Buying a PC

[Kyle Orton]

Here's the deal, I hate PCs, have owned a Macbook pro for 3 years that still runs extremely will and doesn't crap out like PCs do, but starting next semester, I'm gonna have to start working with information systems a lot more which requires a PC, so I'm prolly buying one over the Summer for school work (still keeping my mac tho).


It's prolly gonna be a desktop as I can get more bang for my buck there and i already have a laptop. I'm gonna have to do a lot of work on excel, visio, access, and if I'm buying a PC I might as well get one where I can play games on it. Any recommendations?

[Cry Havoc]

What's your budget? Do you want to play the newest game at high resolutions or just kind of casually game here and there? Do you have any space restrictions?

[Kyle Orton]

Casual gaming here and there. No space restrictions (like you said to that dumbass vander, all a desktop does is sit under my desk). More or less, my big concern is being able to run Microsoft access and accounting software on it.

budget is around $800-$1000, so if I can run games at high resolution on that budget then fine with me. Idk if you have to work with office software that much, but idk if there's one specific brand that's known to run office programs well and more advanced accounting software as well.

[Cry Havoc]

Oh, and perhaps most important, can you build this system yourself or do you want it to be pre-built? You save a lot of money with the former.

[Kyle Orton]

Does it come with directions :lol, I'd spend a whole day putting it together if it means I can get more for my money.

[diego]

i'm not an expert on the subject but I know it is possible to make a dual boot system with both windows and mac os on it, if that suits you more; or, you can run parallels or some other windows emulator on your mac and save yourself the trouble of buying new hardware. I setup paralells on my sisters mac so she could run some company app that wasnt available for mac OS

[Cry Havoc]

Does it come with directions :lol, I'd spend a whole day putting it together if it means I can get more for my money.

Yup. The only complicated thing is wiring the motherboard up to the case/PSU.

[ElNono]

For that budget you should be able to put together a fairly high end system...

If you don't want to mess around putting it together, this Dell XPS 8300 (http://www.dell.com/us/p/xps-8300/pd?oc=dxcwmn1&model_id=xps-8300) for $700 should do all you need and let you play most of the games... You would just need to add between $100-$200 for a monitor.

[Kyle Orton]

I have a 23" HDTV/monitor I'm not using at all right now which would be the monitor so that's intriguing. If my friend who's a computer engineering major can help me with it I'm leaning towards putting it together as I can build a much better PC and that one Cry Havoc made looks sick as hell.

[ElNono]

Yes, you'll get a better bang for the buck if you order the stuff and put it together... plus you get a good idea going forward if you want to upgrade it yourself...

[baseline bum]

Yeah, the hardest part of building a system is figuring out where all the wires that control the buttons and LEDs on your case plug into the motherboard. It's easy to forget something stupid like plugging your video card into the power supply too I guess. :lol

[baseline bum]

One piece of advice I have, especially for a first time build, is to buy a large case. A good-sized case makes it so much easier to just easily put in your motherboard, hard drives, video card, etc. I also like getting a case with easily removable hard drive cages, that way when you add a new hard drive all you do is snap the cage out, screw the drive into the cage, and snap it back in.

[Kyle Orton]

Yeah I'd need to get a big case, especially because I have monkey hands that prolly can't install all the stuff in a small case.

[Cry Havoc]

I have a 23" HDTV/monitor I'm not using at all right now which would be the monitor so that's intriguing. If my friend who's a computer engineering major can help me with it I'm leaning towards putting it together as I can build a much better PC and that one Cry Havoc made looks sick as hell.

I recommend newegg and Tiger Direct.

Parts that should be in your price range:

Intel Quad Core 2500k processor - best proc on the planet for the $$$.
8 GB of RAM. Make sure the mobo you buy supports the speed of the RAM.
Mobo by Asus or reliable manufacturer... make sure it's 1155 pin for the 2500k, and that it's 16x e-pci
1 Terabyte hard drive (don't get the Caviar Green, they're cheap but they suck)
ATI 6870 or 6850 video card, or Nvidia 560, depending on your preference
600+ watt power supply (modular is highly recommended as it eliminates your case clutter). More here if you plan to SLI/Crossfire your cards down the road.
Find a case that looks badass to you (basically anything that would get koriwhat to get really pissed off and make retarded comments in your thread) and has good reviews. This is highly variable here. Keep in mind that Full size is HUGE, my case is quite large and it's a mid-tower. Thermaltake, Antec, Coolermaster, Rosewill, and NZXT are all solid buys.

The only other thing is an optical drive, and that's easy to find on newegg.

[Kyle Orton]

Thank you CH thats a huge help I was lost as to everything I needed :lol