PC buying advice (help me rip my heart out....)
OK, I've been forced into buying a PC against my will. To make a long and heart-wrenching story short...a major client of mine would 'like' me to have one in my office to 'ensure compatibility'. Ooog.
I've allocated around 1500-2000 for a simple, bare-bones machine. That includes: box, monitor, XP Pro & Office XP.
So...any ideas on what/where to buy? I know absolutely nothing about buying a PC, so I come to you all on bended knees for advice.
Also, I'm open to the idea of building my own box (with a push in the right direction) if I were able to maximize my $ doing it that way.
Or should I just buy a friggin Dell and get it overwith? God...I feel like I'm going to go to Hell for this...
Thanks. G.
I've allocated around 1500-2000 for a simple, bare-bones machine. That includes: box, monitor, XP Pro & Office XP.
So...any ideas on what/where to buy? I know absolutely nothing about buying a PC, so I come to you all on bended knees for advice.
Also, I'm open to the idea of building my own box (with a push in the right direction) if I were able to maximize my $ doing it that way.
Or should I just buy a friggin Dell and get it overwith? God...I feel like I'm going to go to Hell for this...
Thanks. G.
Comments
Why not just get the box plus a KVM and reuse your mac display/kb/mouse?
You don't need to spend anywhere near that much for a very fast and reliable desktop PC, surprising isn't it?
so get over your ignorant attitude
its just a computer
if you know how to assemble a machine then
do so..also if you expect to be playing games
on it
if not then dell makes decent machines
make sure you have atleast 512mb ram, a decent
video card & win2000 + sp2 (i cant stand xp
myself so i wouldnt foist that on you)
it will be fast stable & will last you quite a
while. yes it will be different but its fun
to learn new things
do not go the cheap route. a lot of the pc
troubles that people have are related to cheap
hardware.
enjoy
pete
[quote]Originally posted by 709:
<strong>OK, I've been forced into buying a PC against my will. To make a long and heart-wrenching story short...a major client of mine would 'like' me to have one in my office to 'ensure compatibility'. Ooog.
I've allocated around 1500-2000 for a simple, bare-bones machine. That includes: box, monitor, XP Pro & Office XP.
So...any ideas on what/where to buy? I know absolutely nothing about buying a PC, so I come to you all on bended knees for advice.
Also, I'm open to the idea of building my own box (with a push in the right direction) if I were able to maximize my $ doing it that way.
Or should I just buy a friggin Dell and get it overwith? God...I feel like I'm going to go to Hell for this...
Thanks. G.</strong><hr></blockquote>
<strong>Yah, you're spending WAY TOO MUCH.
Why not just get the box plus a KVM and reuse your mac display/kb/mouse?
You don't need to spend anywhere near that much for a very fast and reliable desktop PC, surprising isn't it?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Heh. Yeah, as you can probably tell, I'm used to buying Macs.
I though about the KVM option, but as I've been mulling this whole thing over I've decided to put it to more use than I initially planned (QuickBooks, a few games here and there, etc.), so I'd like a stand-alone machine.
<strong>Theres nothing wrong with buying pc
so get over your ignorant attitude
its just a computer
if you know how to assemble a machine then
do so..also if you expect to be playing games
on it
if not then dell makes decent machines
make sure you have atleast 512mb ram, a decent
video card & win2000 + sp2 (i cant stand xp
myself so i wouldnt foist that on you)
it will be fast stable & will last you quite a
while. yes it will be different but its fun
to learn new things
do not go the cheap route. a lot of the pc
troubles that people have are related to cheap
hardware.
enjoy
pete
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Thanks. I take offence to your first remark though, it might be 'just a computer' but it's a computer I do not want. Macs are 'just a preference' for me. Hopefully my attitude does not come off as ignorant to others. It wasn't meant as such.
Thanks for the rest. Any place in particular I should look if I want to build my own machine?
other than that, often times a local dealer is a good way to get a cheap machine. they build them for next to nothing, and actually know how to fix them if something goes wrong.
i've been less and less impressed with dell as time goes on.
<strong>only thing i'd highly recommend is going with windows 2000 over XP.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
OK then. here's a stupid question...will Office XP run on W2000 or will I have to get Office 2000?
I'll look into the local dealer thing too, didn't even think of that. <img src="embarrassed.gif" border="0">
or go to a local shop & they will help you
out
if you look at it as a learning experience
it could be a lot of fun
just like unix is new to mac users & now
they have to learn it if they want to in os x
ignore my earlier comment...i just get
riled at mindless os bashing from people
unix or win32 ..either way if you dont like
the try to make something better or find
a workaround
so no offense intended.
[quote]Originally posted by 709:
<strong>
Thanks. I take offence to your first remark though, it might be 'just a computer' but it's a computer I do not want. Macs are 'just a preference' for me. Hopefully my attitude does not come off as ignorant to others. It wasn't meant as such.
Thanks for the rest. Any place in particular I should look if I want to build my own machine?</strong><hr></blockquote>
<strong>
OK then. here's a stupid question...will Office XP run on W2000 or will I have to get Office 2000?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes. I'm currently running Office XP on my Win2K box at work.
