Help me spec out a new home PC computer?
 

Okay, my home pc is slowly crapping out, and although I'm an electrical engineer, I'm out of touch with the latest PC hardware (yeah I grew up with Pong)

So, whats the best way these days to spec out a PC? Have Dell.com build one for you, buy a bundled system at Bestbuy or the local PC store?

I'm not a gamer but do appreciate a fast refresh rate, I do some CAD work so a good video card is a must, but the whole dual core / quad core and various PC speeds as well as Pentium verses AMD or Celeron....I'm just curious which is the "best" cost effective but bullet-proof way to go.

I'm figuring on a $1000 machine, don't need the cutting edge technology, but I know to spend a bit more up front and have the technology pay forward for a couple years. How much ram is "needed" these days, 4-6-8 gig?

1.8 mHz, 2.33 mHz dual core or quad core?

Heck my present 6 year old PC has a hard-drive that is only a 40 gig, and while starting to get full it's not like I need a 750 gig.........or do I?



I'm so tired of the blue screen of death, I'd even entertain buying a MAC. I'd like your thoughts on that topic too.



cheers.

20" IMac.

You will never look back.

There. You have it in writing.

Here's a chart that helped me figure out the convoluted CPU naming/rating. After that, max out the machines RAM, add a decent video card and you should be flying.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/common_cpus.html

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1241797401.jpg

If you are running XP or Vista 32 bit 4 gigs is the max. XP will not even "see" all 4 gigs of RAM. If you go with the 64 bit versions you can go to 256 gigs and up but that will blow your budget to heck.

Graphics best bang for the money
 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-geforce-gtx,2270.html

Check out tom's hardware for further info. They do regular updates on the best bang for your buck in given price ranges. You can probably find more for other parts, but this is just a recent graphics line up I read.

V.

Spend alittle more and get a 24 inch iMac.

There's an Apple Store in Alderwood Mall.

Go check it out.

You're an engineer. Ask them to pop the side off a MacPro for you. The build quality and attention to detail will be obvious.

Not a mac fan at all.

Any decent mac will blow the 1000$ budget all to heck. You should be able to get a screaming dell for a grand

The MacPro is a very nice machine...and starts at $1500 OVER his stated budget. I have a G5 PowerMac in the same aluminum case. Yes it's very handsome and well thought out but it sits under the desk so the aesthetic is pretty much lost. The iMac is nice but has limited upgrade possibilities and if you have a hardware problem (like many of the G5 models) it's not DIY fix friendly or cheap. The Mac Mini may/not support your CAD needs.

You can build a very nice workstation with a modern MB and mid-higher level CPU, decent RAM and video card for under your $1K budget. Terry's CPU graphic is very handy. Online places like www.newegg.com and www.tigerdirect.com would be the place I would use to buy the components. I don't recommend using Dell or similar so if you're looking for a complete ready to go system look for a neighborhood independent place like PC Club or similar. They will build a system, and support it, using off the shelf (non-proprietary) high quality hardware. That way you also get to choose the software and control the machine from start to finish.

Sounds like your aging PC has hardware issues - blue screen is pretty uncommon these days. Personally I have not experienced that since Win98.

You should go to the Apple retailer and check them out. They are good systems and you benefit from not having the virus worry a normal Win PC user does. Going with Mac will force you to bump your budget somewhat.

Depending on what software you need you should also consider a linux OS like Ubuntu or OpenSUSE. They are free to download and are very robust - very Mac OSX like in feel.

I have not tried Windows 7 yet. I am still working everyday on XP (with SP3) and never have issues.

Thanks guys.


grins, oh the days of my first home built machine in the mid 80'
s. Such choices between CGA / EGA 4 or 16 color graphics and a fast 10 mhz processor (screamed faster over the first 4.77 mhz IBM PC), or do I splurge the extra $1000 for the 286 processor, that was breath taking fast.

5 1/4" disks, yeah they were floppy, but you could also boot any machine with 3 files on a 360K disk. Autoexec.bat, Sys.ini, and Config.sys and the C> prompt was your friend.

DIR /W

woo hoo.


thanks all.

The MacMini is a screaming little machine. I have 6 of them at work and another at home. Fast, reliable, quiet and a small footprint. Amazing technology, really.

It's absolutely within his budget, too.

Hey I still have my copy of DOS 2.1. I even have my copy of Windows 386! I can remember dreaming of getting a HUGH 500 MB hard drive, that is MB not GB!

Dude get a 56k modem and you will ROCK!

Actually I built a PC about 3 years ago from components. It was surprisingly easy. Still runs great too, it's my 6 year old's computer now.

Precisely.

Yep, cannot even remember the last time i got the blue screen of death on my PC.

I recommended looking inside a MacPro to illustrate the build quality of the Apple line.

G5 is an old box these days and I recall you came by it used? A new Mac will come with a 1 year warranty and extending it to 3 years is relatively cheap. Warranty extension can be done at any time before the year expires, does not need to be purchased day one. Any issues related to the build lot will have surfaced within the 1st year and will be covered.

iMac like any one piece computer does have a limited upgrade path.

Whatever CAD work he is currently doing on a 6 year old computer will certainly be no issue for any new computer including the MacMini.

Mini comes with an Nvidia 9400, max resolution is 2560x1600, there are, last I checked, only 2-3 monitors on the market that can even run that high a resolution and they are $1,000 alone.

Base price $599 with a 2.0 ghz core2 duo, add$150 for the 2.26ghz processor and you are at $750 which still leaves room in the budget for a RAM bump, (don't buy from Apple) and a new monitor.

i bought the dell xps studio with the core i7 promo... payed 869 euro's inc vat and delivery, they went for pretty much the same price in dollars
best bang for the buck 2 months ago

hell, couldn't even score the parts for a self build core i7 for that kind of money...

