STRTWYZ

What?s up folks?! Gotta consult with my Bimmer-Fam! My desktop is really dragging booty and it?s pretty outdated. Looking to upgrade but for something I can grow in to rather than out of. I know a bunch of you are pretty puter savvy and would like some suggestions or even links to what?s hot now-a-days. Not much of a gamer but do play ? not online though. Would love to be able to click and it pops up instantly, quick start up and log off. I have a 22? LCD at work and kinda used to it.

Looks like a lot of home units are coming equipped with Vista and according to my IT guys at work, Vista is a hog and can bog down a unit. Isn?t this where the processor comes in? Looks like there?s 2.66 or even higher up to 3 for gigabyt?s?

What I use a desktop for:

1) Work, spreadsheets, Excel, Word, VPN etc.
2) Photo software Photoshop or equal to
3) Music ? I have over 3,000 songs in my itunes library.
4) Gaming. Not a lot but could be more if the puter is fast.
5) Would like to get in to video editing in the future.
6) "educational" videos.

Let me have it folks! Not trying to break the bank ? I?m thinking less than a ?G? and more than 7-hundough would be good?

Thanks guys!
E

pjinca

Look at the base deals Dell has and upgrade the memory and hard drive and you should be fine. If you are not very technical their support is great, 10 mins on IM should be able to resolve most issues.

STRTWYZ

Thanks pjinca!

craigm1841

3) Music ? I have over 3,000 songs in my itunes library.
5) Would like to get in to video editing in the future.


...get a mac. i have owned countless PCs. I am at work and currently have 3 PCs hooked up to a switch box with a dual screen set up, and i am SICK of looking at it. my next comp is a mac.

if you insist on a PC, wait for windows 7 to come out. and then... use it and anxiously await service packs 1 and 2.

sunny_j

get a MAC
PC's suck

rafa7

if PC, nothing but windows 7

theXman

+1

Once you get a MAC, you won't go back.

Rizbel

Mac is a PC. You must have meant Windows .
I build my own PC, and they're all Windows and never had any problem.
Can anyone build a Mac?

sunny_j

all pc's ive owned are custom built and their only good for paper weight after about 5 mins of use.
you can get it configured by apple to your needs and remember the sh*tiest mac is better then the best pc avail.

hmuchmo1

Well the apple vs pc argument is so old it's rediculous! Apple definitely has a better OS in my opinion but not really worth the premium you will pay in the hardware, especially since apple switched to intel processors a few years ago.

Go ahead and flame away apple fans, because I have owned many macs in the past like 8600's, G4, G5, etc.. I even bought a 2.5GHz mac book pro last year and returned it within 24 hours, bought my self a PC laptop and a full titanium/CF exhaust for my motorcycle for what the apple cost!
And with having a computer engineer background and doing IT and programming for almost 20 years now, I just don't find value these days. Especially since i can get a quad core laptop with 18" screen solid state drive, and 1GB Nvidia graphics card for the price of a mac book pro! And I can run linux to match what MacOS X is running, which happens to be a blend of Mach, BSD, unix, linux and GNU. I can even get my normal PC's to boot OSX, so why pay for apples overpriced hardware. I have a dell mini 9 that boots OSX right now.

And to get an apple under 1k you can only get the mac book or mini, both of which are really lacking in memory and disk space, your only home desktop solution would be the iMAC but that starts at $1,200.

Ok sorry for the diversion just sick of the apple vs pc thing..
now to the details!

If you ever intend to do any gaming then its best to make sure you have a dedicated graphics card, because most PC these days come with an integrated video card that uses part of your RAM. So if you bought something with 3Gb of ram and the card can use up to 512MB for video that then your Windows really only get 2.5GB, and you dont get good 3d game rendering that way.
Also try to find 4GB of ram if you can..should be pretty easy..

If you want a decent desktop for about 1k then look at the HP m9600t, it has the new i7 running at 2.66GHz, 4GB ram,500GB 7,200RPM drive, 512MB dedicated graphics, and 18.5" LCD screen.
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping...e=m9600t_series
$998

or maybe go with a laptop.. again i kinda like the HP's.. the dv6t
For just a nudge over 1K you get a core 2 duo with 4GB of ram, 320GB drive, 512MB graphics card, with a 16" screen.
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping...ame=dv6t_series
$1024

Both of those have options to lower the price. if you need.
You will be stuck with Vista because win7 is not "officially" released to the manufacturers yet.. but you can download it from the net and install it once you get the computer home. I would stick with XP pro if you can find it, the games and apps still seem to run better.

guess those are my 4 cents.