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BlueKronos: I would say yes, if other reviews are positive ignore it and move on.
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Leroux: The problem is, there are no other reviews to be found anywhere on the net, neither positive nor negative. ;)

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BlueKronos: Not sure about the motherboard being poor quality though as the post doesn't indicate what it is using and even on the site, the details page for the system don't identify the motherboard being used.
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Leroux: Which is kind of suspicious and might suggest that this is where they saved some money ... (The motherboard includes USB 3.0, but I have no clue if that's any indication of its quality.) Maybe I could try asking the seller about it, but I doubt they will be able to tell me.
True, not giving information can sometimes mean that it's less than stellar; however, it can also just mean that their marketing dept doesn't know to include that information as important to some consumers if they don't include that information for any of their systems. They also don't include whether the gpu is onboard or an expansion card, what kind of power supply and wattage, what brand of ram, cas latency and other things like that that a builder would be interested in. Some of the details they do include though, like actually showing 2GB for the gpu ram in the detail page and that the system ram is at 1600MHz, the motherboard having the multiple PCI Express slots (though only one 3.0x16 (high performance typically used for graphics), Ethernet including a 1000 MBit capability, 64bit CPU architecture and it being listed with 2DVI and a HDMI would tend to indicate to me that it's a better than average board even if they don't give the chipset or manufacturer.

Shame there are no other reviews though and in some of their other gaming systems they do list the motherboard chipset so it's not that they couldn't include it if they wanted.

Edit: with the fact that they do list it for other systems, you could ask their support dept for the motherboard information on that system and see if they'd give it to you.
Post edited September 13, 2013 by BlueKronos
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BlueKronos: Edit: with the fact that they do list it for other systems, you could ask their support dept for the motherboard information on that system and see if they'd give it to you.
I wrote to the seller linked to in the OP, even though the PC doesn't seem available from them anymore, and I also wrote to two other sellers still offering it. So far, one of them replied with the expected answer, that they don't have any information about the motherboard.

But from what you wrote, the motherboard doesn't seem all that bad. And the "interrupts" process eating CPU power apparantly points to driver issues; maybe it was connected to some external devices the commenter was using and wouldn't concern me, or it could be fixed by updating drivers? At least I hope so. So far, IIRC, nobody that I've talked to has said anything bad about the PC's components, other than that I might get this kind of PC cheaper when building it myself.
Post edited September 14, 2013 by Leroux
you can get all parts from one seller ask them to assemble you pc.

it's cheaper on AMD platform though
Post edited September 14, 2013 by darkplanetar
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darkplanetar: you can get all parts from one seller ask them to assemble you pc.
I tried that on two well known German sites and it wasn't cheaper. Actually it would cost me about a 100-150 euros more, for more or less the same PC. I could get the same PC for the same price only without OS, and I don't have one, my current one was pre-installed.
Post edited September 14, 2013 by Leroux
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Leroux: ...
As for the freezing issue, all I can say is that you probably won't get it, and that it's most likely not hardware-related. Problem is: It might be. There's no way of knowing for sure. On the other hand, know this: If you were to get the PC from anywhere else, or assemble it yourself, you too will be facing a risk of it not working properly. That's just the issue with PCs.
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darkplanetar: you can get all parts from one seller ask them to assemble you pc.
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Leroux: I tried that on two well known German sites and it wasn't cheaper. Actually it would cost me about a 100-150 euros more, for more or less the same PC. I could get the same PC for the same price only without OS, and I don't have one, my current one was pre-installed.
preinstalled means you have a key somewhere, the iso you get from microsoft of tpb, you want to buy same thing?
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Leroux: I tried that on two well known German sites and it wasn't cheaper. Actually it would cost me about a 100-150 euros more, for more or less the same PC. I could get the same PC for the same price only without OS, and I don't have one, my current one was pre-installed.
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darkplanetar: preinstalled means you have a key somewhere, the iso you get from microsoft of tpb, you want to buy same thing?
Well, that was Vista, I'd probably switch to 7 or 8 now anyway. But even if I didn't need a new OS, what would be the point of letting a seller build my own custom PC if it's more or less the same one as the complete package linked to in the OP, for the same price? That would only make sense if I could get a better PC for a lower price, and apparantly that's not the case (unless I build it myself).
Post edited September 14, 2013 by Leroux
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darkplanetar: preinstalled means you have a key somewhere, the iso you get from microsoft of tpb, you want to buy same thing?
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Leroux: Well, that was Vista, I'd probably switch to 7 or 8 now anyway. But even if I didn't need a new OS, what would be the point of letting a seller build my own custom PC if it's more or less the same one as the complete package linked to in the OP, for the same price? That would only make sense if I could get a better PC for a lower price, and apparantly that's not the case (unless I build it myself).
how can AMD be more expensive?
AMD FX 6300 Hexa-Core Prozessor vs Intel I3
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darkplanetar: how can AMD be more expensive?
AMD FX 6300 Hexa-Core Prozessor vs Intel I3
I don't know much about computer hardware, if anything at all, so I'm dependent on other people's judgement when it comes to something like AMD vs. Intel. Do AMD processors have any other advantages beside being cheaper? Any disadvantages?

