Anyone on 8thcivic really computer saavy?

[roadrunner1659]

I'm looking for someone with alot of computer knowledge b/c i am looking into purchasing my own computer! My little brother is extremly knowledgeble but being that he is in the military its hard to get alot of time to talk to him, so i'm looking else where for help!

This is what i am thinking -

Desktop (either a dell or building on if its cheap - but i dont know what i am looking for or at)

Needs - Basic Computer needs as i am a college student, music, movies, pics, and some gaming.

This is what i built on dells website...i want either this computer or something comporable or better, but its about the limit for price i want to spend at this time...

My Components
PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 E6420 Duo Processor(4MB L2 cache,2.13GHZ,1066FSB) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium edit
MONITOR 20 inch UltraSharp™ 2007WFP Widescreen Digital Flat Panel edit
MEMORY 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 2DIMMs edit
HARD DRIVE 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™ edit
OPTICAL DRIVE Dual Drives: 16X DVD ROM Drive and 48X CD-RW/DVD Combo edit
VIDEO CARD 256MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro edit
SOUND Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeMusic (D) Sound Card edit
My Accessories
SPEAKERS No speakers (Speakers are required to hear audio from your system) edit
KEYBOARD & MOUSE MX 3200 Laser Cordless Keyboard and Mouse edit
FLOPPY & MEDIA READER No Floppy Drive Included edit
MODEM 56K PCI Data Fax Modem edit
My Software
PRODUCTIVITY Microsoft Works 8. DOES NOT INCLUDE MS WORD edit
Dell Recommends
Upgrade your software!
Upgrade to Microsoft® Office Home and Student 2007 [add $149 or $4/month1]


ANTI-VIRUS & SECURITY No Security Subscription (Norton 30-day) edit
PHOTOS, MUSIC & MORE! Yahoo! Music Jukebox - Music Player edit
Dell Recommends
Want to do photos in your new PC? --Get Corel Snapfire Plus now!
Upgrade to Corel Snapfire Plus - Photos made easy: create slideshows, projects, more! [add $39 or $1/month1]


My Service
WARRANTY AND SERVICE 1Yr In-Home Service, Parts + Labor - Next Business Day edit
DIAL-UP INTERNET ACCESS 6 Months of America Online Membership Included edit
ALSO INCLUDED WITH YOUR SYSTEM
Mouse Mouse included in Wireless, Laser or Bluetooth Package
Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 7.0
Network Interface Integrated 10/100 Ethernet
Miscellaneous Award Winning Service and Support
Labels Windows Vista™ Premium

So, if anyone can help that would be great!

Thanks!

[8thgenuser]

You might be able to save yourself a hundred dollars or so by not getting some of the extra software. Check your to see if your school has a multi-user licensing agreement with Microsoft. My school did (back in the late 1990s lolz) and I was able to get a student edition of Microsoft Office for $20.

Skip on the anti-virus software. There are very good free anti-virus programs available out there, such as Avast. Skip the photo-editing software. Get Google Picasa for free instead.

Get a corded keyboard and mouse. This will save you the hassle of having to replace your batteries when they run out. See if a 19" LCD works for you. I bet it's a bit cheaper. You don't need a 56K modem. You'll likely be using a faster connection like DSL or cable.

Other than that, your set up looks okay for what you plan to use it for. Of course it will be obsolete in two years. That being said, there's no need to splurge on unnecessary computing luxuries. Get those awesome computing luxuries after you've graduated college and have a nice job where you'll be earning enough money to pay for those luxuries.

[roadrunner1659]

cool thanks 8thgenuser

[roadrunner1659]

if its going to be obsolete in two years would it be smarter to buy a comp to build so that every few years i could sell some of the pieces and ugrade?

[jocasti]

if u want sumthin thats not gonna be obsolete in 2 weeks get a mac. dude, i seriously will NEVER go back to windows again. anywho, before the flame war against mac begins, think about it. how many times have you been pissed at ur comp b/c sumthin goes wrong. ive had my mac for the better part of 2 years and have had 0 issues with it

[Bubble Gum Jr.]

Originally Posted by roadrunner1659

if its going to be obsolete in two years would it be smarter to buy a comp to build so that every few years i could sell some of the pieces and ugrade?

Build a computer you can afford. Then in a few years just sell, donate or throw it it away and build a new one. Upgrading is pretty pointless especially with computers because technology moves so fast, you're going to get more bang for your buck just by using the money you were going to spend upgrading and just building a completely new system, as opposed to spending $400 on something only to receive a minor increase in performance.

