decisions decisions Build AMD or Dell Deal

[DrPizza]

Been debating and keep going back and forth.
Dollar for dollar, which way would I get more bang for my buck?

Build an AMD system
or
Buy one of the Dell deals.

1. I know to stay away from celeron deals at dell.

I haven't built a system before, (have no fear of doing so though). I'd have the satisfaction of building it myself. I'm thinking of 2500+ (and maybe even overclock it? Haven't done overclocking before either.)

Would I end up with a better system for the same price by building? Or do the Dell deals (ie the 15% off that ended yesterday) bring the price down enough that it makes purchasing a better deal?
If I build, I'll be purchasing as many of the components through the deals that can be found (ie around 50cents per GB for the hard drive)

Also, if you recommend build, I'd probably start with 512MB DDR... better to go with 1 stick of 512 or 2 sticks of 256?

And also, choosing a motherboard... should I get a basic motherboard and add both soundblaster live (or some similar card) and a high end video card. Or, is the onboard audio of some motherboards of good enough quality.

I'll be gaming and will be making my first foray into video editting. (along with typical computer uses, ie wordprocessing, which is no longer a factor)

 

[EngenZerO]

I would build...I swore I would never buy a pre-build computer again (unless it was a laptop).

 

[Bonesdad]

It is more fun to build, but any problems you run into are yours alone...in light of that, have fun with it.

I use 1 stick of 512 currently, hope to get another as summer wears on. Dual sticks enables dual DDR memory, which will give you a tiny boost, but you can always look forward to that later...

The 2500+ is a great chip...overclocks easily, but is not necessary unless you are really into trying it. If you get a good NForce2 motherboard, with MCP-T you will have great onboard sound. Stay away from soundblaster live! Good motherboards with MCP-T are Abit's NF7-S and DFI Ultra Infinity. Both are loaded with features and overclock easily. Same price, around $90.

Pick up a Radeon 9800 Pro at Compusa for $200 after rebate this week.

 

[WobbleWobble]

For basic Windows apps that don't require 3D, a hot Dell deal will give you more bang for the buck. It also includes a legit copy of Windows as well. But it really depends how hot the deal is, sometimes it's so hot you can't even buy the parts for the money.

 

[ponyo]

As much as I like to build some of those Dell deals are really hard to pass up. I had to force myself not to jump on that 400SC server deal and that D500 laptop deal. It took quite a bit of self-control not to press that buy button.

 

[adams828]

Originally posted by: Naustica
As much as I like to build some of those Dell deals are really hard to pass up. I had to force myself not to jump on that 400SC server deal and that D500 laptop deal. It took quite a bit of self-control not to press that buy button.

i agree, sometimes their deals just *are* too good. sometimes. but then you do lose out on having the experience of building your own. the only problem is that the greal dell deals are unpredictable. might be one in a few days, might not be one for another month or two.

my suggestion is figure out what components you'd use, and see what your final price would be. (maybe approximate using some of the more common HD deal prices, etc.) this way you can compare your parts/price vs. the current dell parts/price.

for ram, don't worry about dual channel (ie 2 x 256mb) for an amd barton system, the performance gain is quite small if not negligable. p4 setups on the other hand benefit greatly from dual channel memory.

most motherboards come in many variants.. the nforce2 boards that have "soundstorm" onboard audio will give you good sound. otherwise if it has the standard (ac97' or something?) onboard audio, i'd say consider an audigy2

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: Bonesdad
It is more fun to build, but any problems you run into are yours alone...in light of that, have fun with it.

I use 1 stick of 512 currently, hope to get another as summer wears on. Dual sticks enables dual DDR memory, which will give you a tiny boost, but you can always look forward to that later...

The 2500+ is a great chip...overclocks easily, but is not necessary unless you are really into trying it. If you get a good NForce2 motherboard, with MCP-T you will have great onboard sound. Stay away from soundblaster live! Good motherboards with MCP-T are Abit's NF7-S and DFI Ultra Infinity. Both are loaded with features and overclock easily. Same price, around $90.

Pick up a Radeon 9800 Pro at Compusa for $200 after rebate this week.

Yeah, I'll most likely be staying away from soundblaster live... it caused hours of headaches after a reformat once. I had never realized there were hardware issues between that card and my motherboard and with my video card. I had bad experiences getting drivers online from their site as well. I'm ready to do a reformat now, and I'm kicking myself for not ghosting it when I was done... nor did I write down the exact order I had to install the drivers. (it was like something out of apollo 13... I had to do it in an exact order for it to work - why? Dunno.)

 

[WobbleWobble]

Older Via-based motherboards had PCI issues and the SB Live was a PCI bus hog. Not a very good combo. It sucked not knowing if you'll get problems with your setup or not. A board can have problems, the same board that someone else has may not.

 

[AnMig]

Build it yourself if you would like to learn/troubleshoot/upgrade and tinker with your computer.
There really is no magic to it its pretty much insert and plug here/load operating system violla working cpu.
The fun starts when you start having random reboots or crashes. Remember its almost never the hardware thats broken most of the problems are driver and software

Buy dell if all want is to load games and play.

word of warning once you start building it can be addicting and pretty soon you will not have time to play games.

How the heck did you become a DIAMOND menber without building your own PC?

good luck

 

[Thegonagle]

It's way more fun to build, as long as it's for yourself.

Go with 2x256 on the RAM so you can take advantage of dual-channel memory access. Dual channel only works when there is an even number of DIMMs installed.

 

[formulav8]

I would build if I was you. You will also appreciate it more when you build it yourself.


Jason

 

[Thegonagle]

Originally posted by: formulav8
I would build if I was you. You will also appreciate it more when you build it yourself.


Jason

Do be sure to pick a good case. You might not appreciate that bit of advice until you've struggled with flimsy, poor-fitting covers and cut your hands up on sharp edges, but trust me--it's pretty important to the enjoyment factor. With a self-build, you'll be going into that case a lot, so you'll want one that's well designed and built.