Well, old reliable here has been well to me for the past 5 years. Unfortunatly, having a computer that takes 5 minutes to log into Windows Live Messenger, just to get kicked off, is not something I want to work with for the remainder of my high school career. Therefore, I need some assistance in choosing a new computer.

 

 

 

As for specifics, since I don't know much computer terminology, I'll just list some things that I need (I have about $1000 budget to work with, might go higher if necessary):

 

 

 

- First of all, no Macs -.-

 

- Desktop, not a laptop

 

- Dual or Quad core processors

 

- A decent Graphics Card (Good enough MMO wise, not Crysis wise)

 

- Memory and RAM are top priority

 

- Vista or XP?

 

- What computer brand is best? I was thinking Dell :?

 

 

 

So...any suggestions?

Building it custom or from a manufacturer?

Dude..you have a thousand dollars to blow. Don't go with a dell.

 

This is a rather nice gaming build for under a grand.

 

Case (it looks hawt): SIGMA La Vie ASWB Aluminum Silver SECC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

 

Mobo: ASUS P5K EPU LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

 

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor Model BX80562Q6600 - Retail

 

PSU: COOLMAX CXI-600B ATX12V 600W Power Supply - Retail

 

Video Card: EVGA 384-P3-N965-TR GeForce 9600 GSO 384MB 192-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

 

CD/DVD Drive: LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model LH-20A1L-06 - Retail

 

Memory: mushkin XP 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model 996622 - Retail

 

HDD: HITACHI Deskstar T7K500 HDT725050VLA360 (0A33437) 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

 

ODD: LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe Black SATA Model LH-20A1L-06 - Retail

 

OS (It's your prefernce, I just threw XP in here to give it a price tag): Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP3 English for System Builders 1 Pack CD - OEM

 

 

 

Total price tag comes to: $991.91 USD

 

 

 

(I always feel like I'm forgetting something when I'm putting together a rig, so please let me know if I am :P)

Building it custom or from a manufacturer?

 

 

 

Manufactured computers make my life easier, but I can work with customs.

http://www.dell.com/content/products/fe ... l=en&s=dhs

Eew 9600GT......might as well spend like $30-40 more and get an 8800GT. The X600 cards all suck balls. (8600, 9600, etc). At least IMO.

 

 

 

I'd look for 3GB+ RAM, a 500GB HD (just my preference...i'm into photography so i store a lot of pics on my computer and run lots of applications.) 7200RPM at least and i prefer Seagate or Western Digital brands.

 

 

 

Of course if you buy prebuilt you arn't going to have a lot of play in the way of your choice of parts. Thats why i prefer custom jobs rather then prebuilts. Not to mention its cheaper to do custom.

Errdoth's build looks good, but you can substitute the Q6600 for an E8400. The E8400 is a dual core as opposed to a quad core. The difference is, the E8400 has a higher clock speed than the Q6600. So for multi core apps, a quad would do better. But for games and day to day work, I think you'd get better performance from the E8400.

 

 

 

Both CPU's will perform great which ever way you go.

Eew 9600GT......might as well spend like $30-40 more and get an 8800GT. The X600 cards all suck balls. (8600, 9600, etc). At least IMO.

 

 

 

I'd look for 3GB+ RAM, a 500GB HD (just my preference...i'm into photography so i store a lot of pics on my computer and run lots of applications.) 7200RPM at least and i prefer Seagate or Western Digital brands.

 

 

 

Of course if you buy prebuilt you arn't going to have a lot of play in the way of your choice of parts. Thats why i prefer custom jobs rather then prebuilts. Not to mention its cheaper to do custom.

 

 

 

If you're going to spend another $50 or so get an ATI 4850 or w/e the card is. $200 and it blows even the 9800GT out of the water.

Eww, you think about going for Dell? They used to be good, but now it's just crap, the computers break so fast.

 

 

 

HP is the way to go, they choose parts of quality.

I suggest XP for your OS. I currently have Vista and I have a lot of trouble when I try to use older programs or run older games. Even newer games can be an issue sometimes. XP > Vista for gaming.

I suggest XP for your OS. I currently have Vista and I have a lot of trouble when I try to use older programs or run older games. Even newer games can be an issue sometimes. XP > Vista for gaming.

 

 

 

Depends which game you are playing. Vista > XP for gaming IMO. Sorry i don't play Oregon Trail anymore. But i have had 0 problems running vista and games like CoD4, Age of Conan, WoW, etc.

I suggest XP for your OS. I currently have Vista and I have a lot of trouble when I try to use older programs or run older games. Even newer games can be an issue sometimes. XP > Vista for gaming.

 

 

 

Depends which game you are playing. Vista > XP for gaming IMO. Sorry i don't play Oregon Trail anymore. But i have had 0 problems running vista and games like CoD4, Age of Conan, WoW, etc.

 

 

 

Heh, I haven't played Oregon Trail since I had my first computer :lol: I had a lot of problems running Shadowbane. It's not the newest game in the world but it still had a lot of people playing. At good times I could play for a half hour, no problems. At bad times I would get sb[Caution: Executable File] (crashes the game) every few seconds. That never happened when I had XP on my old computer. Plus Vista eats up a lot of memory. I'm running on 3Gb + a 1Gb flash drive being used for memory so it's not a huge problem for me, but I can only imagine the troubles it would give someone who didn't know what amount of memory they would really need.

 

 

 

Plus, going with XP would allow you to play older and newer games. Going with Vista limits you to newer games unless you don't mind spending a lot of time looking for patches and such that will allow you to play older games. If you don't ever want to touch your old games again, feel free to take on Vista but I'm just saying XP is going to give you more options as far as what games you play.

Shadowbane is crap though so it doesn't matter. :P (lol).

 

 

 

But, seriously, Vista is the way to go. Especially if you want to upgrade later vista 64 is an awesome choice -- being able to have more than 4GB of ram is a great thing.

 

 

 

 

 

Eww, you think about going for Dell? They used to be good, but now it's just crap, the computers break so fast.

 

 

 

HP is the way to go, they choose parts of quality.

 

 

 

Dell isn't bad, aside from obviously costing more than doing it yourself. I haven't had experience with HP in forever, however, so yeah. My roomate uses a Dell XPS though that has worked well for a year now.