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Help me choose a pc for family

B

blackrain

Golden Member
This pc is for out-of-towners. They have never had a pc before. They have kids. They will use it for office, Internet, gaming. I would like any comments. The price range/budget is $650-750. That price range is an absolute by the way. Adding peripherals on their own or building on their own is not an option.

Here are the 2 that I am considering for them:

Dell ($700):
PROCESSOR AMD Athlon? 64 3200+ edit
OPERATING SYSTEM & TV-TUNERS Genuine Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, English edit
UPGRADE TO WINDOWS VISTA Express Upgrade to Windows Vista Home Premium from XP Media Center Edition edit
MEMORY 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz- 2DIMMs edit
HARD DRIVE 160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache? edit
OPTICAL DRIVE 16x DVD+/-RW Drive edit
MONITOR No Monitor edit
VIDEO CARD 256MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro edit
SOUND Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio edit
My Accessories
SPEAKERS No speakers (Speakers are required to hear audio from your system) edit
KEYBOARD & MOUSE Dell USB Keyboard and Dell 2-button Scroll Mouse edit
FLOPPY & MEDIA READER 3.5 in Floppy Drive edit
MODEM 56K PCI Data Fax Modem edit
My Software
PRODUCTIVITY No productivity suite- Includes Microsoft Works 8. DOES NOT INCLUDE MS WORD edit
ANTI-VIRUS & SECURITY No Security Subscription



Cyberpower ($740):
CASE: TURBO X-DREAMER CASE 350 WATT W/ WINDOW & LCD Temperature Display (BLACK COLOR)
CPU: (Socket AM2) AMD Athlon?64 3500+ CPU w/ HyperTransport Technology
MOTHERBOARD: (Socket AM2)MSI K9N Neo-F nForce 550 Chipset DDR2/800 SATA-II RAID 16x PCI-Express MBoard w/GbLAN, USB2.0, &7.1Audio
MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)1GB (2x512MB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory (Corsair Value Select or Major Brand)
VIDEO CARD: NEW !!! NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GS 256MB PCI Express x16 Video Card
VIDEO CARD 2: NONE
LCD Monitor: NONE
HARD DRIVE: Single Hard Drive (160GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 8MB Cache 7200RPM HDD)
Data Hard Drive: NONE
Optical Drive: (Special Price) 16X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER (BLACK COLOR)
Optical Drive 2: NONE
SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO

Also has keyboard, OS, floppy, LAN, etc etc like the Dell


Since this is a pc for new pc users, I really like the Cyberpower 3 year warranty. Dell's warranty is 1 year only. Also, this is helpful since I am out of town and don't want to be bothered years down the road. The video card on the Cyberpower is much better. Dell does not even offer anything comparable in their configuration. Finally, I like that Cyberpower has a selection of Enermax and Thermaltake psu's.

PS If you have a suggestion for a different case from Cyberpower, please let me know.
 
You don't list OS. Keep in mind that Windows XP Home Edition support expires in two years, and Vista will offer better resistance to exploits, so I would be looking for Vista, especially with the mention of kids. Lock away the Admin powers so they don't install Kazaa and 50 other types of spyware-infested stuff.
 
Originally posted by: blackrain
This pc is for out-of-towners. They have never had a pc before. They have kids. They will use it for office, Internet, gaming. I would like any comments.

Since this is a pc for new pc users, I really like the Cyberpower 3 year warranty. Dell's warranty is 1 year only.
Click to expand...
"<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/company/warranty.asp">LENGTH OF WARRANTY -- The warranty term for new desktop computer systems purchased from CyberPower is three (3) years beginning on the date of the invoice, as further described below.

Motherboard, Hard Drive, CPU, RAM, Video Card, and LCD monitor came with the new desktop computer system, parts and upgrades sold separately from the computer system carry a one (1) year term as further described below.</a>"
:roll:

 
People don't like dealing with indian call centers for Dell, but you know (eventually) they'll take care of the problem.

I've seen a few negative posts here about Cyberpower's customer service so I'm not sure I'd recommend them to someone not comfortable doing their own repair work.

For gaming, the 7600GS is a step up from an x1300 pro though.
 
Originally posted by: Blain
Originally posted by: blackrain
This pc is for out-of-towners. They have never had a pc before. They have kids. They will use it for office, Internet, gaming. I would like any comments.

Since this is a pc for new pc users, I really like the Cyberpower 3 year warranty. Dell's warranty is 1 year only.
Click to expand...
"<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/company/warranty.asp">LENGTH OF WARRANTY -- The warranty term for new desktop computer systems purchased from CyberPower is three (3) years beginning on the date of the invoice, as further described below.

Motherboard, Hard Drive, CPU, RAM, Video Card, and LCD monitor came with the new desktop computer system, parts and upgrades sold separately from the computer system carry a one (1) year term as further described below.</a>"
:roll:
Click to expand...


Not sure what you are trying to say with that? It makes sense that anything sold separately would not come with the same warranty.
 
Originally posted by: mechBgon
You don't list OS. Keep in mind that Windows XP Home Edition support expires in two years, and Vista will offer better resistance to exploits, so I would be looking for Vista, especially with the mention of kids. Lock away the Admin powers so they don't install Kazaa and 50 other types of spyware-infested stuff.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that point. The Dell comes with Express Upgrade to Windows Vista Home Premium from XP Media Center Edition.

The Cyberpower has Windows XP Home and an upgrade to Windows Vista Home.

By the ay, can't you lock the admin powers away in XP Home? Or is that only in XP Professional?

 
By the way, can't you lock the admin powers away in XP Home? Or is that only in XP Professional?
Click to expand...
With XP Home, you can put people on Limited accounts for daily-driver purposes like web browsing, email, office stuff, and IM. On WinXP Professional, you can additionally slap on a Software Restriction Policy, which is really cool.

Limited accounts do cause issues for some software on WinXP, especially older games, and stupidly-designed stuff like QuickBooks. Vista should be better, letting the problem software think that it's got Admin powers when it really doesn't. And if they log on as the Admin in Vista, and they run software (Internet Explorer for example), it doesn't run at Admin power, it runs at a restricted level and watches for it to try anything weird that it's not supposed to try to do, in which case it gets shut down.

Vista also has parental restriction capabilities so the parents can restrict who can use the Internet, during what hours, what sites they can visit, it can keep logs of their browsing for later review, and lets parents control what installed software a given kid can/can't run (including games).

Anyway, if it were me, I'd try to skip WinXP and go straight to Vista.
 
Sorry I should have clarified that both systems above come with keyboard, mouse, software, etc. They already have a monitor that was a hand-me-down from someone else.

I am not crazy about the e-machines and the video is sub-par for Vista and gaming. I appreciate the input though.
 
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