PC Help

[Boomdroo]

I know it may be hard to believe, but I'm actually fairly unknowledgeable about computer components. Now that I've busted all of everyone's perceptions of me, I come to humbly ask y'alls opinions.

Upon graduating college, I received about $1000 from my parents. Now I refuse to spend it on anything related to graduate school (books, tuition, rent etc) and have decided that I want to purchase a new computer. I'm trying to find the best computer for my budget. One important thing is to have a graphics card that will allow me to run games (mostly the Blizzard ones) at high settings without any problems. I don't need a new monitor, mouse, or keyboard.

I have been looking at various sites for prebuilt PC's - bestbuy, compUSA, circuit city, and occasionally newegg and pricewatch. I've also been to the computer brand sites like HP.com and Dell.com and tried to customize my own.

I have built one that I think would be pretty good for around 1,000 dollars, and I want to ask you knowledgeable types what you think.

Operating system Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (64-bit) edit
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Quad processor Q6600 (2.4GHz) edit
Memory FREE UPGRADE to 3GB DDR2-800MHz dual channel SDRAM from 2GB edit
Graphics card 768MB NVIDIA GeForce 9600GS, DVI-I, VGA, HDMI edit
Networking No Modem edit
Hard drive 320GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive edit
Primary CD/DVD drive LightScribe 16X max. DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive edit
Front Productivity Ports 15-in-1 memory card reader, 2 USB, 1394, video, audio edit
TV & entertainment experience ATSC-NTSC TV tuner with PVR, FM tuner, remote edit
Sound Card Integrated 7.1 channel sound w/front audio ports edit
Security software SAVE $10! Norton Internet Security(TM) 2008 - 15 month edit
Productivity software Microsoft(R) Works 9.0 edit
Keyboard and Mouse HP keyboard and HP optical mouse edit

Based on that, do you say this is a solid computer for $949.99? I'd also appreciate it if you can build one that you would think would be better for my budget as well.

[Metachronism]

It's not terrible for the price if you get free shipping. You could do slightly better if you knew how to put them together (or wanted to try your hand at it, its really not all that difficult nowadays).

[SUPERNOVA]

In this day and age its kind of hard to beat some of the prices out there on systems until you get to the bleeding edge as it were.
If i had $1000.00 to spend i would.

#1 look at what i have and see what i could do to get it up to date and running with the big guns A.E. new video card more ram faster cpu shit like that.

#2 Looking for the most bang for the buck over the long term yes spend the money were you need it most imo Main board get the high end main board
don't have to max it out get the lower end mid grade shit to fill the holes.

Have more to say have to work now

p.s. DONT FUCKING GET VISTA OMG its the windows m.e. of are day
some people love it me myself have had nothing but problems from the 2 boxes we have in the district

i will post more later

[Metachronism]

Originally Posted by SUPERNOVA

p.s. DONT FUCKING GET VISTA OMG its the windows m.e. of are day
some people love it me myself have had nothing but problems from the 2 boxes we have in the district

Vista rules. Been using it for over a year and never had a problem with it.

[Duvii]

Originally Posted by Metachronism

Vista rules. Been using it for over a year and never had a problem with it.

I also like Vista The only problems I have had with it had to do with installing things over a network, and even then it's easy to get around. That being said, upgrading to Vista from XP would have been a bitch for me, so I only went with it preloaded on a completely new machine.

Posted via Mobile Device

[Squrf]

Glancing over it, it's an "ok" setup for the price. The glaring issue is that they don't list a motherboard, so can't tell you how badly you're going to get dicked over on that piece of equipment. No power supply size/spec listed either. You could probably chop a bit off the price if you wanted to put it together yourself, plus you wouldn't have to absorb the costs of the shitware they're putting on it - MS Works? Heh? Plus some of the peripheral stuff - memory card reader and all that, are you actually going to use that? Are you going to keep your old computer completely intact, or are you going to liberate the hard drives and optical drives from it?

You could obviously do better, but only if you want to put a little effort into DIY.

[Boomdroo]

I'd love to do it myself, it's just I'm not the most knowledgeable. That's why I'm posting here so you more literate folks could help me out. If I buy all the parts separately, I'm not sure how I'll put it together without instructions telling what plugs into what, etc :P

I plan on selling the computer I have to my brother, since he currently doesn't have one.

[Squrf]

There are a billion fucking guides on how to put a computer together. Google some. Post them if you want to know if they're decent. If you're not going to put the effort in, buy a box from Dell or HP or wherever - nothing wrong with doing that.

[Alaron]

Assembling a computer is pretty straightforward. The last time that I did it as an undergrad on a serious budget, the worst part was putting in the CPU, getting the right ammount of thermal paste on top, and attaching the heatsink on top of the CPU without cracking or scratching the die (mostly due to the scary ammount of force that it was necessary to apply). Other than that, your motherboard manual pretty much has step by step instructions to plug this into that, etc... If you can read a simple diagram, and follow some basic anti-static rules, it isn't a big deal.

Do you have any stores that the geeks in your area frequent? They probally sell all of the computer components at fairly minor markups once you consider shipping costs. They probally also sell you the parts then assemble them for you for like 20 bucks. That is often a good way to customize your machine, and only pay a very minor premium for someone else assembling it for you. That's what I did last time I got a new machine. The time it would take to put it together just wasn't worth the 20 bucks I'd have saved by doing it myself (and oddly, a lot of their parts were less than the cheapest canadian online retailer even before shipping - though admittedly NCIX isn't as good as your newegg in the states).

[Newbold]

pcmech.com has a decent guide:
Build Your Own PC » PCMech

I've built many in my day and I read through it quickly and did not see anything that did not make sense. As mentioned above, the only part that will make you nervous the first time is placing the heat sink atop the cpu, but it's not even that bad if you take your time. The process is pretty damn easy, it's selecting the parts you want that takes the most thought/time.