My brother is looking to get a new computer... he's looking to spend around $700 for it.. he doesn't WANT a powerhouse computer, just something that is pretty good this day and age... he was looking at dells, but the only video card they are putting in it is a "Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 900".. which doesn't sound very good...

any suggestions? (we don't know how to build our own computer)

(if we can GET a powerhouse computer for no more then $700, we'll take it though )

Prefab? You're screwed if you want a gaming PC for 700 prefab. If you want to build it yourself you could do fairly well...good gaming prefabs start at around 1k. You could look around for rebate deals though. I'd suggest looking at Dell and Gateway, probably the top two providers around right now.

i'm gussing prices are roughly double of the uk... so here goes.

you should be able to pick up a ASUS k8 SLI delux board for $300 and a AMD 3100+ for $300 more. $50 shoudl cover a 40gig HD and $100 more a basic PCI-E card like a 6600 or such.

there is also an ASus K8 AGP setup that would save you about $150 to put towards graphics-memory

but my personal sugestion is the ASUS k8 AGP for $100, a AMD 3100 x2 for about £300, with a BFG tech 7000 series geforce AGP card for another $200 ish (if not a regular 7000 series AGP) and $100 should get you a 40 gig and 1gig memory.


though i dont build in america so i cant really be sure of the prices....

on the uber cheap side you may want to check out the asus mainboard with a AMD 2400+ and a 5500 geforce card 2gig's of ram and a 40 gig HD.


my system cost about $2500 and has dule SLI linked 6800's four SATA 250 gig drives two IDE 250 gig's, 4 gigs of ram and a overclocked watercooled opteron.

Actually, that's horrible advice. No offense, but UK prices are way off-base. Usually what you can get in the UK, convert that little pound symbol to the dollar symbol and that's its US price. Not only that but there's really not any excuse not to go PCI-E anymore, though you can find hybrid boards easily.

dj yoshi is right, prefabs are stupid. and btw Dell computers TFt monitors and apples are a BAD plan for any gamer... i do this for a job now so, pwned.

but anyway, if you need any help building the thing (dunno if you ever made a pc mate XD) i'm happy to help guide you though it

well if the prices are equal then i'd go for a ASUS k8 SLI delux for £150, a opteron 3.2 or better for about £250 (not sure on the prices for opterons), and a BFG tech 7200 or 7800. i'd have to check the prices on those too.

i dont get many requests for good systems... stupid non-gamers

I think you're a bit confused...Dell makes EXCELLENT gaming systems. LCDs are definitely up to specs for gaming now. And apple supports a lot more games now than ever, though obviously not the best choice.

If you ARE interested in building your own system, say so and I'll give you the newegg links to the parts you'll need.

i've had plenty of experiance with dell systems, they tend to have what i could only call second rate parts. if the cD drives arnt failing, the boxes arnt rivited shut, and the front side bus isnt slower than my grandma, then no doubt they'll have overheating problems or under-watted CPU's

AS for TFT monitors, i've been gaming at resolutions around 2048x1024 for as long as they made monitors that run at it. and dispite trying the best TFT's i can get my hands on their graphics quality is only really worth it for new players with loads of money, or people who simply want to play duke nukem 3d and Jk.

TFT's are far to expencive compared to flatscreen CRT systems.

As for apple, i agree they have more memory, but the lack of upgradability, and the serious lack of most seriosuly good games makes them the modern equal of an atari, just with some applications..
not to mention the fact most game editors run on windows...

Uh...Dell machines don't have ANY of those problems. And if they do you send it right back and demand it be fixed/get what you purchased. Warranties exist for a reason.

LCD monitors are just fine, and in some cases almost better than CRTs. The only thing CRTs have on them at the moment are brightness, black quality, and view range, and not by much any any field except view range. They're more expensive, sure, but they're worth the money for the lessened weight/size.

Apple has nothing to do with memory...I didn't say anything about memory. I just said they're fine gaming machines--if they have the games you want.

For gaming, your usually going to get ripped of with a prefab. building a computer is easy. Just look at one of the 50,000 guides floating around the internet.

dells, for the most part, just plain suck.

Not really...they come with a lot of bloat, but once you cut all of that out you've got a good machine.

But you will get ripped off hardcore with prefabs, like I said.

I would check out TigerDirect's Barebones kits page. Those always provide really good starter kits for relatively cheap. Then you can add whatever else extra you want.

Newegg has some good ones too, though I haven't compared price/performance etc.

You should really consider building your own. It is not that hard, i used the wikibook and it worked out fine. I had no idea what i was doing when i started. It was around 600 dollars and ihas no problem running any new games at high quality(BF2 FEAR, Doom 3, HL2...). I made this thread about it. Rakishi made some good examples.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]The only thing CRTs have on them at the moment are brightness, black quality, and view range, and not by much any any field except view range.[/QUOTE]
...and color depth, and gamut...which LCDs don't even have.

