Should I stay away from this Compaq?

[barnett25]

My cousin wants to get a new PC for basic internet stuff, and to play Halo. He needs the computer to be as cheap as possible. I was looking on circuitcity.com (the only place near where he lives) and they have a Compaq for $514.99 that seems to have good specs. Is there any reason to stay away from this PC?

 

[mOeeOm]

Tell him have fun playing Halo on integrated graphics, my friend bought a similar Compaq, I lent him Halo and it looked horrible and lagged on 128mb integrated graphics.

I love this part on the site:

Excellent! This PC will Run:
Battlefield 2
Counter-Strike source
Half Life 2
Doom 3
Quake 3
Quake 4
Day of Defeat Source
Call Of Duty

Ya runs it...what fps??!?

 

[thesurge]

Originally posted by: barnett25
My cousin wants to get a new PC for basic internet stuff, and to play Halo. He needs the computer to be as cheap as possible. I was looking on circuitcity.com (the only place near where he lives) and they have a Compaq for $514.99 that seems to have good specs. Is there any reason to stay away from this PC?

besides the fact that it has crappy specs.

1) either build
2) find a good walmart/circuit city deal (blackfriday coming up)
3) go to dell + coupon codes.

 

[sniperruff]

dell deal + video card = teh win. look on fatwallet and the hotdeals forum. patience always pays off.

the compaq looks ok. but i expect it to be more like $400 or probably less.

 

[barnett25]

Originally posted by: thesurge

Originally posted by: barnett25
My cousin wants to get a new PC for basic internet stuff, and to play Halo. He needs the computer to be as cheap as possible. I was looking on circuitcity.com (the only place near where he lives) and they have a Compaq for $514.99 that seems to have good specs. Is there any reason to stay away from this PC?

besides the fact that it has crappy specs.

1) either build
2) find a good walmart/circuit city deal (blackfriday coming up)
3) go to dell + coupon codes.

Build isn't an option (I dont want to be tech support). What is wrong with the specs?

 

[mOeeOm]

Originally posted by: barnett25

Originally posted by: thesurge

Originally posted by: barnett25
My cousin wants to get a new PC for basic internet stuff, and to play Halo. He needs the computer to be as cheap as possible. I was looking on circuitcity.com (the only place near where he lives) and they have a Compaq for $514.99 that seems to have good specs. Is there any reason to stay away from this PC?

besides the fact that it has crappy specs.

1) either build
2) find a good walmart/circuit city deal (blackfriday coming up)
3) go to dell + coupon codes.

Build isn't an option (I dont want to be tech support). What is wrong with the specs?

Like I said, integrated graphics, which suck in games and they also suck your ram. Its a great PC for websurfing and such, but if he plans to play games.....he's gonna have to stick to low-end games like wc3, CS 1.6 etc.

 

[sniperruff]

Originally posted by: barnett25

Originally posted by: thesurge

Originally posted by: barnett25
My cousin wants to get a new PC for basic internet stuff, and to play Halo. He needs the computer to be as cheap as possible. I was looking on circuitcity.com (the only place near where he lives) and they have a Compaq for $514.99 that seems to have good specs. Is there any reason to stay away from this PC?

besides the fact that it has crappy specs.

1) either build
2) find a good walmart/circuit city deal (blackfriday coming up)
3) go to dell + coupon codes.

Build isn't an option (I dont want to be tech support). What is wrong with the specs?

the integrated video is the weakest link. it seems like a mATX mobo as well thus the lack of PCI slots (2 left). the video woe can be mitigated by the available PCI-E slot (which will add another $150 or so for a 6600GT/X800). ram is also on the low side but there will be 2 more slots for that. it also has on-board sound, which suck in general.

basically not a very expandable computer, and it's not that cheap. compaq tech support is also null. plus tax.

 

[barnett25]

Originally posted by: mOeeOm

Originally posted by: barnett25

Originally posted by: thesurge

Originally posted by: barnett25
My cousin wants to get a new PC for basic internet stuff, and to play Halo. He needs the computer to be as cheap as possible. I was looking on circuitcity.com (the only place near where he lives) and they have a Compaq for $514.99 that seems to have good specs. Is there any reason to stay away from this PC?

besides the fact that it has crappy specs.

1) either build
2) find a good walmart/circuit city deal (blackfriday coming up)
3) go to dell + coupon codes.

Build isn't an option (I dont want to be tech support). What is wrong with the specs?

