I, like others, would recommend building/buying one from a local shop. However, there are benefits and drawbacks to each approach. Some suggestions:
–An Athlon XP system will save you quite a bit of money over a Pentium 4 system (and perform more or less the same, unless you’re talking on the very high end). An Athlon XP 1700+ is a good starting point, but you can get a faster chip if your budget allows it.
Due to architectual differences, the Pentium 2ghz and above performs much better than the 1.8 and below, but you should be able to find decent deals on the 1.8s and below. You’ll probably notice the larger vendors offering good sales on these procs to clear inventory, and they are more than fast enough for todays apps.
–Make sure you get DDR memory, also known as PC2100 (used on both Intel and AMD systems). You can get Rambus memory for the higher-end Pentium systems, but I’d stay away from the very high-end systems due to price premiums. (Your other option is PC133 RAM, but this is at the end of it’s life cycle, and bottle-necks the performance of the most recent processors.) Again, the major vendors are deeply discounting these system. I’d personally stay away from them.
–If you get an AMD system, use a mobo with the VIA KT266A chipet. Any Intel chipset based board is fine for Pentiums, as long as it supports DDR. (the 845 does, I believe)
–Windows XP, at least 256 megs RAM
– a 30 Gb HD is fine, but more is always better.
–Unless your graphics editing is with large, complex files, any of the “second generation” video cards will do. I’d go with an ATI Radeon 7500, or an nVidia-based GeForce 2 (cheap, and more than enough for what you want to do). Only hardcore gamers and graphic editors will benefit from the higher-end cards. 32 mb on the video is enough.
I would avoid budget systems that have “onboard” video that shares the system memory. A seperate video card makes a huge difference. Most of the budget systems offered by the large vendors use onboard video.
Benefits in using a larger vendor (Dell, Compaq, etc)
– free tech support, usually for a year
–generally decent warranty service
Drawbacks:
–generally more expensive than custom built by your local store
–sometimes difficult to customize, so you end up paying for things you don’t need.
If you do buy from a larger vendor, be sure to shop around. I’ve seen the same vendor offer the same system at two different prices, depending on where they advertised.
My personal recommendations for the big guys would be:
- Dell
- Compaq
- IBM
- HP/Gateway
You’ll probably get the best bang for your buck from Compaq, but many people are willing to pay the price premium for a Dell due to their reputation and service.
Everything expressed above is my personal opionion - good luck!
–Joe
