Topic: New Desktop Machine

[CaptStumpy]

The power supply on my old Desktop is starting to poop out and given the age of the machine I'm just going to go ahead and get a new box.

Question is what? I have always gone with building my own box but I think I'm might go with a corp clone to get a decent warranty and not have to mess with each individual components warrantee if I build my own.

I'm just not that interested in mucking about in computer guts these days.

Any suggestions?

Vista, video card?

[Javora]

Honestly I would stick with building your own.  At least that way you know you have some quality parts going into your machine.  In the 3 1/2 years I've had mine I've only called tech support once and that was a motherboard issue when I was putting it together.  Tech support from different companies was dismal a few years ago and I've heard that it has gotten worse since then from the people I talk to.  So I think that a little extra grief building a system will avoid a lot of extra headaches down the road.  I've been there, it's not fun at all.  Hope this helps.

[NJAntman]

I'm on the same trip (wailing banshee power supply, odd shutdowns and ancient specs, coinciding with a tax refund!). Not sure what road yet, but here are the options I've dug up in the past few weeks.

Vista - I'm waiting until the clean-up crew clears the debris first, should take at least a year. Market seems to be flooded with Vista upgrade offers, makes me suspicious and some are offers in name only as they have to be redeemed now.

Dell - getting past the revulsion of actually contemplating buying one, the horror at de-crapifying the pre-installed software, the E521 looked like a good basic machine for $800-900 until tech support stated it only has a 305W power supply. XPS systems have at least a 375W but at $1K the barebones/configure it yourself units are on parity.

ABS.com - used them before for two desktops but they've become a gamers specialty shop. Nice systems and service but they don't offer for less than $1400.

PCClub - Folks here use them, for about $1100 on the specs below more options than the big guys (Dell, HP, Gateway) but not a lot of options compared to what follows

SysBuilder.com - No experience with them, site has too many options and a bit scant on information

CyberPowerInc - Again no experience with them, site has as many options at the previous but page layput out better for information

MagicMICRO - no experience again, site just as good as the previous two for options,but price seems to beat the previous two by  about $100 less for same system layout.

The system spec I've been using to compare them:
CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 1.83GHz
MB with PCI Express slots and IEEE1394 connectors, & either SLI or crossfire ready
any case with at least 420W, in most instances as much as 500W or more for negligible difference 
either liquid cooling or mucho fans
2GB DDR2
at least a GeForce 7600GT 256Mb PCI Express card
at least a 250 Gb SATA2 HD
16X-18X DVD burner
3.5 FD and an internal multi-type memory card reader
onboard sound
no monitor
MS XP Home/Professional/ with or without Vista coupon (and this is were it gets crazy)

[NJAntman]

FYI:
I finally went with CyberPowerPC,  kept it cheap by taking a fairly decent gaming system and modified it down to its lowest CPU and only one SLI video card. Took the option of changing the case to a CoolMaster for front firewire/USB, mucho air flow, and a 680W power supply.

Ordered it on the Friday the 9th, they started it on the Monday the 12th, shipped it out the Tuesday the 20th.

When it arrived on Saturday I noticed the HD wasn't plugged into the board, so I called their tech support at about 5pm EST and lo and behold a real english speaking human answered and walked me through were to plug it back in. I'll be giving their tech support a run for the money though as it seems to have a video driver hiccup that causes reboots.

Other then that, nice machine, put together (wires and cables neatly bound and arranged), well packed shipping, included the drivers and unused stuff that came with MB, case, and video card.

[CaptStumpy]

Well I finally went with a local builder.

AMD Athlon64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 4200+
ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Motherboard
2GB DDR2 PC5300/667MHz Kingston Memory
Two 250GB SATA-2 7200RPM Hard Drives
Two 7600GT 256MB DDR3 PCI Express Graphics Cards
16X Double-Layer DVD±RW LightScribe Drive
16X Double-Layer DVD±RW Drive
8 Channel High Definition Audio
Gigabit Ethernet Port Built-in
Lian-Li G50 Silver Aluminum Case
Enermax Liberty 620W Modular Power Supply
Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition
Microsoft Office 2007 Basic Edition

Just under $2000