Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: medicboy on December 18, 2003, 09:53:10 AM
-
My wife has given me the thumbs up to buy a new puter, I was just wondering if there was any other place besides Gateway and Dell to get a quality computer at a good price. Any help would be great. Thanks!
Bob
-
I'd do a Dell before I'd do Gateway.
-
Ditto what Rip said, Gateway is too busy selling plasma TVs to give a crap about quality PCs. Although if you know enough about PCs that you can fix them yourself, I would pass on the big retailers and get one from a local PC shop.
-
Originally posted by Mickey1992
I would pass on the big retailers and get one from a local PC shop.
Bingo.
-
Or go to a place like Multiwave and pick and choose your components from their warehouse and they'll put it together and test it for you before they ship. I think New Egg will do this as well.
You get exactly what you want for components at a reasonable price.
-
build your own ... I have done dozens & if I can do it, anyone can
-
Give Vati66 a shout - Im sure he can hook you up pretty well - hes in the business.
-
Take the plunge, Medicboy, and build this one yourself. You've got an entire Intardnet BBS full of geeks here eager to help you through any problems or questions. Hell, if you posted in the hardware section how much $ you wanna spend, I'd bet Bloom or Skuzzy could tell you the exact model and manufacturer of the motherboard/cpu/vid card to buy.
http://www.newegg.com, you know you want to. ;)
-
Mwave.com
Multiwave will let you pick each item and then you pick "Assembly and Testing" for $80, they build it for you.
I'm not afraid to build my own now, but the first time I ordered exactly what I wanted, I let them put it together. Fear of the unknown, you know. Back then it was like $50 for them to build it.
But "build it yourself" is good advice; heck, I've done it a few times now. It's pretty much "plug and play" sticking stuff into a motherboard.
And the AH group in "hardware" will get you out of any jams you get yourself into.
Luck.
-
Newegg is a great vendor (http://www.newegg.com) with a lot of reviews and great customer service. You have to build it yourself, but that's just an afternoon even for a novice. You can even get a good deal on the OS as long as you buy it in conjuntion with a hard drive, etc.
The main difference is you get better quality components at a somewhat lower cost than most packaged systems. You have to provide the support yourself, but that's not a huge issue today and you have greater future flexibility. YMMV
Charon
-
I'm in the market for a new computer too. My old one's vacuum tubes keep blowing out.
How much money can you save by building your own vs. buying a similar one from Dell?
ra
-
Gotta be careful with advice like "build it yourself". Not everyone has the skills to do so. Have a customer/friend that wanted to upgrade his motherboard himself. I told him how over the phone. I even told him to be sure the fan was oriented properly and to use a heatsink compound usually included with the fan. When it wouldn't post I had him bring it over. Ya know how some fans have a plastic sheet protecting the heatsink compound? It did burn up the cpu. Of course he was able to return it without the incriminating evidence. :)
Trust me, there are a lot things that can be done wrong. Things like having a standoff shorting the bottom of the board because it was installed in a place that doesn't align with a hole in the mb.
Anyhow, if a person has some mechanical skills like being able to replace a water pump on their car or some similar task they will likely be ok.
-
The biggest problem with package computers are IMO not the price, but the total imbalance of its components. "Game setup" usually has big bellybutton CPU, but so little RAM even Pacman will lag. Most often its the RAM that they strip away to get more numbers on the more visible (does not equal usable) performance additives. Not to mention you wont get to pick a right monitor for your needs, there is whole lot of other important attributes than how many inches is the screen size.
If you do only Excel and Word on your computer, buy a Dell or whatever.
If you like to play games that do not look like Excel and Word, there is only one option to get good bang for the buck, build your own setup. Almost all part shops will put the parts together for you (highly recommended these days, fragile componets), sometimes free of charge.
-
Alienware is the best for gaming built PC's :aok
http://www.alienware.com/
I will have one of these when I move into my new home.. :D
-
The biggest problem with package computers are IMO not the price, but the total imbalance of its components. "Game setup" usually has big bellybutton CPU, but so little RAM even Pacman will lag.
Dell let's you do a certain amount of customizing. You can select up to 2 gig RAM, pick from a few different CPU chipsets, monitors, videocards, sound cards, speakers. The only reason I would go with a build-it-yourself is if I knew there was a big $ saving, or significantly better performance for the same $.
ra
-
http://www.mwave.com http://www.newegg.com
Build it yourself I say!
-
I remember hearing about Falcon computers as well.
Suppossed to be a really good gaming puter.
Or I could build you one like this
(http://home.comcast.net/~c.hambleton/wsb/media/134502/site1043.jpg)
-
A decent rig at alien ware will run you about 4.5k
OUCH!!!
http://www.falcon-nw.com/
-
I'm in the market for a new computer too. My old one's vacuum tubes keep blowing out.
How much money can you save by building your own vs. buying a similar one from Dell?
ra
The savings can be several hundred dollars -- perhaps much more perhaps less depending upon the choices that are made. The advantages IMO really focus on higher quality components plus several hundred dollars in savings and greater future upgradability (fewer propritary components). Disadvantages can be the occasional compatability issue that can usually be prevented with some research. The rare (but it does happen) DOA component that has to be returned. A good vendor is important with this route.
The Alienware and Falcon systems carry a super premium price point. Ouch! is right :) They have some exotic stuff like liquid cooling and fancy cases, but these can also be DIY for less. [I think I see that in Mr. Black's Hard Core system :)]
Charon
-
Yeah The most exspensive part of my system is the phase change cooling system. 1.100 bucks.
But it allows for outstandind over clocking and is upgradeble for all the new CPUs.
So it will last for years and never really be out dated.
All together not couting monitor and stuff like that I have maybe 2.500 bucks tied up in it and I can run a pent 4 2.4 at 3.6 all day long with no issues thats at at FSB of 1200 btw.
Ps. it is a very quite system as well as there is no CPU fan making racket.
It will take my Overclocked CPU down to -30c
So there is plenty of head room for more OC.