(Long, sorry!): Take my $1K and buy me a computer, please.

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hi all. Sorry in advance, this sucker turned out to be waaay longer than I expected.

I’ll be receiving payment a freelance job in a week or so, and I’ve decided to earmark up to $1,000 (USD) of this for a long overdue new computer. (How long? Welp, my current PC is a 1997 Dell Dimension 400 Mhz with 128 MB of RAM, a 20 Gig hard drive, and … wait for it … Win95. Yes, you may commence the mockery now.)

As you can imagine, this setup has limited me somewhat as to upgrading software. Oh, and did I mention I’m a web designer? This causes some problems when my clients need me to get onto their (ugh) FrontPage-designed site with proprietary server extensions, and I can’t because I can’t find any version of FP that runs on my creaking system…

(To be fair, my Dell is a good system, quite solid considering its age and the punishment I’ve put him through. But besides the outdated aspect and lack of upgradability, there are some signs of impending doom here and there. I need to change before the change is forced upon me all unwilling-like.

Anyway, I’ve been anticipating this purchase for ages, but now that it’s nearly here I find myself with buyer’s paralysis. I know I need something new, but I’m not quite sure exactly what. I want everything, but can’t afford it, and so I kinda don’t want to buy anything short of the One Perfect System for choie. (Stupid, I know, but I have an all-or-nothing neuroses that I’m constantly fighting.)

So it’s up to you, fair citizens of the SDMB, to help me break free. I’d be extremely grateful for any advice on the specs I should look for, including brand, version, speed, memory, storage, peripherals, monitor, software … keeping it to $1K.

Here are some facts you might find useful in making your recommendations, along with questions that I could really use answered (if you have time):

  • No, I ain’t putting this box together myself. I’m technically capable of adding memory and perhaps a sound card or DVD/CD drive, but more tweaking than that I’m not comfy with.

  • Also? I’m a PC chick, so Mac supporters, move along, there’s nothing more to see. (Don’t get me wrong, I would LOVE to try a Mac, but I’m too far set in my ways and, with a web-based business that supports me, I don’t have the luxury of a learning curve.) Oh and I want a desktop, not a laptop. That oughtta save me some moolah right there.

  • I am 90% certain that I want a Dell. I bought my first Dell (refurbished) in 1993, my current PC in 1997 – and I’ve only had to call tech support twice. The reason for the missing 10% certainty is that it’s been such a long time since my last purchase; for all I know, Dell has gone downhill since it went from being the high-end techie’s delight (back when I bought mine) to being the virtual AOL of PCs.

  • As mentioned, my PC is the center of my work, and as they say, I ride it hard and put it away wet. It’s on 18 hours a day. I need to be able to open Dreamweaver, Word, FireWorks, and a browser simultaneously. Most commonly I use web creation software that ranges from Notepad/Textpad to Dreamweaver, MS Word, Fireworks and other graphics programs. What minimums should I look for, vis-a-vis speed, memory and storage? 512 MB is what I’m looking at, and I don’t want anything less than 2.6 Ghz.

  • I am not a big gamer by any stretch of the imagination – never played multiplayer in my life (the prospect scares me) – but I do greatly enjoy solo FPS and adventure games and would like once again to play something current. The last game I bought was Half Life when it first came out! If nothing else, I’ve been dying to play Half Life 2 ever since I killed my last headcrab. What minimum specs do I need?

  • I’m embarrassingly ignorant about video cards and sound cards. What should I look for?

  • If I somehow can get a great system for a few hundred bucks less than a thou, what other upgrades/addons (if any) would you recoomend? Better OS? (Most seem to come with Windows XP home). Optical mouse? Wireless keyboard? Are these useless addons, and should I go instead for adding more memory, better video card? Don’t particularly care for flat panel monitors. First, my cats need a place to sleep (kidding!) and second, I wonder how true the color is on LCDs versus CRTs. But is there any reason, other than space conserving, why the more expensive flat panel is recommended?

  • I’m definitely not averse to going the refurbished route, where you can get some pretty freakin’ amazing systems that have been tested and retested possibly even more than a regular new system. My first Dell was refurbished and it was solid as a rock, quality-wise. But has this standard changed? Are Dells now of less quality than before? Am I risking problems by buying refurbished? What’s the balance of risk vs. incredible deal? I mean just look at these current offers for two sample refurbished systems:

Or, moving up in price/specs:

With either one of these two systems, obviously I need a monitor and printer (my current printer is even older than my PC). Of course, some weeks you can buy a new Dell and find that the system offers free upgrades of monitors/printers/memory. (But can you believe that price? 3.4 Ghz for $740??? My 400mhz “screamer” went for $3,500 in 1997!)

