To buy or build - that is the question

[Hawkens85]

Alright, I've got an outdated PC. It runs, but it's time to step up. The only things I'll be taking from it are a Thermaltake SP97 heatsink and a SB Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro sound card. So - I've gone to New Egg, checked out prices. It's gonna cost me around $600 for something decent, and that's using the same case and PSU. The other thing is that I need to either buy a copy of XP or buy a PC with it alread installed. Then today, I saw the deal over at Geeks: http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?inv...5056-R&cat=SYS
My question is - would it be better for me to buy a set like that and just upgrade the video card (installing new heatsink and sound card from old PC), or spend something like $800 on upgrading what I do have? Would buying that Gateway mess me over at all in the long run?

[orangutang91]

Re: To buy or build - that is the question

It will have no upgradeability, maybe AGP if you're lucky, defininetely not PCI-e

[Munkul]

Re: To buy or build - that is the question

look closely before replying. it has a 16x pci-e slot, and it looks overall like a good buy. dont know about overclocking tho.

[casecutter]

Re: To buy or build - that is the question

DON'T BUY A BRANDED PC!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They always have a terrible time with any upgrades and they almost never are able to overclock. For $600 you can easily build a PC that will outperform it too. Just do some research and pricing on newegg and the other sites and post back. NO GATEWAYS/DELLS/HP's.....................

[mlakrid]

Re: To buy or build - that is the question

DON'T BUY A BRANDED PC!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They always have a terrible time with any upgrades and they almost never are able to overclock. For $600 you can easily build a PC that will outperform it too. Just do some research and pricing on newegg and the other sites and post back. NO GATEWAYS/DELLS/HP's.....................

Oh REALLY Genious?

Build me this PC:

19" Monitor
1280x1024 NATIVE
8ms refresh
500:1 contrast ratio
300 NITS brightness

Keyboard, mouse

Case with:
Pentium D 805 Dual Core (2.66, 533Mhz FSB)
Windows XP MEDIA Edition 2005

512 MB Dual CHannel DDR2 SDRAM @ 533Mhz (2x 256MB)

80 GB HDD (7200 RPM with 8MB Cache)

48x CD-R/W / DVD-ROM combo drive

WITH 3 years AT HOME waranty with nights/weekends

and FREE shipping...

Your turn...

[PrairieDawg]

Re: To buy or build - that is the question

Does this hypothetical prebuilt system also come with a motherboard and a real video card (not onboard)? What about a power supply?

[Chaos2003]

Re: To buy or build - that is the question

Oh REALLY Genious?

Build me this PC:

19" Monitor
1280x1024 NATIVE
8ms refresh
500:1 contrast ratio
300 NITS brightness

Keyboard, mouse

Case with:
Pentium D 805 Dual Core (2.66, 533Mhz FSB)
Windows XP MEDIA Edition 2005

512 MB Dual CHannel DDR2 SDRAM @ 533Mhz (2x 256MB)

80 GB HDD (7200 RPM with 8MB Cache)

48x CD-R/W / DVD-ROM combo drive

WITH 3 years AT HOME waranty with nights/weekends

and FREE shipping...

Your turn...

WOW! A Pentium D, you'll do great with one of those... not. That's a second rate piece of trash. With AMD lowering their prices and all, that machine is worthless.

[matm347]

Re: To buy or build - that is the question

my bud is in the same situation, I found a Dell he liked, and built him one with similar parts. Mine came out a few bux cheaper, but the kicker is that the built machine is more upgradeable and WAY more tweakable. Someone who asks about a computer I always ask them what they will use it for.

For anything except 3d gaming the branded PCs will do well enough. Any machine that will see some polygons will be much better being custom built.

IMO, building your own allows personalisation and fun that are not there when you order one.

[[email protected]]

Re: To buy or build - that is the question

Great, another prebuilt vs. custom battle. Here is a link to a previous thread concerning the same topic: http://forums.tweaktown.com/showthread.php?t=21162

Out of experience with modifying a prebuilt dell, I know that upgrading it is a pain. Besides, it will be worth it in the end to build it yourself.

As for the warranty: If you order the good stuff, it will come with a good warranty. If you go further and order everything from Newegg, you are ensured that everything will be ok.

[Hawkens85]

Re: To buy or build - that is the question

Okay, looks like I'll be building, which I always thought was better, but I thought I'd run it by the pros.

Next question is: what socket mobo should I be looking for? The standard seems to be 939. And what's the big difference between an ATI or Radeon mobo?

Another question - what route do I go as far as HDDs? SATA, PATA...I've been out of the tech loop for about two years and getting caught up is quite a task.

[casecutter]

Re: To buy or build - that is the question

Oh REALLY Genious?

Build me this PC:

19" Monitor
1280x1024 NATIVE
8ms refresh
500:1 contrast ratio
300 NITS brightness

Keyboard, mouse

Case with:
Pentium D 805 Dual Core (2.66, 533Mhz FSB)
Windows XP MEDIA Edition 2005

512 MB Dual CHannel DDR2 SDRAM @ 533Mhz (2x 256MB)

80 GB HDD (7200 RPM with 8MB Cache)

48x CD-R/W / DVD-ROM combo drive

WITH 3 years AT HOME waranty with nights/weekends

and FREE shipping...

Your turn...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH AHAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

I just built a Core2Duo system for around $800. Considering I resused my hardrives/cd/dvd drives and Windows XP, I can only laugh at people thinking they got a good deal with ANY branded system. Look at the system in my sig and you'll see what I got. You got smoked chump! LOL!

Dude I got a Gateway, WTF did I do......... Why can't I upgrade..... Why do I need to buy a whole new PC........

MORON!!!!!!!!!!!

Of course my LCD was quite expensive, but considering it has much better specs than your 19", I can live with that.

805D....... What a joke.......... 2X256MB ram....... My P3 rig has more ram than that.......

[[email protected]]

Re: To buy or build - that is the question

Nice job Casecutter. I can't wait to build my own Core 2 Duo system.

Anyways, the current AMD socket is AM2. I would personally go with Core 2 Duo because it performs alot better than AM2.

For your hd's, I would go with a Western Digital or Seagate Sata or Sata II.

[Hawkens85]

Re: To buy or build - that is the question

How much and what is "alot"?

[casecutter]

Re: To buy or build - that is the question

As of now,Core2Duo is much much faster. Most of that speed is seen in number crunching and video encoding, gaming performance is almost equal between AM2 and Core2Duo. Socket AM2 has a much clearer upgrade path, but I am also hoping Intel will not decide we need ANOTHER chipset for their next CPU's on S775. My money, right now, goes to Intel. But for a killer budget rig, AM2 is right up there and can be built cheaper and still perform quite well.

[orangutang91]

Re: To buy or build - that is the question

look closely before replying. it has a 16x pci-e slot, and it looks overall like a good buy. dont know about overclocking tho.

Thanks for carrecting me, but I still think that it is not very upgradable.