[8thgenuser]

Originally Posted by roadrunner1659

if its going to be obsolete in two years would it be smarter to buy a comp to build so that every few years i could sell some of the pieces and ugrade?

If the computer is obsolete, you would have a hard time selling obsolete pieces. Your computer should last you throughout your stay in college. You'll mostly use it for word processing and internet surfing anyway.

Looking again at your list, I would opt for a DVD writer for archiving your school work. It will also be helpful for burning movies and music and such as college kids often do. The other option would be to buy a large capacity external USB hard drive. The extra storage capacity will help leave room on your computer to store other important stuff like porn.

[Bubble Gum Jr.]

Originally Posted by jocasti

if u want sumthin thats not gonna be obsolete in 2 weeks get a mac. dude, i seriously will NEVER go back to windows again. anywho, before the flame war against mac begins, think about it. how many times have you been pissed at ur comp b/c sumthin goes wrong. ive had my mac for the better part of 2 years and have had 0 issues with it

Whether it be PC or an Apple system it will be obsolete in two years regardless. Especially now that Apple systems PC components, only difference is their OSes will run on older systems, however they're still limited by their hardware. You'll be able to run the newest OSes on your old system, however that doesn't mean it run well. Apple is an OS company that sells hardware, which is how they make all their money, anything you find inside of a current Apple system you can buy for 1/2 even 1/3 of the price. If you have the money to afford an Apple more power to you, but seeing as how he's a student he probably won't have the type of budget.

It also depends on what type of software you're running. If you do graphics design, video editing, musician stuff, then yes certain Macs are great for it.

If you're just a regular consumer and want to just something to check email, type a few homework assigned, play mp3's, movies, etc. do internet research both systems will work fine. You will find a better variety of software for the PC but overall they will all pretty much work the same in some regards. Apple will be much more secure but unless you're looking at pr0n any other naughty stuff you won't ever run into those type of issues.

If you're a gamer, you will want to stay away from Apple. Not many developers design games for Apples OS, so you will have to dual boot with either Linux or Windows if you have a newer Apple system. You will be able to find some games but usually a year or two after it's been released onto the PC equivalent OS

[roadrunner1659]

haha! ]

well the external HD i was planning on doing...i just got my little bro a 250 gb external HD for 89$...

and i'll look into the DVD thing...

i only have two yrs left in college but its time for me to get my own comp...

im looking for a comp that will do all my general school functions (surfing the web and writing papers)...as well as a few other things to keep track of my detailing business...i want a larger screen that is very clear for movie veiwing...and music well thats a given...not really into computer gaming but i know i will play a few...

[Bubble Gum Jr.]

As a student I'd highly recommend getting a laptop, they're considerably more expensive but the mobility of one is soo worth it. The big downside is the graphics cards on them are usually pretty bad unless you buy an expensive gaming/multimedia design laptop. Laptops also retain their value much better than desktops do because people always want laptops where as desktops are a dime a dozen. But you can find some pretty good laptops from Dell just make sure the video memory isn't shared.

[roadrunner1659]

i thought of a laptop but i'm not really sure...there are plenty of computer labs at school to do work while their i'll just get a memory stick...

i dont live on campus so...idk...

[Bubble Gum Jr.]

Originally Posted by roadrunner1659

i thought of a laptop but i'm not really sure...there are plenty of computer labs at school to do work while their i'll just get a memory stick...

i dont live on campus so...idk...

I hated using the computer labs at my university because they were very slow and not well cared for. A lot people would come in with dirty hands and the keyboards/mouses would be disgusting.

It's also good to have for class presentations because you know whatever files you're using will work. I know a couple times I prepared presentations and was told there would be a laptop available so all I had to do was burn my files onto a cd and I was good to go. Except I didn't know the computer did not have any video codecs and the room didn't have net access so I couldn't use my video part of the presentation.

Plus it's sweet when you can just goto the library and do your research all while typing your papers at the same time. Without having to checkout a ton of books, haul them home to type it up.

[roadrunner1659]

true...very good points...

well the new rowan education building (the building my classes are in) has a new computer in every classroom...i dont really have a problum with the comp labs as they are well kept for the most part and not overly slow either...

but if i was looking at a laptop, what would you reccomend considering what i have listed above? although with a laptop i would want something that is mobel and not overly heavy...

[GameTraveler]

Hmmmm,

That's a loaded question and has come up a few times in other threads, although your needs may be more specific.

I think it would be better to figure out what all your needs are, including the ones you *might* see yourself doing in a year or less. Just because you don't edit videos now, doesn't mean you might want to splice together the family christmas videos later.