Whew! Sorry for the rambling. Any help you guys can offer would be intensely appreciated! And many many many thanks to the two people who actually read down this far.

2

Just a comment on the direct-from-Dell “used” computers - I have a friend who has one and she couldn’t be happier. Bought it last year. They come with full warranties, and I think some of them are just returned corporate over-purchases. If I had a desktop to buy and were for some reason to want to switch back from Mac, that’s the way I’d go. Just my two cents.

3

Have you tried www.refurbdepot.com yet?

4

Either system will be vastly faster than what you have now. If you’re limited to $1k, I’d get the lesser system so you have the cash to get a good 19", 1280x1024 LCD display and printer. A 19" CRT monitor is huge and I suggest getting no smaller for business use. If your cat needs a perch as mine does build her a shelf with a built in heating pad.

40GB isn’t that much long term storage. You could upgrade but I’d consider adding an additional drive yourself as it will be much cheaper as well as simpler to upgrade if you outgrow it rather than replacing your primary hard drive.

So much of the specifications are fluff and distraction for new buyers. 56K modem? I can’t remember the last time I used one - but mind you I have cable modem internet. I rarely use the one in my laptop when I’m on the road and the hotel doesn’t have wireless networking. Faxes? Who sends them? My company provided me with a fax machine which is a huge white elephant. Floppy drive? I didn’t install one in my desktop machine when I built it an neither my work or personal laptop even have one. I never missed it.

5

I’d get the first, cheaper one. Then add more memory and a second hard drive yourself. You’ll want at least 512 megs, if not a gig of RAM, but don’t buy that from Dell. Ditto the larger hard drive – retailers tend to significantly overcharge for ram and disk space, in my experience. Adding more memory is trivial, and adding a second hard drive is also fairly simple. You should be able to get 512 megs of RAM for $60-$70, and 160 gig hard drive for around $100. So for $640-$660, you’ll have a system with a gig of ram and 200 gigs of disk space, just by upgrading the cheaper one.

To play Half Life 2 on a budget, I would get a Geforce 6600 w. 128 megs of ram for $116 (newegg.com). It’s not the bleeding edge in terms of speed, but it’s plenty fast and doesn’t cost $400-$500.

Spend the rest on a good crt monitor, preferably 19". Flat panel monitors look really cool, but they’re a lot more expensive for the same size. When you spend as much time in front of a computer as you do, the more screen area the better.

6

Oh, and as for the printer, they’ve gotten pretty cheap. We have a Canon i475d which has been fantastic and it was less than $100. (I highly recommend Canon – they’re print cartridges are half the cost of some of the other brands. It’ll pay for itself in no time.)

7

Would you mind giving me your highly advanced computer to replace my 266 Mhz with 5 Gig hard drive and win 95?

Actually, I recently replaced Win 95 with Win 98. Didn’t notice any useful difference.

8

On a recent “Help me choose a new PC!” thread, someone else highly recommended Monarch Computers. Looking through their computer line, I tend to be impressed—supposedly they have a good reputation.

If you want to stay under a thousand, I recommend this model. Add XP Home and a 1 year warranty, an inexpensive Viewsonic 17" CRT monitor and (pick up an inexpensive keyboard and mouse elsewhere) and you should still be within budget.

From what I can see, this is a sweet computer. It should last you a long while. The hard drive is massive, the graphics card is nice, processor speed is good. Bear in mind that I’m not the biggest PC person around (I have one but am more of a Machead), but this looks like a good deal to me. If I were in the market for a new PC (I’m not—the one I have should last me a year or two more), then I’d jump on this deal.

9

Oh, also note that the above Monarch PC has a DVD burner. Cool!

Also, I didn’t see what sort of graphics cards the Dells cited had. Dell sometimes puts in “integrated video” in their PCs. Bleah!

10

Dell has a deal on the 4700 with a free 17" LCD monitor for a few more days.

11

Not suprising as Win '98 was basically Win95 with service pack 2 and FAT32 support for large hard drives. Win XP is fundimentally different and vastly better if you have the processor and memory to drive it.

12

Wow, thanks for all the advice so far, people. Very helpful!

Zsofia, glad to see others have had good experiences with refurbished Dells. I forgot to mention that my sister bought a refurbished laptop from Dell too, for about $600 or so, and also had few problems with it.

Czarcasm, thanks for the referral to that website! They seem to specialize in Compaqs and HPs more than anything else, at least computerwise. But they may have other electronics or appliances that could be great deals. Thanks also to Yosemite for pointing me to the Monarch site. Seems to have a very good reputation. I’ll have to check them out further. And Dan, I appreciate the heads-up re: the Dell deal.

