I need a computer---suggestions?

[shumax]

Here's what I use my PC for:

--Download music
--Download pictures taken on digital camera
--Word, Excel, yadda
--Surf the internet

No gaming, no editing of pics, etc.

I am thinking of buying the Dell Dimension 2400 with 128mb of RAM and then buying another 128 to 512. I do need a monitor, but don't want to pay out the a$$ for a flat panel. Suggestions other than this---oh yea, no Mac's:

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/advertised_dimen?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

[pates03]

Me personally i would never go with dell. Personally if i had to choose b/w companies I would go with HP 510n but I rather build my own shit...
Specs
AMD 3000+
512 DDR
160 Gigs
cdburner
dvdrom
firewire/usb slots

for like 500 and change @ best buy ...and then ill personally get an NEC Monitor or Viewsonic depending on the size just pick w/e from the two you should be happy

[Micah]

stick with Dell - they are a great company
Both of my jobs use Dell on the desks and HP/Compaq for the servers.

give me a few minutes and I will find you a good deal on fatwallet

[Black Majik MSP]

My parents have a Dell (what I'm using right now). We got an awesome deal on it because my dad purchased it through their small business program or w/e. Check out all the deals they have because some of them are really good.

I bought an Alienware when I graduated HS & although they are $$, I really liked it.

Three of my friends have bought from IBuyPower & they were all extremely happy with what they got. If you are looking for a nice system & don't want to spend a lot, definately check them out in addition to Dell.

[Micah]

Me personally i would never go with dell. Personally if i had to choose b/w companies I would go with HP 510n but I rather build my own shit...
Specs
AMD 3000+
512 DDR
160 Gigs
cdburner
dvdrom
firewire/usb slots

for like 500 and change @ best buy ...and then ill personally get an NEC Monitor or Viewsonic depending on the size just pick w/e from the two you should be happyOh no he didn't - he just pulled out the spec's

Time for you to be outgunned

Machine 1: Linux Box (in living room on end table near couch)
IMAC 266mhz LIME GREEN - L0L
288MB PC100
6GB HD
24x CD-ROM
USB - v.90 - 10/100 Ethernet
Yellow Dog Linux 3.0

Machine 2: Video Capture Box in living room, used for emulators also - connected to TV and small 15" Monitor
Inwin 1/2 Tower Case
Pentium III 850mhz
512MB PC100
13GB HD Maxtor
Soundblaster 16 PCI
ATI All-in-Wonder 128Pro 32MB AGP
Windows 2000Pro/Windows 98SE Dual Boot

Machine 3: Old Machine used for gaming, DVD Burning, Emulators, recording video from camcorder and digital cable and pr0n - connected to TV and 17" Monitor (in bedroom)
Inwin Full Tower Server Case
Antec TruePower 430W PSU
AMD 2400XP
Soyo Dragon 333 Ultra Platinum
1.5GB DDR266
60GB HD Western Digital
Promise FastTrak6000 Raid 5 Controller - six 120GB Western Digital 8meg buffer drives in RAID5
Chaintech GeForce FX5950 Ultra 256MB
Soundblaster Live 5.1
Adaptec Tri-port IEEE1394
ADS Dual Link Drive Kit with 80GB Western Digital HD
Pioneer DVR106 DVD-/+RW Drive
USB to Playstation Joypad Adapter

Machine 4: Current Gaming Machine, used for gaming and nothing else
Antec P160 Adonized Aluminum Case (seriously the nicest case I have ever seen)
Antec TruePower 430W PSU
P4 2.8E (1meg cache)
1GB Dual Channel DDR400
80GB HD Western Digital
two 250GB Western Digital HD's
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB
Soundblaster Audigy 2
Nyko AirFlow Dual Analog Joypad

All hooked up to Optimum Online with a tested speed of 10k down and 1k up. My total HD space is currently 1259GB effective (1379GB actual) or 1.2TB.

In short - if you were trying to use your specs to impress and show you know your shit..... well - you remind me of a Drew Carey big dick joke:
"My Dick is so big it's got it's own Dick, and even my Dick's Dick is bigger than your Dick."

[Micah]

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/messageview.php?catid=18&threadid=292109&highlight_key=y&keyword1=dell

Cheap Dell there - 274.99

[jlanger]

I've always liked Emachines, Pretty cheap and reliable and come with some good specs. Although now that they've been bought out by gateway I'm worried.
Personally I like teh AMD chips for most of the things I do, light gaming, internet, music, etc. Although most Intel's will do the job as well.
Dell has a great reputation but is kinda spendy once you start adding options. For music and such I'd recomend getting at least 256mb Ram. You'll be much more happy with the performance with getting more ram vs faster processor. (My own experience anyway)

[Micah]

he's right but....

If you are buying a machine realize that you can easily add more ram later, the CPU will tend to be a little more trouble to upgrade. Most OEM boards will support a slightly higher cpu, but it's hard to find the documentation sometimes.