I'll see your copy of DOS 2.1, and raise you a copy of Tandy's TRS-80 "trash 80" software.

I like both colors of screen, yellow or green.

I recall adding my first hard drive to my PC, back when. I don't recall how big it was, 5MB maybe?. Then we could boot without using the 5 1/4 " floppy, how cool was that.

Okay, after a lifetime of Windows you should try out a Mac, just to explore a little. Get a Mac mini, it will be a howitzer compared to your current machine, and is the lowest cost way to try out the Mac.

A $300 netbook is as powerful as the hottest desktop PC from 2003.

Pony up for the Mac now, or eventually pay that much and more on a Windows PC. Not to mention the wasted time.

A recent industry analysis determined that conficker cost $9.1 billion -- and that was before it started doing its thing.

Oh, and Apple sells a refurb (identical warranty to new) 20" iMac for $849. It comes with an impressive software bundle and no crapware.

Believe it or not, you can get some really amazing deals at

http://www.dell.com/outlet

I picked up a dual core w/500Gb HD, DVD burner, and 4 Gigs of RAM for $270 back before Christmas.

For $1000, you can get a very impressive Dell.

These would kick butt.
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/desktop-xps-430?c=us&cs=19&l=en&ref=dthp&s=dhs

Do you have a decent monitor. If not then you don't have to get a system with one which will save you some money.

Converted to Mac, love it.

I worked at a retail computer store in 1985 - was there for the introduction of the IBM XT which came with a 5mb then immediately a 10mb hard drive. The hard drive upgrade was $10,000. Then seagate came out with the 20mb half height drive for $5K. We sold copies of Lotus 1-2-3 for $495 at 50% margin.

Anyone remember EGA?

Honestly most of conficker was media hype. It could be removed with freeware if you were moderately aware. The virus thing really isnt a problem Run a good free anti-virus and have fun.


I bought a pretty good Dell laptop last year for about 500 and it runs like a champ. Installed AVG and I havent had a problem yet. Between personal computer and my dads business we have 4 Dells and no problems out of any of them. We had 2 die but is because they got blasted by lightning.

My first computer did not have a hard drive.

Yes, I remember EGA, CGA too.

Okay, ancient history time. My first computer was an SDK80, which was a (then new) 8080 chip on a 4 X 4" circuit board that you had to solder the components to. This was 1977. Had to go to the local computer store in San Mateo to hook it up to a KSR33 Teletype, because there were no video monitors. I printed to an Axiom printer that used a spark to scorch the aluminum-surfaced paper. A couple months later, I started working with Jobs & Wozniak on the introduction of the Apple II. We introduced it at $2495 for a populated motherboard.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1241884507.jpg

The first PC I touched was a Commodore PET with a cassette tape storage drive. Physics teacher in High School had it in the classroom, taught myself to program BASIC during lunch periods.

About five years later I had a Fat Mac (512K Mac). 720K hard shell floppies.

Then PC's: Sidekick, Desqview, Norton Editor, Text and batch file menu system, yipes!

I'm pouring myself a bottle of Geritol, anyone else in for a hit...

Kewl. A DESQview user. Quarterdeck was my client for years. Here's a DESQview ad from the history vault:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1241890086.jpg

My first portable:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/pc/h/cppc.jpg

When I started my first company back in ~87, I took almost 1/3 of my funding to buy one of these:
http://startty.com/phpBB2/startty/gridcase.jpg

A GRiDCase 1520 with a plasma screen. The 1510 was the backup nav computer on the shuttle.

That computer was the coolest piece of engineering. Magnesium case, pop-out batteries, boot eprom.

My first portable:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1241890917.jpg

I was an early VAR for this kid in Austin who sold this barn-burner 8MHz 286:

http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue86/10-1.jpg

They were just transitioning out of the PC's Limited brand into Dell.

In Jr. High I had my Mom drive me to the Computerland store just to see and touch this:

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1241891669.jpg

My first working computer was an Apple II that a neighbor loaned me. My H.S. math class had 2 Commodore PET computers with audio cassette storage. We would write our programs and save them to the cassette. Good times. ;)

If we're going nostalgic, my first computer was an Apple IIe with acoustic coupler modem that I dialed into the SDSU (was called San Diego State College back then) for an APL course. Then got a Mac 512KE in '85.

We still get BSOD on some of our XP machines at work. If you really push them it happens (this is mostly running Maya, PS, and game dev environments like Gamebryo, Unreal and VBS2). I actually have a Sager notebook coming soon so I can run VBS2. But it is $3K - costs more than my MacBookPro.

My first computer. Anyone remember these??


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1241911514.jpg

Dottore, there's an old 60 Minutes episode where all the smug young Osborne employees are going on and on about their newfound (paper) millions. Then Adam Osborne pre-announced a new model 6 months in advance of delivery and put himself out of business.

I remember going to "pitch" the IMSAI people in '76 about doing their advertising, and they were all so deeply into "est" that if you didn't pick up their est catchphrases, they couldn't give you the time of day... Also visited the Commodore people, but they were basically toy merchants without a clue. My first client in the category was the Byte Shops, then a month later, Apple. It was pretty cool being in Silicon Valley when all this was happening. "Computer Lib" was the book to read back in the day.

I just picked up a Lenovo 3000 N500 notebook/laptop computer, it rocks. It will run AutoCad 2008, came with XP operating system. About $800.

My local full service source.
http://www.mcrs.com/

this is the first laptop I owned..

http://www.toshiba-europe.com/bv/computers/products/notebooks/t1000/picture.shtm

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1241921150.jpg

I had one of those Compaq "luggables" at one point also...