Sidenote to Mac fans:

Originally Posted by Steve Jobs

Steve: You know, what’s really interesting is–and we talked about this earlier today–if you look at the reason that the iPod exists and the Apple’s in that marketplace, it’s because these really great Japanese consumer electronics companies who kind of own the portable music market, invented it and owned it, couldn’t do the appropriate software, couldn’t conceive of and implement the appropriate software. Because an iPod’s really just software. It’s software in the iPod itself, it’s software on the PC or the Mac, and it’s software in the cloud for the store. And it’s in a beautiful box, but it’s software. If you look at what a Mac is, it’s OS X, right? It’s in a beautiful box, but it’s OS X. And if you look at what an iPhone will hopefully be, it’s software.

And so the big secret about Apple, of course–not-so-big secret maybe–is that Apple views itself as a software company and there aren’t very many software companies left, and Microsoft is a software company. And so, you know, we look at what they do and we think some of it’s really great, and we think a little bit of it’s competitive and most of it’s not. You know, we don’t have a belief that the Mac is going to take over 80% of the PC market. You know, we’re really happy when our market share goes up a point and we love that and we work real hard at it, but Apple’s fundamentally a software company and there’s not a lot of us left and Microsoft’s one of them.

Granted that OS X won't natively run on a garden variety x86 without some assistance and tweaking, but in regards to the Mac/Apple versus the PC. Get with the current age, let go and grow up.

Back on topic, if you're going to go with Dell, HP or another retail brand, check GotApex? when you're ready. They may have some other deal you don't know about for the company you want to buy from.

If you're considering the laptop route, someone else pointed out this older DIY which is still valid. The vendor to get the shell from is RJTech. Laptops do *NOT* retain their value as well as desktops (see Ebay), since they generally can't be upgraded and the product cycle for every laptop vendor is about 6 months.

By now, you have your list of things you want to do and things you might do.

Obsolescence is a subjective view. What works for someone, may not need to change or be considered obsolete unless you prefer to be somewhere near the upper end of the technology curve; the only bottleneck for any computer is the person at the keyboard--that word processing document or spreadsheet won't get printed any quicker until you finish typing/working it out. :)

Consider this:
If you're going to be rendering graphics, working with videos or still images on a 19" or larger screen, playing games, then you'll want 256MB on an ATI Radeon or nVidia based video card.
If you're going to be storing movies, music, large graphic files or CAD drawings, then you may consider 250 GB or more.
If you want to get a computer that has upgrade potential, then you don't want any of the small form factor ones, just in case you decide to add another video card (SLI or CrossFire configurations) or other cards.

For that setup you listed from Dell, it looks good, and your memory choice leaves you the room to add more later. At least you know that it's Vista capable, since it comes with Vista Home, but you might want to choose a different version of Vista for the extras.

Try to eliminate all the software bundles on it, and 8thgenuser said. Price it out, and you may find your school bookstore or local office supply has a cheaper copy on the shelves.

You could also drop that X-Fi card, and visit NewEgg for a comparable card.

What is your budget? I think that will be the sole limiting factor, between what you want and what you can get.

If you just want something for now, even CostCo sells laptops, and my brother got an HP for about $800 which covers everything he needs for his class work and his ebay binges.

[roadrunner1659]

well the comp i put together and tweeked with the help of a very knowledgable friend, it came out to 1,298...although this is expensive, i would be ok with this price but i dont want to go over the 1300 range...

so how does this help?

[GameTraveler]

Originally Posted by roadrunner1659

well the comp i put together and tweeked with the help of a very knowledgable friend, it came out to 1,298...although this is expensive, i would be ok with this price but i dont want to go over the 1300 range...

so how does this help?

Gives me an idea of what to shoot for if I were building something similar for myself. From parts only from NewEgg, and matching what you have spec'd out, I would have gotten something similar built for $1354.14 (not including sales tax for CA, but only shipping costs).

Intel E6420 retail (includes CPU heatsink-fan attached) = $186 + free ship
Assu P5N3-E Sli Plus = 184.99 + 6.94 ship
2 x 1 GB DDR2 @ 667 Mhz = 64.99 + 4.99 ship
Western Digital 250GB hard drive = 61.99 +5.94 ship
Asus x1300 Pro 256 MB = 66.99 + 5.64 ship
Creative X-Fi Xtrememusic = 78.99 + 8.94
DVD rom = 16.99 + 5.64
dvd burner = 27.99 + 6.13
corsair HX520W power supply = 129.99 + free ship
Antec Performance One P180 case = 129.99 + 18.99 ship
MS comfort curve keyboard = 12.99 + 6.13 ship
Logitech G5 = 43.95 + 4.99
Samsung 206BW 20" widescreen LCD 2ms GTG = 259.99 + 13.97 ship

total = 1265.84 + 88.30 shipping

In comparison, your Dell configuration looks good, since you won't have to worry about putting it together, just plugging it in. Otherwise, this configuration may give you more options later on for upgrading.

