If you were gonna buy a new comp for cheap (<$400) what would you buy?

By comp I mean just the machine itself (no monitor, mouse, keyboard, etc.).

Basically I just want something fast enough that it won't get bogged down for the next five years assuming I don't install a bunch of junk on it. I don't play games with huge graphic requirements, just want very fast, large hard drive, no drama.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

For less than $400, you have very few options, certainly nothing that will be particularly good in another five years.

CPU: $77.99 - Pentium E5500 2.8GHz: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116367
HDD: $69.99 - Seagate 1TB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148433
PSU:: $39.99 - Corsair 430W: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139017
Motherboard: $44.99 - Foxconn LGA775:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186202
Case: $16.99: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811233061
Optical drive: $16.99: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151175
Memory: $69.99 - 2x2GB DDR3: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231394

That puts you at $336.93, so you have a bit of leeway for some faster parts.

Comes with no operating system, and is about on par with my five year-old system for performance. (Trying to get 10 years out of a desktop PC is pretty unusual... for comparison, 10 years ago, a top of the line processor was a 1.4GHz Pentium 3, which I would estimate to be around 30x slower than a current top of the line processor.)

If you don't want to assemble it yourself (for whatever reason, laziness is a good one ), you can try this.

It does come with a mouse and keyboard, but it is always good to have spares.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883114085

2.8 ghz dual core, 4gb DDR3 RAM, 500gb HD, only potential problem is the GPU, which is NVIDIA GeForce 6150 integrated. I do not know how good this integrated chip is. You should note, though, that Zelig's selection did not include any GPU

Comes with win7 (which is nice)

Total is $370 w/ free shipping

this is honestly the only (whole) computer I could find under $400 I feel comfortable recommending.

Too lazy to put together parts for you, besides I am not sure if they would work together (e.g. GPU fitting the mobo)

It's downright scary what you can get for $400 these days:

- 3GHz Triple Core
- 4GB RAM
- fast 640GB HDD
- HD 5670
- Brand name 400W PSU
- full size mainboard

That should carry you for some years, unless you expect miracles from it.
And it's pretty expandable, if the need for more arises. PSU has about 200W headroom. Enough space for more drives. Mainboard will accept another 4GB of RAM and a Quad or Hexa Core.

Have to hurry though, one of the rebates expires tomorrow

cardgame said:

If you don't want to assemble it yourself (for whatever reason, laziness is a good one ), you can try this.

Click to expand...

Laziness & risk of doing it wrong, breaking some small piece or something, definitely would rather not!

cardgame said:

It does come with a mouse and keyboard, but it is always good to have spares.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883114085

2.8 ghz dual core, 4gb DDR3 RAM, 500gb HD, only potential problem is the GPU, which is NVIDIA GeForce 6150 integrated. I do not know how good this integrated chip is. You should note, though, that Zelig's selection did not include any GPU

Comes with win7 (which is nice)

Total is $370 w/ free shipping

this is honestly the only (whole) computer I could find under $400 I feel comfortable recommending.

Too lazy to put together parts for you, besides I am not sure if they would work together (e.g. GPU fitting the mobo)

Click to expand...

Thanks, I saw one of those eMachines ones on Amazon too for about the same price, they are generally pretty decent computers?

Narz said:

Laziness & risk of doing it wrong, breaking some small piece or something, definitely would rather not!

Thanks, I saw one of those eMachines ones on Amazon too for about the same price, they are generally pretty decent computers?

Click to expand...

For office duty any new computer you can buy will do. Just don't expect any games less than 5 years old to run on the integrated graphics those things come with.
And a SFF case like the computer cardgame dug up has will give you serious trouble if you decide one day that you DO want to play games on it

By the way, that Geforce 6150 IS more than 5 years old, and was even back then only capably of running less demanding games at low details

I would rather recommend something like this. It has at least a full size case, and the PSU might be able to power an entry-level gaming card. If not, it is easily replacable.

tokala's first post (#4) I would recommend far more than mine, mine is only if you don't/can't configure your own. It isn't really too hard to do, though it may take an hour or more of time, it will give you a major performance boost over my selection.

What is that website though?

Narz said:

What is that website though?

Click to expand...

