I'm looking to get a new computer in about 2 months (for my b'day) but I'm having trouble trying to find the one I would like. I'm having a few difficulties, one I'm trying to keep it below $1000, more like $850 would be nice. I've looked at Dell mostly, due to my almost 6-year old Dimension 4700's been good to me for the most part, though if I can get more for the money from a different brand I'm not complaining. .
My main purposes for the computer are games (Runescape, Guildwars, Unreal, Farcry), movies, and music which my current computer does fairly well on low-medium settings, but it being 6-years old its been getting some irritating problems which I "can" fix for awhile, but they come back after a few days/weeks so I'm tired of fixing them...and windows 7 looks nicer than Xp, plus I've been avoiding some things because my computer just can't handle it...
Current computer's running on Windows Xp Sp3, 2GB Ram, 81GB Hard Drive. Busted floppy drive (who cares) and a really glitchy CD Burner.
I just built this one on dell.com to see how much it would cost, its not bad, the only thing I really feel isn't what I want is probably the Video Card.
PROCESSOR & GRAPHICS CARD AMD Phenom™ II X6 1035T + ATI Radeon HD 5670 1GB
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64Bit, English
MEMORY 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 4 DIMMs
HARD DRIVE 1TB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache
OPTICAL DRIVE 16X DVD+/-RW Drive
MONITOR No Monitor
SOUND CARD THX® TruStudio PC™
SPEAKERS Dell AX210 Stereo Speakers
KEYBOARD Dell Studio Consumer Multimedia Keyboard
MOUSE Dell Studio Optical Mouse
MODEM No Modem Option
My Accessories
Personalize
WARRANTY AND SERVICE 2 Year Basic Service Plan
OFFICE SOFTWARE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 edit
SECURITY SOFTWARE McAfee SecurityCenter, 15-Months
DATASAFE ONLINE BACKUP Dell Online Backup 2GB for 1 year
ALSO INCLUDED WITH YOUR SYSTEM
Studio XPS 7100 Studio XPS 7100 Minitower
Network Card Integrated 10/100/1000 Ethernet
Adobe Software Adobe® Reader 9.0
Let me know what you think of that one.
Main answers I'm looking for are as follows:
1. what Brand is best for their price (Dell, Hp, Alienware, etc)?
2.
Which system is best for value (xps, Dimension 4xxx, etc)?
3. Recommended specs (is 8GB of ram really helpful, quad processor vs duel)?
4. whenever it inevitably gets a problem can I just keep everything on my 1.5TB external Hard Drive and restart it from factory, or will that have some disadvantages?
5. anything you would suggest that I didn't mention?
Oh, and I want a desktop...I really hate laptops...I already have a nice monitor, so I really don't want something that includes one..
Thanks everyone!
KingTyrant
In all honesty, if $1,000 is your limit you can get quite a PC for that if you're willing to do a bit of work.
Pricing, buying the parts and putting it together yourself would most likely be the best bang for your buck at this price range.
I'd suggest using Newegg or Tigerdirect.
If you're not so sure about it, check out the Newegg public wishlists. There's some decent builds on there, just make sure you triple check to make sure everything's compatable, and it includes what you want.
You know what. there is this site that lets you build your own. You can enter your price range and then choose the things you want in it. that way you really have control over what you want from your PC. they are literally the cheapest place I can find, and they have a great service. they also have a cool forum where you can talk to the friendly bunch before and after your purchase. they can really help you out with anything computer wise.
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/
Check it out, it's fantastic. and I don't work for them or anything, I'm a soon to be customer.
Best Computer Brand/System for value (under or around 1k)?