Advice on buying a new PC...

[MarineCorps]

@KOF

As in a custom PC or literally build it? I'm capable of both (with some help from my electronics genius grandad )

literally build it yourself.

 

[Chieftess]

It's not so much the company, but the quality of the parts that make a computer work or not work. I've got a Dell-made computer (my uncle has a side-company with them, and gets the best parts at discounts). Anyway, be sure that you're getting top-quality products when getting a computer. Just looking at a $400 price tag says nothing. In fact, a lot of those are medium-end computers (1.5-2.0 Ghz, 512 megs RAM, which will probably change in the next year). Also, if you have an older computer, it might still have some good parts in it, and all you need to do is make a minor upgrade (i.e., new motherboard, more memory, etc.). If you can't find the parts you want in one place, you can also build a computer yourself. All a computer is, is a mixture of parts with a company logo slapped on the front of it when say, the hard-drive could be a 180 gig Maxtor HD that both Dell and HP use. Same part, different logo.

 

[Lozzy_Ozzy]

When i say build it i mean make the components, eg put the motherboard together yourself, is that what you mean? It can drastically cut costs (for instance, if you were to buy components of a Class A-valve amplifier it would cost around £700, to build it from scratch costs a WAY lot less ) although we probably couldn't build every component, some are easier to do than it looks .

 

[Lozzy_Ozzy]

Well anyway, this PC has just shown up at a shop, and again, my dad wants to look at it (nothings been done about building one or anything), here's the link.
It's priced at £699, any good?

 

[Zakharov]

I could recommend better machines, but your dad seems to have set his mind on this model (and I'm assuming it's his money that will be spent). It doesn't look like a bad deal for the price, but I would be worried about the Targa branded motherboard and graphics card as I explained in an earlier post.

If you don't intend to upgrade this machine at some point in the future, then go ahead. However, I would suggest you go for the model with 1GB of RAM:

LINK

 

[Lozzy_Ozzy]

OK.

BTW, what better machines would those be?

Also, i doubt we will upgrade, but we might do it once or twice if needs be.

 

[Zakharov]

I listed two sites in post #4 that sell machines that have a generic BIOS. This means you will be able to upgrade anything you like. With a branded machine (eg. Dell) you can only use specific components (eg. Dell RAM) to upgrade.

These machines have superior components than the Targa rig, but there is no extra software included. Ultimately you need to decide whether you want to pay for quality hardware or the bundled software.

 

[Zelig]

Dell doesn't actually make ram, they just mark-up Crucial ram by about 100%.

Even their laptops accept generic memory moduals for the most part.

 

[Dabomb18359]

Yea my friends who know nothing about computers like Dell because they have commercials and advertise low prices because "you buy direct" but that's so much BS it's not even funny.

 

[Lozzy_Ozzy]

OK, i will see, i don't know how much my dad wants to spend and he might not want to got to the hassle of getting all the spftware separate, after all, its not really my decision.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[HAND]

Well anyway, this PC has just shown up at a shop, and again, my dad wants to look at it (nothings been done about building one or anything), here's the link.
It's priced at £699, any good?

I have never seen a Athlon 64 3400+ on the 939 socket interface? Its either a different speed A64 or its a socket 754? I doubt its the latter... Maybe this "targa 3400+" is a tweaked s939 3200+ or 3500+.. same goes for that 6645 geforce... Maybe a cut down geforce 6600?

 

[The Person]

Dell doesn't actually make ram, they just mark-up Crucial ram by about 100%.

Even their laptops accept generic memory moduals for the most part.

Exactly. I had no problem putting new RAM in my old Dell computer. I also had no problems adding an extra hard drive and a DVD burner. But if you want to buy from Dell, make sure you check out everything on your computer. Mine got delivered without an AGP port (I thought I would save some money by buying a computer with onboard graphics, and buy a graphics card later, but it didn't work out).

If you know how to assemble a computer, I would recommend that. You can use the software from the old computer (if you have one) on the new.