If I was looking to buy a cheap but nice machine, I would either pick up a 2.4 P4 from dell, or look at the AMD offerings from Emachine.

[Lil Freek]

Dell is great.
cheap, and their customer service is phenominal..

if you can't build your own.. go with a company that knows their machines... NOT HP.. they are still using Compaq employees.. which are the worst people (i used to be one)

[Mercure]

Go ahead and get 256mb. The tasks you describe are not really very CPU limited and this will make things a little more comfortable. For your purposes, it really doesn't matter where you buy from too much.

[Lil Freek]

yeah. you'd want something like
CPU: 2500+
RAM: 256mb (512mb would secure you lots of multitasking)
HDD: 100gb (you'd be surprised how fast you can fill that)
Cd: CDRW or DVDRW (cheap now)

[hi-perf]

from the uses you described

1ghz anything
256mb ram
60gb hd
windows xp
office xp

you can get ahold of the hardware for under $200 most likely, and the software might cost you alot if youre not a student.

[MSPinVA]

NO NO NO NO. Dell = teh suck. Emachines are (thumb) (thumb) (thumb) (thumb) . Emachines were the first to publicly support AMD's 64 bit chips, which gets a (bowdown) from me, plus they are cheap, fast as fuck, and good support, and no P4s!

If you have any computer skills at all though, go to www.sharkyextreme.com and look at their budget comp. Very good for VERY cheap, if you can stand to fix your own computer.

[SciFiMan]

As an IT Manager I can say that Dell is okay, but I've had problems with a few of their monitors, plus there isn't a store to return them to- have to ship it back. If you aren't a extreme gamer or power user like home movie editing, and depending on how much you feel like messing with the guts of the computer, there are two schools of thought:

1 - Since you aren't a power user per your post, I would suggest you get 512 MB of RAM (memory gives the biggest performance boost for Windows) and just get a low to midrange AMD Athlon XP or Intel Celeron system from a major retailer such as CompUSA, Best Buy, etc. in the $500 to 800 price range. Unless you turn gamer or movie maker that will last you 3 -6 years and you can consider it a disposible, then just buy another up to date model as you need to down the road. With Gateway stores closing now I've heard you can get a good deal on a display system, if you have a store nearby.

2 - You (or a geek friend) should build your own to for a savings of $200 and up depending on what you put in it. Pros: paying for just the hardware you need. Cons: parts wty only, no support. I built my last two myself shopping mostly on www.newegg.com for good prices. My cost was about $1100 for each with a midrange video card (Radeon 9600 Pro) but I also could have saved a bit with a less expensive case and power supply. And I already had a monitor.

For a monitor I suggest a 17 inch glass flat tube as the best value. Just look at some in local store and get the wty and no worries.

[MSPinVA]

AMD's XP chips will blow anything Celeron out of the water, especially the Barton cored ones. 512K L2 cache + 333MHz FSB > 128K L2 cache and 200MHz FSB = a 1.8 GHz (XP 2500+) chip annihilates a 2.8GHz celeron. if you get a celeron box you will only be disappointed. AMD is the way to go if you want a good computer on a budget.

[yashooa]

And why oh why Micah is that Prescot not doing 3.6 gig!

Yeah ok they tend to melt motherboards down to goo but hey other than that...
Too bad they kinda of suck below 4 gig compared to the Northwoods but they are cheap :)

[Micah]

And why oh why Micah is that Prescot not doing 3.6 gig!

Yeah ok they tend to melt motherboards down to goo but hey other than that...
Too bad they kinda of suck below 4 gig compared to the Northwoods but they are cheap :)
let's just say I've done the oc'ing dance and I'm done with it.

Hitman:Contracts, and UT2K4 run fine on my AMD and my P4. I'm happy

[pates03]

never ever look at a celeron for the same price you can get an amd xp processor or if you build yourself a computer get a Duron 1.8..as for micah those aren't my specs on my computer.

Asus A7v8x Deluxe
AMD 2200+ 10.5 X 181 OC'ed
512 Cosair ram
4600ti Ge4

the only reason i hate dell is their b/s india techical help and they only use Intel how bullshit is that. Amd i think is the king in the market w/ their 64 bit chips but thats me. Anyhow Emachines are great too just w/e find whats good enough for you i work at best buy and i hate selling computers so im gonna quit trying to help someone else b/c IM NOT AT WORK......ARGH

[ZapWizard]

An AMD processor is the only way to go.

I would also highly recommend and Emachines with an AMD processor..

