I am fairly computer fluent but I have been out of the hardware market for a few years for financial reasons and have not kept up.
I am looking to buy a new tower:
some assembly required will not scare me
general home use ( some gaming but not concerned with latest bleeding edge uber-video)
I would prefer to avoid systems with integral video/sound/nics so I can make upgrades or easily replace a bad component later on.
looking to spend about $750
I am not so much looking for suggestions for purchase as pitfalls to avoid, crap manaufacturers, difficult to work with MB’s etc.
Don’t get a Pentium 4 (Athlon is faster & cheaper), don’t get cheap memory (like OCZ, I prefer Corsair myself), and get a motherboard with the nForce2 chipset from someone with a good reputation like Asus or Epox. (The Epox 8RDA+ is very popular right now) Chip prices drop fast, so spend the $$$ on a MB & memory & if you can’t afford a fast chip, make do with a slower one for now, and either overclock it or get a faster one when you can.
Stay away from HP, Gateway, Dell & Packard Bell. (If they even still make those)
They have custom built systems assembled to your choices - with far more flexible options than a vendor like Dell. Plus, every component of your system will be a high-end name brand item, so you know its quality. They do quality control and system burn-in to make sure everything works as shipped. I just can’t say enough good things about them.
For 750, you can get a smokin’ fast Athlon with the new Barton core and the Asus a78nx motherboard (with integrated dual LAN, firewire, 5.1 sound, USB 2.0, serial ATA - the works.) plus some quality RAM, geforce ti4200 video card, etc etc. Don’t worry about the integrated features on the motherboard - its an nForce 2 chipset, and they are reputable for quality and reliability. It will match just about any add-on part you would otherwise buy.
Also, don’t mess up like me and buy a cheap power supply. I realized afterwards that this is one of the most important parts of a clean running system, and I skimped by choosing a tower case that came with a generic brand. Try to make sure you get something with at least 400 watts from a high end manufacturer like Antec or Enermax.
Well, only if “etc, etc” doesn’t include a case, a CD-R/W drive, a hard drive, an operating system, a floppy drive, or one of those nice power supplies your were talking about. If you want all those things, the computer you describe costs $1215 according to that site.
They do sell quality components, though. Since the OP said he doesn’t mind some assembly, my advice would be to go to a site like Monarch, build a custom computer, copy down the model numbers of the components, then just go buy them individually on Pricewatch.com and put it together himself.
I will echo Headcoat’s advice not to skim on the PSU. That’s something I learned the hard way too. I now have a 430W Enermax and highly recommend it.
I bought my last case from Colorcases.com. They’ve got some really cool-looking cases cheap. Why pay Monarch $59 for a plain, boring case when you can get one with neon glow bars on the front and a window on the side for $30?
I’ve got the nForce 2 chipset in my rig, and the onboard sound is pretty good. The onboard LAN is a bit laggy, but if you’re not gaming, you probably won’t care.
I second getting the Asus a7n8x motherboard(which a friend of mine just purchased, along with 2700 Athlon XP and 512 meg of Corsair RAM)- but be sure to get the deluxe version. While the “SoundStorm” audio is integrated, its quality easily matches or beats almost any sound card out there. The dual LAN works well too. www.newegg.com is a quality vendor for most parts. The Asus A7N8X Deluxe is listed at $140 on newegg right now, and is cheaper than buying a good board + good sound card + ethernet card all separately.
Any of the AMD processors over 2100+ XP will work quite well, and be very fast. As for a video card, since you don’t need an uber-video machine, I reccomend either an ATI Radeon 8500 or Nvidia Geforce4 Ti 4200, making sure to get the 128 megabyte versions. Either of these cards will play today’s games quite nicely. The Geforce4 is faster, but more expensive. Stay away from the Geforce4MX and Radeon 9000 cards; the Geforce4MX is basically just a souped up Geforce2, and doesn’t support the some features in the latest games using DirectX 8. The Radeon 9000 is actually slower than the 8500 in most games, and they normally cost about the same.
I wouldn’t be too concerned about onboard network cards, nor onboard audio uless you’re a buff.
Do insist on onboard RAID and mirror your disk(s). Once my Shuttle system (see below) is set up, I’ve got 4x 100 GB drives to be put into a RAID 0+1 config for a server.
I do like the Samcheer PC aluminium cases, but they’re probably a budget-buster for you.
Further, I also wouldn’t worry too much about upgradability as far as CPU and memory go: just replace both when the time comes.
I’ve just bought myself a natty little Shuttle system - onboard everything but I’ve put in a 3rd party video card (a GeForce 4 4200) - and after an initial difficulty, am very satisfied.
I picked up a fancy shmancy case with acrylic window and lighted fan from NewEgg for about $35, I spent more than the cost of the case on the overnight shipping.
You can get a decent Dell 2.4+ Ghz for about $400 that will do everything you need (although it will have a built-in NIC, they hardly ever fail) with no assembly required whatsoever. Keep an eye on www.techbargains.com
I checked out that $400 dollar Dell - It only has 128MB of RAM; these day you want 256 minimum. Of course, you can get a 256MB stick of RAM for ~$30 these days. The graphics card is also pretty bad, and will definatly have a problem playing many newer games. It also lacks a floppy drive, and only comes with a plain CD Drive - no DVD or CD-RW. I doubt that the integrated audio on it is very good either.