Computer Question/Advice

[EVmaker]

Greetings,

I don't know if this is the right forum for this, and if its not I apologize in advance, as well as for the length.

A little background for my question, I currently have a alienware computer, and my fiance and I are looking to get another computer for gaming, so we've been looking around and found a lenova pc that looks up to the job for our price range (which admittedly is not that large, looking to spend no more then $900 for computer, monitor, and graphics card if necessary). I can provide links if anyone is interested, but its essentially a AMD Athalon 64bit Dual Core, with a gig of DDR2 533mhz ram, and Windows Vista Home Premium with a Nvidia 6100 Integrated graphics card. The monitor we've looked at to go with it, is an Acer 17? LCD, and the graphics card we've been looking to replace it is a nvidia geforce 8600 GTS.

Now my question(s) is, Will all that really work together? I have been (and still will be) trying to look that up and research it on my own, but any helpful advice would be great. I have a friend who dislikes nvidia and keeps trying tell me to get an ati card instead, citing generally lower prices for the same equivalent of a card and he's never had a problem with his, same as I've never had a problem with the nvidia geforce ti that I've had in this since I got it years ago, but on looking at a few (granted not that many yet) pages and comparisons, the ati's tend to lower perform by a (small) margin then the nvidia's, and seem to have a common thread about driver/other kind of software problems, where in a lot of cases, if you are trying a new game you have to make sure to get the newest driver/patch for the card or that game otherwise it will have problems.

I am fairly computer literate, I know most of the ins and outs of using an os, I code (simple) games for fun in my free time (yahtzee/uno/sudoku), but outside my admittedly limited area of expertise I am a complete newbie, particularly the deeper workings of a computer (bios, registry, etc..) and internal hardware, my fiance is essentially if its not plug and play then she asks me to get it working, so having to deal with patches and updates all the time is not the best of situations for us.

After speaking with my parents about our computer plans, my dad who is somewhat computer savvy himself said he heard some stories at work about people having compatibility problems with their monitors and to make sure to get one that would work. So to sum up all my rambling on, would there be any obvious problems with an Acer monitor, Lenova AMD Athalon processor and a geforce 8600 card? And what would anyone recommend as advice for a strong gaming computer setup for under $850-900 combined monitor/computer/graphics card?

Edit: fixed nvidia card number from 6600 to the 8600 it was meant to be.

 

[robisbell]

I'd stick with 2GB of ram at min if you want to muck with any version of Vista, you'd best get an actual video card and stay away from intergrated video if you want it as a gmaing machine, the monitor is okay, but you may want to go with a 20" or 22" if you're getting a decent card. I would seriously recommend you stick to XP Pro instead of Vista, but that's your decision.

 

[EVmaker]

I'd love to stick with XP pro, I really would, but we don't really have the money to buy another copy, since we will be using both computers, this one which already has XP Pro, and the new one which I would much rather have XP on it, but alas it comes with Vista by default. Monitor size isn't really a priority to us, we currently have a 17? LCD on this computer and we think its just fine for us, and really the price range for the 17? LCD's is about the top we can go.

Would you consider the nvidia geforce 8600 GTS (I think I wrote the wrong number on the original post, and I apologize) 256meg a decent card for a gaming machine? It is what we were looking at, as we have no intention of staying with integrated graphics.

Edit: And about the ram, I got that impression from some further reading up on vista, and have been eyeballing some 2x 1gig dual channel kingston 667mhz DDR2's, which I think would work well for the vista ram problem. My only problem here, is that my alienware is more then 4 years old, and I sincerely doubt the ram that comes with the new computer would be compatible with this one, to take the old one out of the new computer, put the two new rams in, then put the old ram in this to boost its memory.

 

[robisbell]

I would say the 8600 is a good choice for gaming. I would then state to max out the ram if you do not want to pursue having XP installed, and most places will and give you a price break.

 

[EVmaker]

Well the computer base we're looking at is from newegg, do you know if they have a policy of doing that, or would it be better to try going to lenova's site itself to look into the option?

 

[robisbell]

stick with newegg, you can email them once you find a system and ask since you're wanting xp, what sort of price break they can give you.

 

[EVmaker]

Will do, thanks for the help & advice.

One more thing though, do you know of any compatibility problems there might be from that setup? (with either xp or vista)

 

[robisbell]

Vista has a long list of known issues both hardware driver wise and game wise.
like i stated if you do go Vista, you best max out the ram and be ready for alot of times where games and/or software will not work.

 

[EVmaker]

Well, I talked to newegg and was essentially told that all the computers on their site are what you see is what you get, they can't/won't switch out one that is listed as coming with Vista to comes with XP, so that was a big disappointment there, and yeah I've heard of all the problems Vista has with drivers and programs not working on it unless they have some path or just not at all. I really do want XP for it instead, so it looks like either going back to the drawing board on looking for a new base system that does actually come with XP (or a site that will allow the choice), or buying XP separate which we really don't have the money to do.

 

[robisbell]

hmmm, that's very odd, I've gotten systems from them and they swapped out vista for XP and gave me a discount. I could see about getting you one, would need a hard figure price to work with.

 

[InflatableBuddha]

You can still order Dell systems with XP pre-installed. They seem to be less expensive than the Lenovos.

The 8600 series is NOT a good card. Sorry, but it's been well documented on AT and elsewhere. You would do better with a 7900 GS/x1950 GT/2600XT since you're on a tight budget, but it might also be a good idea to check out the new AMD cards (3xxx) coming later this year.

Edit: Check out the Inspirons; you can get a monitor bundled with some of them and up to a 2600XT installed, for around $900.