resolution.

This is what you need to drive a 30" monitor

[thizzSantaCruz]

i need a comp just for poker. im looking to spend the minimum but still have damn good looking monitors to make my playing experience as smooth as possible.

Did you change you mind about spending the minimum? That setup could melt most poker software that you would need to run & 2 monitors. 256MB dedicated graphics card is overkill as is a (2.00GHz,800FSB) chipset. But if it's cheap or if you have the money then it should work fine, IMO.

I talked to Dell and this is what they drew up. Price was reasonable at 580 bucks. Seemed like there cheapest package that could support 2 monitors. I'm not really sure I want to build anything myself. LOL and of course I went on a huge downswing yesterday after purchasing the computer.

[Silly String]

Shit that sounds great for $580. I figured it was more than that. I love Dell since you can basically build your own computer without getting out the screwdriver.

[pocketfours]

Ok, I have been looking around a lot lately and it seems to me a 30" monitor would be my best investment. Its only a couple hundred more than 2 24" monitors and will take up less room. If I am serious about poker this will pay for itself in time and plus it will be great to watch movies on. From my understanding to display a 30" monitor at its native resolution of 2560x1600 I need a decent graphics card. What kind of card will I be looking at?

I've got a 30" screen (HP LP3065), and it's fantastic. The Dell is pretty much the same screen.