Help me spend my money on a new computer!

[hoyaguru]

It was suggested in Off Topic that I post this here...

It's tax refund time, and I'm going to end up with about $1100.00, and I want to spend it all on a new desktop. I'm figuring about $300 to $350 for a nice 19" flat screen, and with the rest I'll need a new:

Case
Power Supply
CPU
Memory
Video Card
Hard Drive

It's been years since I bought my last computer, I have no idea what's good out there. I want a real good video card with enough memory to handle graphics intensive games. A MB with room for a lot of memory so I can upgrade if I want it. Power supply that can handle everything with no problems. CPU? I have no idea what is good in the CPU world any more. Hard Drive is not real important, 80GB to 200GB shoudl be good. Any advice?

 

[dclive]

$629 gets a Dell setup - 19" LCD, Pentium D 2.8, and basic setup from Dell these days (total, no tax, for many people); for games add a 7900GT for $325 or so, and you're in business...$950, call it, for the whole thing.

Or you can make one - I've seen 3800 x2 combos for $280, add $300 for the monitor, $100 for RAM, $100 for case/key/ps/mou, $100 for XPHome, $100 for a HDD, $50 for optical drive, and you're at $1030 or so. Oh, and $325 for the gfx card, so you're at $1365 or so. Plus shipping, so that's probably $1400, give or take. You can probably find a cheaper monitor, though, than $300 - 19" LCDs are down to $200 if you can jump on a sale.

 

[hoyaguru]

Originally posted by: dclive
$629 gets a Dell setup - 19" LCD, Pentium D 2.8, and basic setup from Dell these days (total, no tax, for many people); for games add a 7900GT for $325 or so, and you're in business...$950, call it, for the whole thing.

Or you can make one - I've seen 3800 x2 combos for $280, add $300 for the monitor, $100 for RAM, $100 for case/key/ps/mou, $100 for XPHome, $100 for a HDD, $50 for optical drive, and you're at $1030 or so. Oh, and $325 for the gfx card, so you're at $1365 or so. Plus shipping, so that's probably $1400, give or take. You can probably find a cheaper monitor, though, than $300 - 19" LCDs are down to $200 if you can jump on a sale.

I'd rather not go with Dell or another big name, too proprietary. I used to build computers back in the day, I think the P4's were just coming out when I switched jobs, and I haven't kept up with the new stuff. If you can give me some more info, like $325 for the gfx card, which one are you referring to?

 

[gwai lo]

if you're going to do some graphic intensive stuff, you might want to save up a little more..or find a monitor/lcd screen from somewhere

 

[Quinton McLeod]

You're looking for a good LCD screen?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16824021019

I bought this LCD screen and it's awesome!

19inch 8ms TFT LCD screen. Super bright and very high contrast ratio. And it's under 300 bucks