Posted by SirPoonga on February 09, 2002 at 18:55:46:
In Reply to: Different opinion posted by Mike on February 09, 2002 at 17:50:09:
: If you did a lot of upgrades yourself you wouldn't be looking for an entire new box. My suggestion is to go to www.compusa.com and look in the clearance section at the refurbs. They still have the full manufacturer warranty and they are cheap. For example this is one of the boxes they have for $629
: HP Pavilion 7955 Minitower
: Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor, 1.5GHz, 256MB RAM, 40GB Hard Drive, 12X8X32 CD-RW and 16X DVD Drives, Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition, 1 Year Warranty Included
: You can't build a box that cheap and it really isn't worth getting a highly upgradable computer anymore because things change so fast you can't upgrade. Any box you buy still has some upgrade potential ie: video card, harddrive. Plus I used to repair the PC's at compusa and refurbs very seldom ever come back because any problem it might have had has already been fixed.
:
Bet oyu that 40gig hd is a 5400. Most clearence ones these days are. IF it isn't than that is a really good price.
Abit/AMD 1.6Ghz Athlon - $188
ATX 300W case - $10-$150 pick what you want:)
Most decent ones being $40
256 Megs of ram - $35
40 gig IBM HD 7200 rpm - $80
DVD/12x burner combo - $112
Kyro II 64meg (nice card) - $55
(All name brand parts)
That's just over $500.
If you don't plan on upgrading it's be under $500 to get a cheaper case. As most cabinet pcs probably aren;t the staple computer of your life so you plan on not upgrading it. Just make it big enough to run your favorite games.
And the fact if you alread have a computer you already have windows so you could make a copmuter for cheaper than that one on clearence.
Anyway, my original point was to build your own, it is very cheap to do so. But if you do use AMD, it's proven to be faster than intel AND it is cheaper. An AMD Athlon at 1.2Ghz on a 266 fsb WILL out perform a 1.4Ghz P4 on a 400 fsb. There are benchmarks out there to prove that.
As long as you buy name brand parts (abit, asus, ibm, western digital, etc) the individual components will have warranties on the. Most harddrives have a 3 year warranty.
As you sya, things change so fast you really don't have to plan on making something that is upgradable. In a few months a new standard will come out. Hehe, the only thing I can upgrade on this comp is going from a PIII 500 to a 800. I maxed the video and memory and have a 40gig hd. I'm plenty happy with it. At the time 2x agp was all you could get:) For mame that's fine:)
Just make sure for a home pc you buy a good monitor. Don't skimp on that. A good monitor will last you 3-4 computers before it is out of date.