For the price of a gaming LCD you could buy a much better (image quality wise) CRT, probably for even less. The trouble is is that they are hard to find because they're being discontinued in favor of lighter, trendy LCDs.

NEC makes some really high end, color accurate LCDs, but cost in the 1.5-2K range. LCDs are not there yet. They are getting there, but they are not there yet. They are, of course, great for gaming and other non-critical applications that require a lot of color accuracy. But to say that they're superior to CRTs is just incorrect at this point.

I never said they were superior...just said they're good. A GOOD LCD will run you between 2-500. A great one will run you 500-1000. An amazing one will cost more than your computer

To be honest, though, the only LCD screens I'm even looking at are the 2005 and 2405FPW's. Hotness.

sure tehy are 'good' but unless the situation demands that you use a TFT (weak desk, weak owner, etc) you have no reason not to buy a CRT.

a friend of mine jasmine recently bought a TFt monitor for £350, i pointed out three days later the same size flatscreen CRT was only £50 fron the same shop, and it was superiour for gaming (the purpose she inteded it for)

and sure dell's so caleld warrenty will fix things. but why bother when they wont go wrong homebuild.

and anyway i know much better prefabs than freaking dell.

Uh...for room? It has nothing to do with weakness--CRTs are about 5-10x the size of the LCD counterparts.

Dell's warranty WILL fix things. It's not so-called, because if it were they'd be out of business on bad practice lawsuits. As is they have I think two pending, but it has nothing to do with build quality (well, one doesn't). And do it because, for the most part, they build solid computers (albeit with a lot of bloat) and are probably the best bang/buck prefab. Please, name some of these prefabs (available in the US) that you know. Because Dell's just about the best established service out there.

From a strictly business-type setting? CRTs generate more heat than an LCD. Put fifty of those in a general office-working area during the winter, and things get warm.

On a purely personal basis, they take up less room, they don't fish-bowl, and they look just fine.

True. I did this two years ago and got a pretty damn good system, for the price, at the time.

hey wolfy good to see your still around.
the so called 'fishbowl' is bullcrap, flatscreen CRT's kick serious behind XD.
as for space, yeah, go for it, and heat levels.. i dont have a radiator...then again thats mostly the CPU.
but we arn't talking about some posh-as-nosh office full of capitalist pigs who want to spend their annual gross income on fancy monitors insted of their workers paychecks. we are talking about the average joe. and for average joe CRT wins unless your desk is weak, or so covered in crap you cant fit a crt on it. (like mine! never stopped me! *shoves lightsaber off desk*)

*** for dells, i dont know about you in the US, but only a few mounths back they where on watchdog (uk consumer advice show) for their lowsy warrenty service.
and i dont know why you love the big fat crop's like dell so much. you work for them or did bill gate's plant you as part of his massive conspiracy for world takover though annoying prefabs.

i dont know about the US, mainly cause i'm a few thousand miles away and devoutly anti-capitalst (as anyone who remembers me knows) but go for a trip into a PCworld in the UK and you'll see loads of dells with nice fat price tags and low specs on show at the front, followed by own-brand and other-brand makes at the back with much better 'bang/buck' (got i hate that expresstion) senarios.

but prehaps we should just agree to disagree. considering everyones allready agreed prefabs are a rip.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]Not really...they come with a lot of bloat, but once you cut all of that out you've got a good machine.

But you will get ripped off hardcore with prefabs, like I said.[/QUOTE]


You could say the same for anything. Except with Dell, you have a bunch non-standard generic parts.

[Sf]pjb, I have a question. You say you work in this "business" (of computers). Have any of your customers ever asked you about your 10-year old spelling level? That's pretty unprofessional.



Anti-capitalist....hmmm..yeah.....

-sigh-

A CRT does not "beat out" an LCD anymore in Gaming.

You get less eye strain on an LCD than you do on a CRT == Longer play with less headache

You get often FASTER response time on some newer LCDs (though this is debatable because it's theory... how to convert MhZ into ms is a toughy) than you do on a CRT == Better cinematics and image quality

You get a lighter, more portable monitor with an LCD than with a CRT == LAN PARTIES without a BROKEN SPINE

Again, as was stated before, the only thing that a CRT has over an LCD is color accuracy (depth), and gamut. We'll roll black quality into color depth since it's covered there.

Unless you're doing render work, high-end video or photo editing, or something else that requires 100% accurate color, the LCD wins out in all cases. They're SUPERIOR for the everyday gamer.

Stop rebutting, because you don't know what you're talking about.

And as for Dells, the systems themselves are often not the issue. It's the garbage software they load on them. They DO as a fact use sub-par parts to build their machines. This means that the parts they acquire for builds are not up to RETAIL specs. They match OEM equipment guidelines 100%.

