# Well, I Just Bought This Computer On Ebay... **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 7, 2009, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-bought-this-computer-on-ebay/484774 "2009-02-07T02:05:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2009, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-bought-this-computer-on-ebay/484774/1 "2009-02-07T02:05:05Z")
…and I was wondering if I did good. I paid $414 USD including shipping for this thing, and I was wondering what the computer gurus thought about it and what I need to do to it to make it better (other than get a bigger hard drive). Deets: It’s brand new… Processor AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5200+ Socket AM2 CPU Fan AMD Original AM2 CPU Fan Motherboard ECS nVidia GeForce 7050M-M Motherboard Memory 4GB DDR II 800 Memory 240 Pin (Kingston) 　 Hard Drive Western Digital 160GB 7200RPM 8MB Cache Serial ATA II Optical Drive LG 22X DVD RW + Dual Layer Video nVidia GeForce 9600GT 512MB DDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI HDTV Audio Realtek ALC662 6-channel HD Audio Network Card Onboard 10/100 Network Card Ports 6 USB 2.0 Ports, 1 Parallel, 1 1394a Case 1285 Deluxe Black Tower Case Power Supply 600 Watt Heavy Duty Power Supply Warranty 1 Year Parts 3 Years Labor Warranty & Life Time Toll Free Support Assembly Fully Assembled and Tested Is this an OK machine for the money? Please advise, thanks! Edit: What OS should I get for this thing? I’ve never used Vista and am pretty fond of XP. Anyone foresee any potential issues? Link: [http://cgi.ebay.com/AMD-DUAL-CORE-GAMING-PC-W-nVidia-9600-4GB-RAM\_W0QQitemZ250349397459QQcmdZViewItemQQptZDesktop\_PCs?hash=item250349397459&\_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&\_trkparms=72%3A1234|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1309|301%3A0|293%3A1|294%3A50](http://cgi.ebay.com/AMD-DUAL-CORE-GAMING-PC-W-nVidia-9600-4GB-RAM_W0QQitemZ250349397459QQcmdZViewItemQQptZDesktop_PCs?hash=item250349397459&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1234%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1309%7C301%3A0%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50) ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2009, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-bought-this-computer-on-ebay/484774/2 "2009-02-07T02:48:53Z")
I built my own machine, much beefier, for about twice as much including Vista x64. I would say you got a fair deal for a built machine including shipping with just the bare metal, but not a killer deal. You will probably need a bigger hard drive. The power supply sounds a little heavy for your configuration, but certainly not a problem. I am not familiar with AMD and the CPU could make a significant difference in price at this level. You could try finding a similar build from Dell’s web site and see what they would charge for a machine with the OS (but also lots of bloatware). If you like XP, go with XP and wait for Windows 7 to be released to upgrade. However, you won’t be able to use _quite_ all of that 4G of RAM unless you go to Vista x64. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2009, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-bought-this-computer-on-ebay/484774/3 "2009-02-07T02:55:47Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > I built my own machine, much beefier, for about twice as much including Vista x64. I would say you got a fair deal for a built machine including shipping with just the bare metal, but not a killer deal. You will probably need a bigger hard drive. The power supply sounds a little heavy for your configuration, but certainly not a problem. I am not familiar with AMD and the CPU could make a significant difference in price at this level. You could try finding a similar build from Dell’s web site and see what they would charge for a machine with the OS (but also lots of bloatware). > > If you like XP, go with XP and wait for Windows 7 to be released to upgrade. However, you won’t be able to use _quite_ all of that 4G of RAM unless you go to Vista x64. Is that motherboard and RAM pretty current? What about the video card, is it a good one? All I know is that since I don’t know how to build a computer myself, that paying $400 for something like this is a far cry better than buying it new from a store like Best Buy, where it not only would likely cost over a grand, but come with loads of pre-installed BS software that I don’t want. I want a clean machine with a clean OS install to play games, watch movies and surf the net with. I also wonder how much more RAM I can add to this motherboard for in the future. This is my last computer purchase for awhile, I hope that it’s pretty upgradeable for the future. I assume with that power supply that I can get a future video card that will be adequately supported. Any advice or suggestions from the resident computer geeks are certainly welcome and encouraged! ---
**Author:** ![Apocalypso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Apocalypso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apocalypso)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2009, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-bought-this-computer-on-ebay/484774/4 "2009-02-07T03:09:21Z")
I had XP on my last machine, I liked it, was familiar with it, and knew how to tweak it. So when I put together my new machine late last year, I went with XP Pro (with SP3). No regrets here. I briefly considered getting Vista, but after doing some research, I broke it down thusly: Advantages with Vista **Better security features:** I dunno, I haven’t had any problems with XP pro, so this isn’t really that big of a deal for me. **Shiny new graphic features:** I tend to run my OS as minimal as possible, so I’d probably turn most or all of these off anyway. \*\*Supports 4gb RAM. \*\* Well 3.2gb in XP is good enough for me. I honestly don’t think the extra .7 or .8 gb is really going to make that much of a difference. \*\*Supports Direct X 10. \*\* I don’t think there’s really a lot of games that support DX10 right now, and by time there are, Windows 7 will be out. Disadvantages are: bugs and incompatibility issues, they’ve moved all the things you’re familiar with around in non-intuitive ways so you can’t find anything, annoying security features, bloated crapware. Yeah, I’d stick with XP, especially if you’re already familiar with it and like it. ---
