Advice on new PC?

D

dtcarson

CAGiversary!
I need a new PC. I don't have the knowledge or patience or really interest to piecemeal it and put it together myself, and I've only found a few "you pick it, they build it" sites.
As such, I'm open to suggestions of where to buy.
I'm currently looking at Dell (I also like getting everything from one place, because if there's any problems, I know who to go to., and I can get a discount through my company.)

I can get this:
Win7 Home
1 year "basic" warranty
21.5" Dell ST2210 Full HD Monitor with VGA cable
Dell AX210 1.2 Watt 2.0 Stereo Speakers (not a big deal, I've got a nice 5.1 set that I can use)
Intel® Core™ i3-530 processor(4MB Cache, 2.93GHz)
6GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 3 DIMMs
HD: 1TB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache
16X DVD+/-RW Drive
ATI Radeon HD 5450 1GB DDR3

for 762 plus tax, free ship. It claims that it's 1107 regular price.

Is that any good, both in quality and in price?
I've been reading reviews of various things, and honestly, I'm lost on graphics cards (PC elitists, this one thing is enough for me to see a big advantage in consoles.)
This one is probably better than my current one (128MB 'Radeon X300/X550 Series" according to DXDiag), but it seems to be getting middling reviews. I'm not looking for something that will play Crysis at 100 FPS; I'm more likely to play Guild Wars, Wizard 101 or a few of those, Fallout 1/2 (bought from GOG at Christmas), Left 4 Dead 2. Most games that are on PC and 360, I'll get on the 360.

I'm not looking for a real superpower system, but I know I will benefit from more RAM (I have 512MB now), and bigger hard drive (I've got 12gb free of 150GB).
Also, my max budget is 700-800.

Comments on that build/value (of course, that price expires tomorrow at 6 AM PST)? Other places to pick-and-choose a system and components, like on Dell's site? Things to look for or avoid?

Thanks in advance
 
honestly if your not looking into DIY then yeah I would go with that. Personally, I've built one with a quad core for later scalability but considering what you have now, it will be a HUGE upgrade in performance.

One thing to note is that "officially" windows 7 can only see about 4gb of RAM for 32 bit and at least 8gb in the 64 bit versions and honestly 4gb is about all you'll need so you can ask them to mark it down a bit but also if your going to use programs that can only work in XP then you might want to consider getting Pro rather than Home.

Other than that looks good. video card and memory looks good along with the processor (which is dual core but if your not looking into a powerhouse then it's good) and it's from Dell so the warranty is nice. I'd ask them to install as many fans as possible to help with cooling too. At least one in the front and one in the back.
 
That's not bad in terms of the price I'd pay. Just be aware: Dell uses proprietary parts so you won't be able to upgrade or replace as easily. It seems like that isn't a huge deal for you, so go for it.

You can save some $$$ if you go with a lesser brand name, or build it yourself, but if you factor in the cost of your time and effort, I don't think you could do much better.

Here's one I built quickly at ibuypower. It is a bit more powerful, but runs about $1130.00. The video card and ram is a bit higher on the food chain (marked by ***), but it is fairly comparable.

http://www.ibuypower.com/

Intel H55/H57 Core i3/i5 Configurator
Case ( NZXT Gamma Gaming Mid Tower Case - Black )

Processor ( Intel® Core™ i3 530 Processor (2x 2.93GHz/4MB L3 Cache) )
***Memory ( 8 GB [2 GB X4] DDR3-1600 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand )
***Video Card ( ATI Radeon HD 5570 - 1GB - Single Card )
Power Supply ( 500 Watt -- Power Supply )
Primary Hard Drive ( 1 TB HARD DRIVE -- 16M Cache, 7200 RPM, 3.0Gb/s - Single Drive )
Optical Drive ( 22X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black )
Sound Card ( 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard )
Network Card ( Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100) )
Operating System ( Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + [Free 60-Day !!!] Microsoft Office 2007(Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access ....) - 64-Bit )
Keyboard ( iBUYPOWER USB Keyboard - Black )
Mouse ( iBUYPOWER Internet Mouse - Black )
Monitor ( 22" Widescreen LCD 1680x1050 )
Warranty ( Standard Warranty Service - Standard 3-Year Limited Warranty + Lifetime Technical Support )
Rush Service ( Rush Service Fee (not shipping fee) - No Rush Service, Estimate Ship Out in 5~10 Business Days )
 
Thanks for the info...The Windows 7 is 64 bit, so it should be able to use that RAM, right?

Upgrading's not an issue - I think I've only upgraded twice (once I added more ram, which even I could do, and once I added the "Multimedia Package" which included a CDRom drive and a sound card and came with Comptons Interactive Encyclopedia, with *video clips*...yes i'm dating myself.) Usually when it gets to that point I'm ready for a new machine.

I'm confused on the processors too. "Back in the day" all you had to do was look at the numbers...a 486/33 is faster than a 386/16, for example.

The Dell configurations are limited - you can only add/remove certain things to certain preconfigured systems. The "downgrade" for this model loses the speakers, has a 640 GB HD instead of 1TB, and has a 512MB NVIDIA GeForce G310 card, for $684. So basically 80 bucks for 50% more HD space, 2ce the video memory and maybe a better card.

They've got a new "cheapy" deal for today:
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic SP2, 64-Bit
21.5" Dell ST2210 Full HD Monitor with VGA cable
Intel® Celeron® 450 (2.2GHz,512K L2,800MHz)
4GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz- 4 DIMMs
320GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
16X DVD+/-RW Drive
Integrated Intel® GMA X4500 Graphics

for $410 +tax, free ship.

Is (much) bigger HD, better video card, 50% more ram, and a better processor (I assume) worth almost twice as much? (mostly rhetorical)

Arg, this is why I only do this about once every 5 years.

I did look at IBuyPower, but I think I was overwhelmed with the choices there, plus since it seemed like they were buying things off the shelf for me and putting them together (I might be wrong), I thought it would be a big hassle if anything went wrong with any component. Nice warranty though.

How do I know if I have programs that work only in XP? My current machine's such a drag to use, I think the only programs I've used recently, other than Firefox and Outlook, are DVD Profiler and Heroes of Might and Magic III.
 
basically yes. With how gaming and just programs in general eat up resources it's better to have something a little more meat on it, even if it's 2x the price...sometimes. In this case though you would be better off with the higher processor so it would be a better investment. If for nothing else get the first system for Win 7. it's a lot better than Vista I can tell you that for sure.

I was using both an XP machine and a vista laptop and after upgrading both to 7 I can tell you that they are both better off having 7 especially with the laptop. Vista ate too many resources and did too little while 7 is like putting a fresh face on XP with a few extra tweaks here and there. If you have any programs that your using that came out around the time that XP came out then I'd say go pro but I've had friends play Red Alert 2 on theirs so it's sort of a crap shoot as to whether or not you'll need pro...I just did it just because

As for the graphics, it doesn't hurt to have something a step down but you might want to go with the higher one just to have the power there for something down the road.

hope this helps.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top