So [p]Padeye** and Giraffe, you appear to agree that getting a “lesser” system (which would still be a vast improvement on the poor little guy I have now) is the way to go, since upgrading the memory and hard drive with non-Dell parts would be cheaper than going with the bigger system straight from Dell. Right?

clairobscur – yipe! Y’know, I should know better than to kvetch online or in public at all. There’s always someone worse off!

I guess my questions now boil down to:

  1. What’s the minimum I should be going for, given all the stuff I would like to do? For example, “don’t bother with anything less than 512MB, 2.6 Ghz and 40 Gig of space…”

  2. Similarly, what’s the maximum point past which I’d no longer be seeing that much of an improvement? I.e., a Pentium 4, 3.6 Ghz chip versus 3.0 Ghz – is it worth the additional outlay? I’ve always tried to go for the highest possible quality, on the assumption that it will stave off obsolescence for at least a few more months. Naturally all computers are pretty much obsolete the second you open the box, but for practical purposes, I ideally want something that’s going to last me nearly as long as this current one has.

  3. Giraffe mentions the Geforce … that’s the video card, right? (sorry I know that’s probably a dumb question). Is that the bare minimum speed/specs I should get if I want to play Half-Life and other similar games, or is it what’s recommended? Sometimes “minimum requirements” really means “not really acceptable” at times. (I seem to recall that the “minimum” for Win95 was 32 MB of RAM, but anyone who tried doing that was destined for misery and possible insanity.)

  4. Let’s talk OSes and software suites. WinXP Home? Pro? Media Center? What the hell is the difference here? What about the difference between WordPerfect suites and the standard MS Office?

P.S. coincidentally, I think QVC’s going to have a couple of Dell showcases later today. Their systems are usually mid-level expensive, but they usually have some great packages and (best of all) are sold via “ez pay,” where the price is split up into a few different payments. Can’t wait to drool, especially since now I can rest happy knowing I’ll soon have something similar. :slight_smile:

Any more advice would be very very appreciated. Thanks all!

13

Oops sorry, I forgot to add – if anyone has any reasons why one should not go for a refurbished system, please speak now or forever hold your peace!

Also … sorry about the cruddy coding there, Padeye. :smack:

14

What is your current monitor? You may want a bigger / better one, but if you are happy with what you have, you don’t have to get a new monitor with your new computer.

Brian

15

Hope no one minds if I bump this, because I’ve finally leapt into the abyss! I just bought my new computer, hallelujah! And in looking over the above specs I originally posted, I think I found a pretty good deal indeed.

I went with:

  • Dell Dimension 4700 (refurbished), 3.00 GHz P4 Processor w/HyperThread technology 800FSB
  • WinXP Professional
  • 1 GB DDR SDRAM, 400 MHz
  • 1.44 MB Floppy Disk Drive
  • 80 GB EIDE Hard Drive, 7200 RPM
  • 128MB PCI Express ATI Radeon X300 SE
  • 16x DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability
  • 16X DVD ROM Drive
  • 56Kbps Data/Fax Modem (I don’t have broadband yet so this was important)
  • Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit ADVANCED HD Audio with 100dB Perform
  • Various software blah blah blah, including Microsoft Works, RecordNow! and MyDVD Deluxe Software
  • Keyboard / Logitech 2-button Scroll Mouse
  • 1 year LTD warrenty/1 year onsite service (I’ll probably upgrade to 3 years)

The system price for this was $1,014, plus $99 shipping fee. But a special free 3-5 day shipping offer and an instant rebate of $400 gave me a final total price of … drumroll please … $623.

Not a bad compromise, huh? What do y’all think? This should give me enough left over for both a decent 19" CRT and an all-in-one printer (there’s a great deal on Lexmarks at buy.com). Then there are various things such as upgraded versions of software that I should’ve upgraded years ago but couldn’t since Win95 couldn’t handle it. And a certain game called Half-Life 2 is calling out to me…

Ooh I can’t wait – I know I’ll be bouncing up and down for the next week or so. :slight_smile: Anyway, thanks to everyone who helped me brainstorm on this purchase!

16

GREAT purchase! That video card will be ok for HL2, and certainly for the web applications you develop. Lexmark printers are fairly good, but if there are any HP products similar, I always recommend them for printing.
I was going to chime in on XP Pro, but I see you’ve gotten that. It shouldn’t make a difference, but in development, it might.

good luck with the new PC! It’s always exiciting to get one!

-Butler

17

That looks like a great system. And you got an amazing deal on it. Way to go!

(I would also recommend getting a non-Lexmark printer, preferably a Canon or HP.)