[pr5owner]

get the athlon65 emachines laptop, you WILL NOT BE DISAPOINTEd, that laptop is so kick ass, same with the Acer Athlon 64, holy shit that thing is fast, out of the box it can do 10K 3dmarks with no driver upgrade, with all drivers uptodate you will get almost 12K that is faster than my barton 2500+ overclocked to 3200 with a gig of ram

[pr5owner]

outgunnz j00 4LL, dell sucks never get them unless its a workstation, always built you own, ALWAYS, same with laptops, build your own unless its an emachines or acer

Palm M505 33MHz 8MB

Ipaq 1940 266MHz/32MB+64MB+256MB(32x)SD/CF Wifi, bluetooth

Ipaq 2210 400MHz/32MB+64MB+128MBSD/bluetooth

Aptiva 166MHz 32MB/4.3GB/Rage II 2MB

Dell Inspiron 266MHz/64MB/4.3GB/NeoMagic 128 4MB

Compaq Persario 433MHz/192MB/6GB/Cyberblade 16MB

Emachines Desktop 500MHz/256MB/20GB/ATi Rage Pro 4MB

Dell Dimention 600MHz/384MB/13GB+40GB/Vodoo3 16MB

Dell Inspriron 650MHz/256MB/20GB/ATi mobile 64MB

Custom Built 1.326GHz/768MB/40GB+36GB/GF2MX 32MB

Custom Built 1.533GHz/1024MB/80GB/R9K 128MB

Asus D1 Desknote 2.5GHz/512MB/40GB/SISM650 64MB

Custom Built 1.833@2.2GHz/1024MB/80GB+80GB(SATA)+40GB/GFFX5600 256MB

anyways, i would go for a laptop if you are doing what you said in the original msg, i would get the Acer 1500 series with a 1.5GHz centrino cpu 1MB cache, 1GB ram, 60GB HD, its wide screen so its great for movies and it lasts forever on batts, also don't let the centrino speeds fool you, the 1.5 is faster or on par with a 2.8GHz

[Dexter]

Have i been out of the loop for that long? emachines always sucked and now they are good? What the hell?

[pr5owner]

Have i been out of the loop for that long? emachines always sucked and now they are good? What the hell?
you may have fell into a hole, emachines did suck the big one, then they went out of business, then someone bought the name and revied the entire company, now they do high end stuff, i think they actually contract another company to build their computers, their Athlon 64 laptop got one of the highest reviews

[yashooa]

let's just say I've done the oc'ing dance and I'm done with it.

Hitman:Contracts, and UT2K4 run fine on my AMD and my P4. I'm happy

Blasphemy! Blasphemy I tell you! Start the music, get a pelt, and water block and get ta dancin YA WHORE!!!

Oh well I only have a 2.4C at 3.4 gig right now with a gig of Corsair 3700 and a 9800pro 415 core/740 mem. My 16 yr old has an NF7-S with a 2500 Barton going 2.4 gig so just a bit over the 3200+ rating a 600MHz OC, a 9700 pro and a gig of Corsair 3200, My 11 yr old has an Albatron KT400 with a 9500pro and a 1700+ at 2.2 gig and 1 gig of Simple Tech 3200, my 3 yr old has an old school OCing box with an ASUS P4S533 a 1.6a P4 at 2.2 gig, a gig of Corsair 2700 and a 128 meg Retail 8500 clocked to 300/600.
Of course the other two video cards are clocked up a bit as well. I have 3 18'' flat panels a flat crt 19'' and a 21'' old school Viewsonic or some such. I really want some newer 19'' Samsungs but the model I want is 800.00$ right now :(

Anyway waiting for the 939 pin Athlon's to hit in force and then it is upgrade time and of course the Radeon R420 core and up to emerge.

[yashooa]

[QUOTE
anyways, i would go for a laptop if you are doing what you said in the original msg, i would get the Acer 1500 series with a 1.5GHz centrino cpu 1MB cache, 1GB ram, 60GB HD, its wide screen so its great for movies and it lasts forever on batts, also don't let the centrino speeds fool you, the 1.5 is faster or on par with a 2.8GHz[/QUOTE]




Actually Centrino is just the name of the Pentium M paired with Intel's wifi chipset. The M can aslo be had in non "Centrino" guise. It started out life as the lowly little P3 and then went over to Israel and became the Banias they put one meg L2 in it and lowered the voltage, they also added some instructions, and changed the core up a bit. Now the Dothan (2 MEG L2!) is replacing the Banias core P3M and in time, supposedly, it will replace the P4 Netburst architecture in 18 months or so on the dekstop with some clock speed bumps and the next SSE set as well as being fully AMD 64bit compatible. Yeah it's true it was let out at IDF (Intel Developer Forum.)
The next P4/Xeon is allready being prepped for 64bit but Intel shy's away from saying it is identical to the AMD instruction set but it is :)
Of course roadmaps change so we shall see.

[DooMer_MP3]

Overclocking is fun, and addictive. Much like modding a car :). I currently have a XP 2500 Barton (locked) running at 200FSB, but backed down a bit til my good PSU comes. 512MB of GeIL Dual Channel 3200, and a Sapphire Radeon 9800Pro 128MB with a VGA Silencer installed running at 412/360 (XT speeds)...

Chris