In any case, I'm grateful for those links, because apparantly I can get similar PC packages like the one in the OP with the same graphic card from Amazon, too? For example, how do these two compare to the Hyrican in the OP?

http://www.amazon.de/ANKERMANN-PC-FX-ULTRA-M5A78L-M-24xDVD-Writer-Netzteil/dp/B007I7H1IM
http://www.amazon.de/ANKERMANN-PC-FX-ULTRA-M5A78L-M-24xDVD-Writer-Coolermaster/dp/B006LFXCS0/ref=sr_1_25?ie=UTF8&qid=1379170082&sr=8-25&keywords=AMD+FD6300WMHKBOX+FX-6300

It's not about saving 20-50 euro, but are these ones actually better than the one in the OP? These ones seem to have 6 cores instead of 4, but with the same or a higher performance? Or am I mistaken? And the harddisk is twice the size? Any downsides to the offers compared to the one in the OP?
Post edited September 14, 2013 by Leroux
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Leroux: ...
the same link posted...

also here you can check performances, but there are more sites out there
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/
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Leroux: ...
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darkplanetar: the same link posted...
Yes, sorry, these links acted weird, but hopefully it's fixed now.
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darkplanetar: the same link posted...
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Leroux: Yes, sorry, these links acted weird, but hopefully it's fixed now.
can you check prices, i'm only beginner with the German language

http://www.idealo.de/preisvergleich/ProductCategory/3020.html
http://www.mindfactory.de/
http://www.hardwareversand.de/538/Desktop-PC.search
maybe this is cheaper? http://geizhals.at/de/

i'd say GTX 660 is a good choice
GeForce GTX 660 vs Radeon HD 6770
http://www.hwcompare.com/13352/geforce-gtx-660-vs-radeon-hd-6770-1gb/
Post edited September 14, 2013 by darkplanetar
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darkplanetar: how can AMD be more expensive?
AMD FX 6300 Hexa-Core Prozessor vs Intel I3
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Leroux: I don't know much about computer hardware, if anything at all, so I'm dependent on other people's judgement when it comes to something like AMD vs. Intel. Do AMD processors have any other advantages beside being cheaper? Any disadvantages?

In any case, I'm grateful for those links, because apparantly I can get similar PC packages like the one in the OP with the same graphic card from Amazon, too? For example, how do these two compare to the Hyrican in the OP?

http://www.amazon.de/ANKERMANN-PC-FX-ULTRA-M5A78L-M-24xDVD-Writer-Netzteil/dp/B007I7H1IM
http://www.amazon.de/ANKERMANN-PC-FX-ULTRA-M5A78L-M-24xDVD-Writer-Coolermaster/dp/B006LFXCS0/ref=sr_1_25?ie=UTF8&qid=1379170082&sr=8-25&keywords=AMD+FD6300WMHKBOX+FX-6300

It's not about saving 20-50 euro, but are these ones actually better than the one in the OP? These ones seem to have 6 cores instead of 4, but with the same or a higher performance? Or am I mistaken? And the harddisk is twice the size? Any downsides to the offers compared to the one in the OP?
One general comment, both for the hycan and the Ankermann pcs : try to make sure that your PSU is powerful enough ( I would say : at least 550W, preferably 600-625W )

Then, if you want to go the AMD way, you might want to consider the FX6350 rather than the 6300

On Ankerman's site itself, you will have a better choice than on Amazon (where some components are quite obsolete by the way) . Try this one for instance

http://www.ankermann-edv.de/product_config.php?c=c8b6f5f8748913f8023be85a8144d526

Select a FX6350 CPU , a Motherboard with an AMD 970 chipset such as the Asrock 970 pro 3 , a geforce 760 GPU and you should be under 800 euro ...

On Win 7 / 8, 7 is probably a better option for retrogamers

On AMD vs Intel : A good I5 is a sound choice. You get less cores than on FX6xxx amds, but they run more efficiently.
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BlueKronos: Edit: with the fact that they do list it for other systems, you could ask their support dept for the motherboard information on that system and see if they'd give it to you.
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Leroux: I wrote to the seller linked to in the OP, even though the PC doesn't seem available from them anymore, and I also wrote to two other sellers still offering it. So far, one of them replied with the expected answer, that they don't have any information about the motherboard.