The motherboard has 3 PCI-E slots, and has quite a few good reviews on it. You could get it with faster RAM for another $18. And a faster video card for $20-$40 more.

Another thought would be to re-configure that Dell with the lowest components, buy the faster ones through NewEgg, and ebay the stuff you replace--RAM, video card, sound card, etc.

My $.02

[roadrunner1659]

Wow game traveler thanks! I'll be honest i dont know enough about comps to know what i am looking at, but thanks!

Breaking it down more for you...

Price - 1300$ is about top of my limit

What i want - a great school, music, and movie computer...games aren't a big part of me, but i'm sure with owning my own comp i will purchase a few games (maybe even CSS - little bro plays that). I want a big, sharp, clear screen (idk why i just do haha - i would like to be able to read, write, and watch movies i guess and not have to strain my eyes.) Like everyone else, i want a fast comp. A 250 GB HD is fine, and in due time i would most likely get a 250GB external HD to go along with the comps HD. I would like the comp to be as wireless as possible. Outside of all of these things, i dont know what else i need to look into. I know that i wont purchase programs, security, and anything else along those lines b/c a friend is going to help me out in that department. Speakers, nothing big deal at the moment, just something that is clear and gets the job done for the time being.

Gametraveler i want to thank you again!

So, if this was you with my budget and my idea of what i want in a computer, what route would you go?

Thanks!

[e60.deluxe]

Originally Posted by jocasti

if u want sumthin thats not gonna be obsolete in 2 weeks get a mac.

Macs use the exact same hardware as PC now. and guess what, when they made the switch, they were advertising that they were ''up to 5x faster.''

the difference? well you cant really upgrade any of the computers except the $2500 one. where as you can buy a $299 dell and upgrade it.

anywho, before the flame war against mac begins, think about it. how many times have you been pissed at ur comp b/c sumthin goes wrong. ive had my mac for the better part of 2 years and have had 0 issues with it

ive been using Windows PCs for about 12 years and ive never really had an issue with it that wasnt caused by me. therefore, my PC is potentially 6x better than yours.

[Tastycakes]

Originally Posted by roadrunner1659

...games aren't a big part of me, but i'm sure with owning my own comp i will purchase a few games (maybe even CSS - little bro plays that). I want a big, sharp, clear screen (idk why i just do haha - i would like to be able to read, write, and watch movies i guess and not have to strain my eyes.)

Thanks!

I have an X1600 Pro w/ a 1.8 Ghz Xeon running at 2.2 Ghz and it does play CSS, HL2 and BF2 ok on all low settings so i'd skip on the x1300. The X1600 would run better on your system cause of a faster CPU tho.

For monitors i'd recommend Acer:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16824009108
Thats the AL2016, I have a AL1912 (non widescreen) and have had it for over a year and i paid $280 for it, now its down to $160 No problems at all even with leaving it on almost every night falling asleep to south park or famlily guy , so its been on almost 20 hours a day for over a year and acer is a good brand. My 19 widescreen is generic AGM brand, when it goes dark it looks like crap and its newer than the Acer. I think the 20" is only 20 bucks more than the 19".

Hope that helps.

[BATANG CITY JAIL]

Originally Posted by 8thgenuser

You might be able to save yourself a hundred dollars or so by not getting some of the extra software. Check your to see if your school has a multi-user licensing agreement with Microsoft. My school did (back in the late 1990s lolz) and I was able to get a student edition of Microsoft Office for $20.

Skip on the anti-virus software. There are very good free anti-virus programs available out there, such as Avast. Skip the photo-editing software. Get Google Picasa for free instead.

Get a corded keyboard and mouse. This will save you the hassle of having to replace your batteries when they run out. See if a 19" LCD works for you. I bet it's a bit cheaper. You don't need a 56K modem. You'll likely be using a faster connection like DSL or cable.

Other than that, your set up looks okay for what you plan to use it for. Of course it will be obsolete in two years. That being said, there's no need to splurge on unnecessary computing luxuries. Get those awesome computing luxuries after you've graduated college and have a nice job where you'll be earning enough money to pay for those luxuries.

god... are you broke when you buy your PC?.