OOOps, sorry, newegg

It's a bit tough to say not knowing what you have now. Tokala is generally right that any computer should do for office (non-mobile) duty, without games or Blu-Ray movies. Dell's baseline Inspiron system, the 570 MT, also would suffice. For $394, you get pretty much the same computer (including the exact same processor), but a 640 GB hard drive (instead of 500), 2 GB RAM (instead of 4 GB), and a modern (2009, rather than 2006) integrated graphics card. It's a tradeoff, as it will be at the low end. The eMachines gives you more memory - although 2 GB is enough for web browsing and office work, it is fairly stingy for a new machine. Whereas the Dell gives you a bit more hard drive space, and the possibility to play some modern games if the occasion arises. Civ4 wouldn't play on the eMachines, for instance, let alone Civ5. But Civ4 would definitely play on the Dell, and you might be able to eke by with Civ5 on the lowest settings.

I doubt you'll be able to find a no-compromise deal at $400 without building it yourself, although it's possible if you get lucky with the sales.

Zelig said:

For less than $400, you have very few options, certainly nothing that will be particularly good in another five years.

CPU: $77.99 - Pentium E5500 2.8GHz: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116367
HDD: $69.99 - Seagate 1TB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148433
PSU:: $39.99 - Corsair 430W: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139017
Motherboard: $44.99 - Foxconn LGA775:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813186202
Case: $16.99: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811233061
Optical drive: $16.99: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151175
Memory: $69.99 - 2x2GB DDR3: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231394

That puts you at $336.93, so you have a bit of leeway for some faster parts.

Comes with no operating system, and is about on par with my five year-old system for performance. (Trying to get 10 years out of a desktop PC is pretty unusual... for comparison, 10 years ago, a top of the line processor was a 1.4GHz Pentium 3, which I would estimate to be around 30x slower than a current top of the line processor.)

Click to expand...

Basically, this, an internety home entertainment center.

I'd upgrade the optical drive to a blu-ray drive if you don't have one in another form and/or double-check the t.v. connections of the video card to be sure I can use it with a living room t.v. Nothing like fat kid youtube vids on your home tv.

Be sure to price shop versus tiger-direct though.

tiger direct stole my mom's money, $1000 out of the checking account for the computer went missing two days after the order. Luckily we got it all back from the re-routes (Qatar, Texas and Delaware) but it was kinda scary, and stressful...

I bought an eMachines $300 laptop back in March, and it's been pretty decent. Only 2gb RAM, Win7 Home, but it runs all the stuff my wife wants it to run. No problems, yet. Paid the extra thirty bucks for the two years extra warranty, I'm happy with it.

Not hugely expandable, but I wasn't buying a machine to last for the next five years.

cardgame said:

tiger direct stole my mom's money, $1000 out of the checking account for the computer went missing two days after the order. Luckily we got it all back from the re-routes (Qatar, Texas and Delaware) but it was kinda scary, and stressful...

Click to expand...

This kids, is why you use a credit card for large purchases. That way, anything goes wrong, you can do a charge back.

If you're planning to use the integrated graphics you should really wait for either the Sandy Bridge processors or AMD's Fusion processors that will be out soon, Intel's integrated graphics will supposedly be pretty good for everyday use, while AMD's integrated graphics will allow pretty decent light gaming. With the money you will save by not getting a Videocard you can buy a 32GB SSD that will make your pc run really smooth

Otherwise you can build right now a pretty good Athlon X3/X4 or Phenom X2 system, however even the best IGP's (42xx) are only suitable for office or media center applications and will be extremely limited for playing games.

You should be able to fit a HD5750 or a GT450 videocard in your budget which will provide pretty mainstream gaming experience right now and will probably still be above minimum specification requirements for most games in five years.

nVidia will launch their GT430 this week which will likely perform between the HD5570 and the HD5670 and cost just sub $70. However ATI is scheduled to launch their "HD6xxx" series in about two weeks so its quite likely that prices of their last gen cards will drop considerably!

cardgame said:

tiger direct stole my mom's money, $1000 out of the checking account for the computer went missing two days after the order. Luckily we got it all back from the re-routes (Qatar, Texas and Delaware) but it was kinda scary, and stressful...

Click to expand...

Debit card?


That's why I use credit cards anyways.