**Author:** ![Apocalypso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Apocalypso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apocalypso)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2009, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-bought-this-computer-on-ebay/484774/5 "2009-02-07T03:30:17Z")
didn’t see your other questions and missed the edit window… The motherboard is a budget board, nothing fancy, but nothing shitty either. It should be fairly stable and do what you need it to do. It’s only got 2 memory slots, which means if you did get more memory, you’d have to throw the old ones out. I seriously doubt if you’d need more than the 4gb it comes with anyway, and by time you did want more than 4gb, it’s most likely time for a new machine. Not sure on the power supply, there’s no real information in your link. As someone explained when I built mine, you can’t just go by the wattage. I’m sure you could throw in a better video card, but I don’t know if it would power, say, a GTX 260 because there’s no info on the PSU. You could always get another PSU when you upgrade the video card though. Overall, I’d say you got a decent budget machine, and can probably upgrade it a bit in the future. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2009, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-bought-this-computer-on-ebay/484774/6 "2009-02-07T03:39:08Z")
> [@Apocalypso](#): > > didn’t see your other questions and missed the edit window… > > The motherboard is a budget board, nothing fancy, but nothing shitty either. It should be fairly stable and do what you need it to do. It’s only got 2 memory slots, which means if you did get more memory, you’d have to throw the old ones out. I seriously doubt if you’d need more than the 4gb it comes with anyway, and by time you did want more than 4gb, it’s most likely time for a new machine. > > Not sure on the power supply, there’s no real information in your link. As someone explained when I built mine, you can’t just go by the wattage. I’m sure you could throw in a better video card, but I don’t know if it would power, say, a GTX 260 because there’s no info on the PSU. You could always get another PSU when you upgrade the video card though. > > Overall, I’d say you got a decent budget machine, and can probably upgrade it a bit in the future. The RAM is two 2GB sticks…won’t they come out with larger sticks in the future that I can just plug in? ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2009, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-bought-this-computer-on-ebay/484774/7 "2009-02-07T14:41:54Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > The RAM is two 2GB sticks…won’t they come out with larger sticks in the future that I can just plug in? I don’t know what the board will take but as I noted, more than 4G of RAM is a waste unless you are using a 64-bit OS. XP won’t be able to use it. I use Vista x64 but the drawback is that there are still some issues about software, device, and driver compatibility which can be occasionally irritating. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-bought-this-computer-on-ebay/484774/8 "2009-02-07T15:48:35Z")
I have built my own computers and it seems like a good deal to me although not the deal of the century. You might end up with a beige case that looks like it got shipped from 1996 but probably not. I would feel good about it unless you are proven wrong once you actually get it. It should be able to handle any modern apps including cutting edge games just fine. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2009, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-bought-this-computer-on-ebay/484774/9 "2009-02-07T15:54:46Z")
Edit Window Closed: The hard drive space is unusually low compared to the other specs. It won’t be an instant problem but you can add a secondary hard-drive many times the size for $50 - $120 if you do it yourself and that isn’t very hard even for people that have little experience. If it were me, I would add a second hard drive right away and only keep system files on the main drive and most other things on a secondary hard drive. That is good in lots of ways but you can get by either way. ---
**Author:** ![Turble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Turble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turble)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2009, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-bought-this-computer-on-ebay/484774/10 "2009-02-07T15:55:36Z")
Sounds like a fair deal for a decent machine. For an OS you could download and install the Windows 7 beta and put off buying anything for at least six months. I’ve been using it since it was released and have had no problems at all (note that I am usually a MicroSoft basher.) Get the 64-bit version and you will be using all of your RAM. ---
**Author:** ![NineToTheSky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5a626/32.png) [@NineToTheSky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NineToTheSky)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2009, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/well-i-just-bought-this-computer-on-ebay/484774/11 "2009-02-07T18:24:42Z")
> [@Turble](#): > > Sounds like a fair deal for a decent machine. > > For an OS you could download and install the Windows 7 beta and put off buying anything for at least six months. I’ve been using it since it was released and have had no problems at all (note that I am usually a MicroSoft basher.) Get the 64-bit version and you will be using all of your RAM. Agreed. I’m using Windows 7 too, but see **CookingWithGas** (re 64 bit issues): > [@](#): > > _I use Vista x64 but the drawback is that there are still some issues about software, device, and driver compatibility which can be occasionally irritating._