For the most part, for most users, a Dell is not a bad machine. I know, I fix the damn things on a daily basis, both in people's homes and in a store where there are 60+ computers in at any given moment.

Almost 90% of Dell's issues are PEBKAC errors.

1) No, we're not talking about "capitalist pigs". We are talking about the average joe. Not only is your political ideals off, but so is your entire view on the PC market.

2) Dells are lauded for their warranties...if nothing else. They uphold them because it's a LEGALLY BINDING CONTRACT AND THEY ARE FORCED TO BY LAW.

3) Dell has plenty of great bang/buck systems if you look around. Maybe not in the UK, but this isn't the UK. This is the US, where capitalism (oooh, evil) reigns and prices are low. Thank god for that--I don't want to be the one paying 400 bucks for a 5200FX.

4) Obi--Dell is arguably the most standardized prefab PC builder out there. They in fact SET standards--first to have PCI-E and Intel P4EE's and BTX. The only thing you could call nonstandard is a lot of their older machines aren't equipped with an expansion slot for the video card maybe...but that's usually on really crappy machines anyways.

http://www.buyxg.com Is where I got mine, You can totally customize what you want. Just don't get a Maxtor harddrive, they suck.

So do WD's. Yet I've got both in my system, neither of which has given me any troubles.

Don't worry, either brand you go with is likely to fail sooner or later. Neither any sooner than the other, on average.

Exactly, which is why you should go with Seagate.

They bought Maxtor, by the way.

Oooh , damn I didn't know that. Hopefully they don't turn into the crap that Maxtor put out.

Well considering that one--they bought Maxtor, not the other way around and two--Maxtor made plenty of quality stuff...I doubt it'll turn into crap.

mscbuck, quite a few people used to know, but you obviously dont, so i'm not taking it as an insult. but i have dyslexia, it's a "learning difficulty" that varies in strenth between people who have it. mine causes my spelling to suck and slows down my abillity to read, however it also allows me to to math a bit faster and rember a load of stuff i'll never need to know.. except phone numbers.

*** for legaly binding warrenties, they only say they have to fix it, not when or how well. main problem with them, and the UK is known for lazy workers.....

fancy TFT's may well be equal to a CRT, but they also cost a hell of alot more, and to quote yoshi, with a crt you get the best 'bang/buck' senario. i've never got a headache from any monitor i've have. i personaly think it's resolution related. but cant prove it.


as for the refresh rates, i have no doubt they may well be near to equal to CRT's now. but every TFT i've yet seen has problems with rendering at high speed, i call it qhosting cause i cant thing of a better word

As for my political belifs, well, it's a free country right?

Fixing it would eliminate the problem...no?

LCDs are equal to if not better than CRTs, have NO problems rendering at high speeds even if you think you detect a problem, and they don't cost THAT much more. 250-400 for a good one, one that will do you fine.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]So do WD's. Yet I've got both in my system, neither of which has given me any troubles.

Don't worry, either brand you go with is likely to fail sooner or later. Neither any sooner than the other, on average.[/QUOTE]
Western Digitals have always worked great for me (desktop HDDs, don't know about their microdrives).

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]Fixing it would eliminate the problem...no?

LCDs are equal to if not better than CRTs, have NO problems rendering at high speeds even if you think you detect a problem, and they don't cost THAT much more. 250-400 for a good one, one that will do you fine.[/QUOTE]

as opposed to the $200 tops you will spend on a good CRT.

Same here. And so have Maxtors.


You also forget, however, that a 19" CRT has about as much viewable area as a 17" LCD. So you drop 200 on a good 17" LCD screen, and you'll get about what you get for a good 19" CRT which costs about 150-200 (for a good one).

You really have to get a 2-4 ms response time to get no noticeable motion blur. I have a 12ms monitor, and I can notice it, but it's not a huge deal. CRT's have a definite advantage there though. Also, CRTs get more resolution flexibility, and they are capable of higher resolutions for their sizes, and they have smaller dot pitches.

The reason you can notice ghosting on your 12ms display is probably because it's not really 12ms. Manufacturers like to inflate (or deflate, I guess) their response time numbers by posting only one measurement. It's different going from black to white, black to gray, and with colors. So a lot of times they'll tell you the lowest response time instead of the average or the most common.

Yecti is right. LCDs win out for everyday gaming use. I mean, you could get a good CRT for equal or less, and if you don't need it to be portable, I say go for it. But if you have a little to spend, it's a good idea.

I'm dyslexic as well.

I used to type, spell, and read arguably alot worse than you ever will.

But I put a change to that, through alot of hard work.

Quit using your disability as an excuse to suck. (Okay, so I do this ocassionally.. but only when I spell something wrong in a serious attempt to make someone look stupid.

PS, capitalist pig.

You bought your PC. With capital.