Retroanon3

Hey everyone, recently my girlfriend decided she wanted to buy a new desktop PC. She is tired of using her 7 year old family computer which is basically just a piece of garbage. I am going to try helping her pick out a nice PC that is within the $800-$1,000 price range. She plans on buying computer parts to replace the ones that come with her new computer in an attempt to build a really kickass computer. I've never done something like this so I've come here to ask for a few suggestions. She doesn't want to spend any more than $1000 for the computer and the parts. So what would be a good desktop to have her start with and where would I find top-of-the line computer parts such as hard drives, RAM, video cards, etc? I can't build the computer from scratch, so I just wanna help her spend her money in the best way possible to get the most for her money. Thanks for any help.

SiN

so, she's going to buy a prebuilt, and then replace all of the components...

...but neither you (nor she? why can't she build it?) can build it yourself?


Yet....you want to spend the money in the best way possible?

Please elaborate

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bal8664

I wouldnt recommend buying something like a dell and then ripping out componenets and replacing them, firstly this voids the warrenty, which is alot of what you pay for. Secondly,whats the point? I would just buy a barebones syetm off of newegg, these usually include a case, motherboard, processor, ram, and powersupply. Then you buy the other componetens like videocard, mouse, keyboard etc. Newegg.com is the place you should probbaly get all of your components, they have great prices and customer service. If you need any advice on what parts to buy just ask!

tecoyah

you might look into one of the power sellers of barebones systems on E-bay. Once you win an auction...most allow you to add the components you want, and have the system put together for you....including an OS should you require it.
I had a pretty good P4 system with advanced Vid card put together for a friend for well under $500 awhile back (without OS).
Worth a look anyway.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...139018580&rd=1

here is an example....please dont buy this one....just look and check the upgrade options

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bendsley

Get your parts from either www.cpu.com or www.newegg.com

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"You hear the one about the fella who died, went to the pearly gates? St. Peter let him in. Sees a guy in a suit making a closing argument. Says, "Who's that?" St. Peter says, "Oh, that's God. Thinks he's Denny Crane."

SiN

I still like the idea of his gf building it herself.

Girls who can build puters are sexy

(ps) if you/she does choose the BIY option, we are here to help

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Retroanon3

I was looking around NewEgg and now I'm really interested in doing business with this site. I wasn't too impressed by the barebone systems' shape. The cube shaped case just looks really strange. Would it be better to buy a barebone system off eBay or just build the entire computer with parts from newegg? If it would be easier to buy the barebone off eBay, what specs should I be looking for? I'm aiming for having a P4 processor that is at least 3.0 gHz. I would ideally like to have a 120 GB hard drive, at least 512 RAM, a 128 MB or higher graphics card, and if possible an awesome case with maybe blue or red lighting. A flat screen monitor would be nice too.

How easy is it to put these parts in a PC case? I've never done anything like this before other than inserting an ethernet card in a slot and screwing it in. Will I be able to stay within the $800-$1000 budget with the specs I mentioned above? Another question is, how do warranties work in this kind of situation? If the computer starts acting up who could I contact for help or possibly ship the defective parts to for a replacement. Thanks for all the help so far everyone!

theFez

thats really about all the harder it gets.

when i got an internship last summer in the it department of an ecommerce company my first day on the job they told me "the parts room is over there, go see what you can put together for your computer." I had upgraded ram and replaced harddrives and cdroms before and i didnt have any problem.

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jason87

I have a dell and its a very good pc and comes with good software.

G5_Todd

Intel Pentium 4 System

Case: Aspire X-Dreamer II (with 350W PSU) - $52
CPU: Pentium 4-3.0E GHz Prescott (800) Retail - $188
Cooling: included Retail HSF - $0
Motherboard: MSI 865PE NEO2-PFS Platinum - $80
Memory: 2 x 256-MB PC3200 DDR - $76
Hard Drive: 80GB Western Digital SE (8-MB) - $60
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900XT 128-MB- $166
Monitor: ViewSonic E90FB - $190
Sound Card: 6-Channel Integrated - $0
Speakers: Logitech Z640 6-Piece Speaker System - $45
CD/DVD-ROM: AOpen COM5232 Combo Drive - $35
Communications: Onboard LAN - $0
Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse Optical - $15
Keyboard: Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard - $15
Operating System: Windows XP Home - $78