Like I said, integrated graphics, which suck in games and they also suck your ram. Its a great PC for websurfing and such, but if he plans to play games.....he's gonna have to stick to low-end games like wc3, CS 1.6 etc.

His dad won't let him pay more for a computer that will play newer games, all he cares about is Halo anyway. And with the option to upgrade the Vid card later I didn't really think that was a big issue.

 

[barnett25]

Originally posted by: sniperruff

basically not a very expandable computer, and it's not that cheap. compaq tech support is also null. plus tax.

Is there a better PC in that price range that you can get at CircuitCity?

 

[shoRunner]

just add a 6600gt or x800gto2 and it will be a fine basic gaming pc and will run all the recent games

 

[sniperruff]

Originally posted by: barnett25

Originally posted by: sniperruff

basically not a very expandable computer, and it's not that cheap. compaq tech support is also null. plus tax.

Is there a better PC in that price range that you can get at CircuitCity?

like i said, i'd wait for a sale at dell home, and you can easily get a P4 5100's that is similar to the compaq, but with some sort of 19-inch LCD for around $600.


# Pentium-4 3.0GHz HT, 256MB DDR2, 80GB SATA, 48x CDRW/DVD, Intel Video
# 10/100 Ethernet, 19" E193FP Analog Flat Panel, XP Home, 90-Day Warranty

this happened around last week and it's not even that hot of a deal. add some more warranty, and a video card and you're good to go, now with a 19" LCD.

 

[barnett25]

Originally posted by: shoRunner
just add a 6600gt or x800gto2 and it will be a fine basic gaming pc and will run all the recent games

So that's not a bad deal if he can't wait for a good Dell coupon (plus the time it takes to ship it)?

 

[barnett25]

Originally posted by: sniperruff

like i said, i'd wait for a sale at dell home, and you can easily get a P4 5100's that is similar to the compaq, but with some sort of 19-inch LCD for around $600.


# Pentium-4 3.0GHz HT, 256MB DDR2, 80GB SATA, 48x CDRW/DVD, Intel Video
# 10/100 Ethernet, 19" E193FP Analog Flat Panel, XP Home, 90-Day Warranty

this happened around last week and it's not even that hot of a deal. add some more warranty, and a video card and you're good to go, now with a 19" LCD.

He's not going to wait, so I need to find him the best thing I can get him now. He doesn't want a monitor (he just bought one a couple months ago). I take it that the basic consensus is that he could get a better deal at Dell if he was willing to wait, but this isn't a bad deal keeping in mind that he needs a new GPU if he wants to do any real gaming.

 

[TNM93]

Originally posted by: sniperruff

Originally posted by: barnett25

Originally posted by: thesurge

Originally posted by: barnett25
My cousin wants to get a new PC for basic internet stuff, and to play Halo. He needs the computer to be as cheap as possible. I was looking on circuitcity.com (the only place near where he lives) and they have a Compaq for $514.99 that seems to have good specs. Is there any reason to stay away from this PC?

besides the fact that it has crappy specs.

1) either build
2) find a good walmart/circuit city deal (blackfriday coming up)
3) go to dell + coupon codes.

Build isn't an option (I dont want to be tech support). What is wrong with the specs?

the integrated video is the weakest link. it seems like a mATX mobo as well thus the lack of PCI slots (2 left). the video woe can be mitigated by the available PCI-E slot (which will add another $150 or so for a 6600GT/X800). ram is also on the low side but there will be 2 more slots for that. it also has on-board sound, which suck in general.

basically not a very expandable computer, and it's not that cheap. compaq tech support is also null. plus tax.

HD probably has only 2MB buffer as well. I would advise to go with something more upgradable.

 

[w00t]

tell him to get a dell with deals it could be a good deal.

 

[MrDudeMan]

the computer looks ok for basic use, but waiting on a dell deal would be the way to go.

 

[barnett25]

Well, he was impatient and went ahead and got a Compaq. He got the model above this one, it's the same but with 1GB RAM, 250GB SATA HD, and a second CD-ROM drive. I went to his house to help him set it up and I have to say it was pretty fast once I got all the junk off of it. I couldn't believe how much of a difference there was in startup time after using msconfig to get rid of some Compaq junk... and the computer actually came with WeatherBug(!) on it. Last I checked weatherbug was ad/spy-ware, maybe that's changed. Anyway, his computer seems at least as zippy as mine, and he payed just over 1/2 what I did for the one I built a year ago. Of course it only has integrated graphics, but $150 for a 6600gt and he could mop the floor with my 9800pro equiped PC.