Ballzor

So im tired of my pos dell inspiron laptop and want to upgrade to something thats going to be able to handle all of the things I do with my computer. So I'm a huge fan of Dell just because of the service I've had with their technical support (they actually answered my call in less than 2 hours and rebuilt my laptop after I fried it), and I'm looking to get a dell xps tower. I play a lot of games on my computer and I want to get a system thats going to 1. be upgradable, 2. last longer than 2 years before I have to worry about upgrading. I've done some research and this is the system i think is within my price range:


-XPS 720
-Intel core 2 duo 2400-2900 (Is the quad-core worth it? does it have any advantages/disadvantages?, also is the core 2 extreme worth buying? I mean I can overclock the system myself but probably not as well as dell, anyone have any experience with this?)
-4 GB Ram
-120-500 GB Harddrive
- Windows Vista (I dont want to start a whole discussion thread about vista but for gaming how does this OS work. I know you need vista to recognize all 4 GB of ram but again is that worth it?)
-nVidia GeForce 8600-8800 ?mb (this is the thing that I know the least about. Is it worth it to shell out a whole grand for the 8800, a few years ago I bought the top of the line ATI card but neglected my processor and it made little difference, also what difference does 256/768 MB make?)

now the main issue is the price. I know if i bought this system direct from dell with all the best components I would be looking at a 3000-4000 dollar system, but ebay and delloutlet have systems with most of these components ranging from 1700-2400. I know the risk of buying a system off of ebay, but how about delloutlet, anyone have any experience with this website? Also does anyone know of a better website or store to get a system with these specifications at discount?

Finally I have this inspiron that I need to sell and I'm wondering if anyone knows of a good way to go about gettin rid of this, anyone know of a website aside from ebay that I could use? Its missing a battery and the speakers dont work for some reason (I think if i formatted they would work, I can get them to cut on if i put it to sleep like 10 times in a row but I have too much data I have to save to do it now) but it had all of the best components in it when I bought it, it basically had dell xps components in the more attractive inspiron body, well everything but the processor.

I know thats a lot but if anyone has any suggestions or advice, or knows a computer that fits the 1500-2300 price range that can do what I would, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

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