Total: $1,000

G5_Todd

AMD Athlon XP System

Case: Aspire X-Dreamer II (with 350W PSU) - $52
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Retail - $188
Cooling: included Retail HSF - $0
Motherboard: MSI K8T Neo-FSR - $79
Memory: 512-MB Corsair Value PC3200 DDR - $78
Hard Drive: 80GB Western Digital SE (8-MB) - $60
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900XT 128-MB- $166
Monitor: ViewSonic E90FB - $190
Sound Card: 6-Channel Integrated - $0
Speakers: Logitech Z640 6-Piece Speaker System - $45
CD/DVD-ROM: AOpen COM5232 Combo Drive - $35
Communications: Onboard LAN - $0
Mouse: Microsoft Intellimouse Optical - $15
Keyboard: Microsoft Multimedia Keyboard - $15
Operating System: Windows XP Home - $78

Total: $1,001

G5_Todd

http://www.sharkyextreme.com/guides/...le.php/3435541


both stolen from above


hope this helps

Retroanon3

I asked one of my friends about building a PC. He said it was easy to build one, however it is really difficult to configure it and make sure it's a stable PC. There are menus and things I have no experience with so that could be a problem. If I bought a barebones system with Windows XP installed on it and then replaced and added a few parts would that make things easier for me? Would I still have to deal with menus? Or better yet, if I were to build the entire thing and I had to configure it myself, is there a site or source I could use that walks through the steps of configuring a custom PC? Thanks.

Lasereth

What is she gonna use the computer for? $1000 is super overkill unless she's gonna be a GrrrlGamer. You can build a great PC for under $500 if all she's gonna do is homework and Internet.

And despite what anyone will tell you, building a PC is simple but very technical and troublesome. I can't imagine how hard it would be to build a PC without having someone there who has did it before. If you DO build the PC from scratch make sure someone is there who's did it before or you're FUBAR.

-Lasereth

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Retroanon3

Any other suggestions?

Lasereth

Answer the questions I asked above and I can list ya out the best possible solution!

-Lasereth

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KnifeMissile

I totally agree that the best money saving technique in buying a computer is figuring out how you will honestly use it. The technique of buying the best computer within a budget is only for geeks whose livelihood depends on one.

As for putting a computer together yourself, this can be a wonderful and rewarding experience but you must seriously consider if this is really for you. I recently, for the first time, put together a computer from scratch and, while it was rather simple (for me), it was also far more time consuming and frustrating than I had anticipated. You must follow the instructions carefully and be prepared to solve problems because they will encounter some! Two things that are not in any of the instructions are what drivers you need for what devices and how to configure two devices sharing the same bus. If you have no clue what I'm talking about then you should consider getting someone else to build your computer (from scratch for some OEM, like Dell).

So, in short, you can easily build your own computer as long as you're good at following instructions, including inferring what the instructions mean (because the English language is only so precise), and if you are good at problem solving (because something will go awry). If you're interested, dalaamprince (who is the thread starter) I can make a thread about my personal adventure in building a computer. It is long and complicated, with a lot of ins and outs and what-have-you, much like The Big Lebowski, and you might learn a lot from my experience, like whether you want to go through the same thing...

pcockren

they are very easy to build, and i have done it myself...bought all the parts at www.mwave.com. They are very reasonable on price...The machine you can build yourself will be a beast compared to what you will spend on a prebuilt machine. However, the lesson i learned after building my beast and having it for 4+ years is that Apple is revolutionizing the industry and i bought a mac. The hardware and software works seamlessly and it has great security and stablity because it is built on unix....just my opinion though...but if you really want to build one from scratch, i would go to MWAVE...

BoltedDown

Newegg kicks ass! They deliver fast have great prices. I build my whole gaming machine for ~$1200, and every part was bought from them.

dogzilla

The mechanical part of building a PC is pretty simple. Cables today are pretty much keyed so you can't plug things backwards and connectors will only plug into one place. There are some things that are a bit tricky like picking the right memory and matching the motherboard to the processor.

Installing a version of Windows and installing drivers can be tricky. I've run into the occaisonal piece of hardware where getting the drivers installed has been tricky. Most of the time the install works with no problems. XP might be better, but I have not yet installed it on any machine.

Newegg is a good company to do business with. I am willing to take risks when ordering parts and generally go with the dealer on pricewatch that has the best price. Maybe I've been lucky, but the only problem I've ever had is a dealer that sent me a processor with bent pins. He supposedly had a bad reputation on resellerratings.com, but he did replace the processor with no hassles.

Edit: Forgot to mention - bottom line, I agree that if yuo have never done this before, you want someone who has done it at least once to help you.