[quote]<strong>I'll look into the local dealer thing too, didn't even think of that. <img src="embarrassed.gif" border="0"> </strong><hr></blockquote>
I second that recommendation. Dells are not all that well made. It was not so long ago we had 5 hard drive failures on less than a dozen of their desktops within a month. If you've already set aside $2000, you can get a local shop to build you a solid box with quality components in a good case.
Anyway, if you're not actually gonna be using this thing, get the cheapest crap possible. If you ARE gonna be using it, I would go with IBM or Micron, they have established PC base and do a lot more quality control than Dell or Compaq (I used to do PC repair and upgrades, and Dell and Compaq are the worst).
Windows 2000 Professional is better than XP in my opinion, but XP can be controlled remotely from Mac OS X, so you might want to go with that one
<strong>A CLIENT of yours is forcing you to buy a PC? Not a manager/boss? Sounds pretty silly, unless you're actually having some compatibility problems.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, I'm the manager/boss and this client is good for about 100K a year, so I figure I can spend a couple grand to make them happy.
The point of me having to get a PC is to avoid potential compatibility problems. They worry about me developing a selling tool on a Mac, when their national salesforce are running a hodgepodge of PC laptops. I can't really blame them.
When I had to replace the PC at work last year, I went to the local shop that I buy all of my Mac hardware from. I know I paid more than I would have building it myself, but it was so cheap anyways that it wasn't something I really noticed. It was nice to be able to just take it home and plug it in. It also came with a 3 year parts and 5 year labor warranty. (and they didn't charge me hundreds of dollars for it like Steve does)
If you're someone who likes tinkering, then you can save yourself a few bucks by putting it together yourself. Personally I couldn't be bothered... To each his own though.
<strong>
Well, I'm the manager/boss and this client is good for about 100K a year, so I figure I can spend a couple grand to make them happy.
The point of me having to get a PC is to avoid potential compatibility problems. They worry about me developing a selling tool on a Mac, when their national salesforce are running a hodgepodge of PC laptops. I can't really blame them.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Just so you know, we developed an app on desktop machines for deployment on laptop machines, and we ran into a number of issues there, even though all machines were Dells, all were of the same approximate vintage, and all were running Windows 2000.
It might not be a bad idea to find a laptop not unlike the ones out in the field and test on that.
I'll take the advice on going to a local shop and getting Windows 2000 instead of XP. Thanks for everyones help!
<strong>It might not be a bad idea to find a laptop not unlike the ones out in the field and test on that.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Another good idea. Thanks.
baracuda IV
they are exceptionally quiet drives
<a href="http://arstechnica.com/guide/system/budget.html"; target="_blank">http://arstechnica.com/guide/system/budget.html</a>;
This is Ars Technica's Budget Box. For under $800, this includes everything needed for a fast, powerful PC that's good at basically everything. Yes, that does include a monitor (a very nice 17" one). You can always trim components you don't need, or downgrade them. For example, maybe you don't need the full blown Radeon 9000 Pro graphics card so you could go with a simple Radeon 7500 instead, or you could even use the built-in GeForce 2MX on the motherboard (that particular motherboard has an integrated GeForce 2MX graphics card and an nForce sound card, both are good basic performers).
Anyway, to buy the various items, there are links to comparison charts. Or you could just save some hassle and go to NewEgg (www.newegg.com) and buy everything from there... you'll pay just slightly more but it'll be simpler.
You could also step up to the Hot Rod for about $1500... but you don't need that kind of power.
Here's another stupid question: Can I partition an 80GB drive into two drives, and then install XP on one partition and 2000 on the other?
Sorry, I really am lost when it comes to PCs.
The reason I say this is, in the 1000-1500 dollar range, you'll get the best performance from an nForce2 or KT400 motherboard with an Athlon XP CPU. Dell, HP, and Gateway all sell Pentium based systems, which are only faster on the high-end.
If you want a low-cost, tweaked out PC, but don't want to build it yourself, go to <a href="http://geekgeek.com/home.php"; target="_blank">Two Geeks</a>. They'll build you a custom PC using quality components for a very reasonable price.
I'd go with the following components
Athlon XP 2000+
MSI 6590 motherboard (KT400)
512MB PC2700 RAM
80 GB HD
Geforce4 Ti 4200
Creative Soundblaster Live! Audigy
Altec Lansing ATP3W speakers
17" CRT
40X CD-RW drive
Windows XP
Cost ~$1490 with free shipping
stick with win2k
everything will run on it office2k/office xp etc
etc & you wont have a problem if its correctly setup
for a vid card get a gforce3...nvidia makes
exceptional drivers & i havent had a single
lockup or crash on win2k in over 2 years
for a sound card go oem unless you need
a fancy surround sound system
cpu ..get a p4 the newer amd's tend to run
really hot & get a golden orb cooler put
on that cpu
the beauty of this is you have a lot of choices
when it comes to parts & you can update as the years go by without spending an arm & a leg
as would be the case for a ppc system (apple/ibm)
or sparc (sun u10/u60)
have fun building this