But from what you wrote, the motherboard doesn't seem all that bad. And the "interrupts" process eating CPU power apparantly points to driver issues; maybe it was connected to some external devices the commenter was using and wouldn't concern me, or it could be fixed by updating drivers? At least I hope so. So far, IIRC, nobody that I've talked to has said anything bad about the PC's components, other than that I might get this kind of PC cheaper when building it myself.
Yes interrupts can be driver issues, hard drive fragmentation or something like a virus scan running in the background (though that can be seen if looking at the processes that it's not just 'mystery' cpu utilization, but, if not looking at processes there is no 'running' program that would be the cause since virus scans run in the background intentionally. So most likely as Fenixp said it isn't hardware related.

As to the question of AMD processor, they are cheaper generally than the Intel cpus because they don't sell as well and AMD tries to keep their price down to make them reasonable. At one point AMD definitely had the edge on performance, buying the same speed of processor between AMD and Intel and you'd get more out of your AMD. From what I've read that's not really the case today, unless you're overclocking your CPUs since AMDs are known for being better at that. As the cores there is some debate over that as AMD 6-core cpus are higher physical cores than the Intel 4 cores, but if the Intel 4 core is using hyper-threading then it can have 8 virtual cores. So it's not easy to make a direct comparison.

The CPUBenchmark site darkplanetar posted is a good one though. The rating of the AMD FX6300 there as compared to the Intel i5-4430n from the OP gives a slight edge to the AMD cpu between those two performance wise, but they are really about equal. The AMD cpu being cheaper though might make it the better of those if you don't have a preference for an Intel.

The other thing to keep in mind when changing from an Intel to an AMD cpu is that the motherboard is going to be different. You can't just swap one to the other these days; but, if you're getting someone else to build it or a pre-built system you shouldn't need to worry about it, since they wouldn't be trying to sell you an Intel based motherboard with an AMD cpu.

For those two links you posted from Amazon the first one is very close to the OP Hyrican system but has the benefit of a larger hard drive and specifies that it has a 600 Watt power supply which is good for a gaming system. Also has a lot of positive reviews which is good to see. (Though the second one only has 450W which is a little low in my opinion since it doesn't allow for much in terms of adding extra drives or expansion cards should you want to in the future). The difference in graphic cards between those two system also gives the advantage to the GTX 660 in my opinion as it has 2GB of GDDR5 instead of 1GB and according to the GTX 660 is a better performance wise and value (performance vs. cost) wise between those two. So if the 30 euro difference doesn't break the bank I'd go with the [url=http://www.amazon.de/ANKERMANN-PC-FX-ULTRA-M5A78L-M-24xDVD-Writer-Netzteil/dp/B007I7H1IM]first system which does compare favorably with the Hyrican system in the OP.

One thing it also gives is the motherboard, and the Asus M5A78L-M motherboard does have a few good reviews, the only thing I didn't like about it was that on one review site it said it only allows for a maximum of 8GB of Ram which doesn't allow for you to expand your ram down the road but looks like it is a good value board. According to ASUS specs though the board allows up to 32GB ram and has 4 slots which should be fine.

Also it doesn't come pre-installed with an optical drive (CD/DVD/Blu-ray or burner) though in the details on the listing they have several options that look like you can have included. Though those are pretty easy to install yourself should you want to do one later, if even needed since many things like GOG games are downloadable rather than having to install with physical media.
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Phc7006: On Win 7 / 8, 7 is probably a better option for retrogamers
That's what I thought, but so far I haven't found a lot of evidence to back that theory. Like I said, I even found out one of my games, Disciples: Sacred Lands, has a better compatibility to Win8 than Win7, and I've yet to find word of any game I'd like to play not being compatible with Win8 (except maybe VTM: Bloodlines, but that was more of an unconfirmed rumor, and I don't know if it runs on Win7 either; and fortunately I've already played through it once).

I think I'll settle for the Hyrican, as a friend told me it will probably be a more efficient gaming system than the 6-core AMDs. But it's good to have these alternatives as a back up plan in case the Hyrican is sold out before I get to buying it.

What I didn't think about yet, is that as someone who loathes DRM and is not too fond of account- or client-based gaming, I am going to have a hard time catching up on AAA games from 2007 onwards. D'oh! GOG still has a lot of work convincing publishers and bringing these games here. It seems even quite a few indies still seem to believe in DRM as a system to fight piracy. Oh well. At least I will finally be able to enjoy Driftmoon, haha.

Oh, btw, if I didn't answer in detail to every post, it doesn't mean that they were not helpful - on the contrary. I read all of them, checked out the links and considered all alternatives. Thank you very much and +1 to all of you! :)
Post edited September 15, 2013 by Leroux