computer shopping help

[mh2365]

I am looking to buy a new tower shortly after christmas and probably off of e-bay. I'm not the most computer savvy so I need help on what to get.


I currently have a 3 year old Dell Dimension 2300 (included my dxdiag) and I really can't play to many graphic games that I want to play. Since I mostly stick with text sims it hasn't mattered. But I am ready now.

I would like someone to help me with specific info, like if I stick with Dell what model # do I want. I know I need a graphic card like Nvidia or Radeon but no idea which one. How much memory what kind of processor and so on.

Kinda need my hand held on this one. A list of games I want to be able to play on my new system would include Pirates, Civ 4, The Movies, Rome: Total War and the Battlefield games.

I'll have about 500-600 to spend. Thanks in advance for any help.

Mike

[sterlingice]

Since no one has chimed in, I'll run a couple of questions past you to start off and a couple of simple notes:

1) Haven't bought off of ebay but I'd imagine it's the same thing you could build from cheap Newegg parts for a $100 building and $20 shipping markup.

2) Do you think you have some sort of mechanical and computer aptitude? Or a geeky friend who can help you out? If so, you can build youself a machine and save some cash.

3) Is it just the box itself you need? No printer or monitor or anything?

SI

[WrongWay]

Please wait for the post Christmas sales to begin and then first check out your local big chain electronic stores. I expect to save around 50% this year.

That is what I will be doing this year.

The "Build your own" People bash me because that is where I buy all my computers from. But, for me I think it is the only way to go. I love having a computer I bought from a local store that is under full warranty.

And, yes I do buy the extended warranties because I don't know shit about computers. I love knowing that if I ever have any problems I can simply run over to the store I bought it from and they will have it back to me in about a day good as new, no questions asked.

Look for me out there in the Parking lot hauling away my brand new computer with the big red Tag on it this January. :)

[sterlingice]

Well, if you don't know anything about computers- what you said is the way to go. Hence why I asked the question above. It would be like people who say cars are really easy to fix and laughing at me for getting the extended warantee because I don't know word one about them. Ultimately, you don't so much save money as you get significantly better quality parts for the same money if you have the time to build it and the know-how but you have to have those or else the greatest parts in the world are useless.

SI

[mh2365]

I can't build my own computer .... ebay always has good prices on towers .... and I am waiting until after christmas.

What I really need is to know what to buy in order to run graphic games i.e. pirates and the movies and battlefield 1942. Pirates wouldn't run on my current computer I believe mainly because of my graphics chip. So I need to know what kind of Radeon or Nvidia chip to make sure it comes with, what type of memory I need or what model of Dell, Gateway or so forth.

Also I only need a tower, nothing wrong with my monitor ... printer I could care less about.

Granted this is a little more than I want to spend but something like this I would think could play the games I want to play. But all the technical details are beyond me.

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-Desktop-Gaming-PC-Computer-AMD-64-Alienware-Soft_W0QQitemZ8729586476QQcategoryZ114192QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[sterlingice]

I don't know the specific stats you need for those games but I would think that here are some buying tips:

1) Processor: Anything that's an Athlon 64 (made by AMD) or a Pentium 4 (Intel) over 2.8 GHz or so should be good. Do not go with a Sempron (AMD) or Celeron (Intel)- they're crap chips unless you know what you're doing and overclock them.

2) Memory: You probably need a good 1 GB (1024 MB) of memory (RAM). You don't need more but if they have it for reasonable cost, go for it, as this is a good way to get performance increase for fairly inexpensive rates.

3) Graphics cards: I don't know about this one- this is going to be very dependent on those games. Hopefully someone who has those games can help with more specifics. Only one "don't" here- whatever you do, don't get something which lists "integrated graphics" or "shared memory". What that means is that you have a crap graphics card on the motherboard and it uses your memory to do graphics. In short, rather than having a card dedicated to handling high end graphics, it puts the load on the rest of the system to do it. This is a bad idea- you don't get nearly the quality on an important feature.

4) Other onboard peripherals: As opposed to graphics, onboard LAN/network card is ok. They aren't complicated and it just simplifies matters to have it included. Almost any motherboard worth its salt these days has it included. The sound card is another matter- some people are ok with onboard sound (mine is), but if you're a big audiophile, then you'll want an Audigy or similar card. Onboard sound will not sound as great as if you have a dedicated card, however, the difference is not all that great and not worth the cash in my opinion.

5) Mouse, keyboard, etc: Don't stupidly pay extra for shiny objects that could be had for cheap at a retail store. When buying a box on somewhere like Ebay, they're going to want to give you bells-and-whistles type stuff. Basically, try to get you to pay extra for a shiny case or a mouse or something that cost them $5 extra over a grey case or $5 over a less shiny mouse in an attempt to get you to pay $50 extra. Don't fall into the trap. On that one you linked, the speakers are like that, too- a shiny 2.1 system that's probably crap quality.

6) For things you don't understand like the motherboard, check out tomshardware.com - they are a great reviewing site and will give you an idea if the person making it is skimping on parts or giving you good value for your money.

7) Hard drive: pretty much anything will do. Odds are the smallest hard drive that will be included will be a 60 gig hard drive. You won't run out any time soon. Whatever you do, don't sit there and be using this as a determining factor- if, for the same price, you get a 60 gig hard drive and 2 gigs of RAM versus 120 gig hard drive and 1 Gig of RAM- take the 2 gigs of RAM in a heartbeat.

8) Optical drive: do you plan on burning DVDs? I find it a really good way to make backups- everything fits on a DVD and I don't have to worry about losing too much stuff if my computer dies. Very few people think this way and lose everything when something crashes. If you plan on doing backups, a DVD burner is the way to go. If not, then it's not worth anything to you and you should just go with a DVD player (DVD-ROM) and CD burner (CD-RW) which is pretty much standard these days. You do need the DVD-ROM to play a lot of games as they tend to come on DVDs but you don't need a burner.

Also, as WrongWay said, the best time of year to buy in retail is January/February as there are a lot of sales and chances to buy much better stuff for the same price.

SI

[mh2365]

Very helpful Sterling thank you ... only thing left is what type of Radeon or Nvidia I need.

[lighthousekeeper]

i agree with what SI said above. With your budget you listed, finding a suitable graphics card will be the toughest part.

I am currently shopping for a computes (and will also wait until Jan.) and have a budget of around $1,100, and I think I'm going with an NVidia 6800x or maybe a 7800GT (if they drop in price enough by Jan). You want to make sure your computes not only can play games like Pirates, but also the next gen games (like Oblivion, etc.), so in that case I would say the minimum recommended card would be a NVidia 6600.

[jbmagic]

best video card for the budget is 6600gt

[WrongWay]

We have the first real January weekend comming up in 2 days. Anyone know of a big sale? I will be scanning my Sunday paper for all it's inserts.


Also, it might be a tough year to call for post holiday sales as the Gift Card was a huge seller this year and many retailers may try to wait it out for a few weeks.

[sterlingice]

We have the first real January weekend comming up in 2 days. Anyone know of a big sale? I will be scanning my Sunday paper for all it's inserts.


Also, it might be a tough year to call for post holiday sales as the Gift Card was a huge seller this year and many retailers may try to wait it out for a few weeks.I haven't looked for computers lately, but fatwallet and anandtech are two great places to start combing ads and sales for computer stuff.

SI