Help me please..Yes, another should I build thread

B

bamapt

New Member
I am in desperate need of a new family computer and this will be my first since 1998 :eek:. I've had a company laptop for years that I've relied on.
At first I considered another Dell, which I have now. However, it seems to me they are probably overpriced, service sucks and don't seem too reliable lately.
Next I've considered a local shop to build. So far this is what they have given me a quote on...(about 3 months ago...I'm slow)
Raidmax Tower
Intel Core 2 Quad LGA775 Q6600
Motherboard INtel P965LTCK
4 Kingston PC2-5300 1 GB DDR2 DIMM 667 MHZ
Seagate SATA 500 GB SATA II
Lite on 20x DVD-RW SATA Lightscribe
ATI Radeon HD Sapphire PCIX 256 mb DVI, tvout
7 in 1 card reader
Vista Home Premium
3year warranty
$1092.00
Price and parts I'm sure subject to change since this quote. I have no idea if this would be a decent computer and how the price is, so please advise.
I really know nothing about building a computer but would be interested and might have someone who could help. How much could I save or how much better a setup could I get. My budget is $1500-$2000 tops including a good monitor.
As I said, this is a family setup with primary needs of internet, digital pic storage/editing, home video editing and dvd burning, DVD library backup?? There may be some gaming in the future but that would not be a priorty for now. I don't know about media sharing/storage but I am building a house now and made sure to prewire all rooms for a network, so I'd like to keep my options open there and do some learning on that as well.
So should I go Dell, local shop, or try to build myself?
Thanks for any help. Sorry the post is long.
 
Ask them what a quote would be with...

4GB (2x2GB) of PC6400 ram
ATI HD 4850
750GB HDD
Vista Ultimate

I think you'll enjoy those upgrades.. just let me know how much those are.
 
The setup you have there from the local shop is just fine for a family computer. Depending on the type of gaming you want to do (Solitaire vs. Crysis), you may need to upgrade the video card and power supply. If you're going to go with 4GB's of ram, then you need the Vista 64 bit edition to read all of the ram as your normal 32 bit operating system (XP and Vista regular) will not recognize the amount of ram. This also means that some programs that are 32 bit only will not work in the 64 bit environment.

You will also have to factor in the cost of labor as well, which might be a bit steep depending on the people who work there and/or their rates. That $1k quote they gave you may jump to $1250+ after labor, tax, etc. If you know your way around computers, I would highly suggest building it yourself if you have the time to do so. If you know a friend or two that can help, build it for cheaper, etc, you can go that route too.

What I'm saying is, is that you have a lot to think about here. Since it seems you're not really into buying computer parts (or computers for that matter) every 6 months, I would say get the best you can afford so that the system won't become obsolete in 6 months, pre-built or not. Upgrading hard drives, ram, video cards is the easy stuff. Putting in a new motherboard, CPU fan, CPU, power supply, etc, might be more trouble for you in the end.
 
Bullzi, I'll see what I get on those upgrades.
Thanks PC for the feedback. I really would be interested in building myself, I just don't want to get in over my head. I definintely want to get the best bang for buck I can now. As far as the local shop, I need to check but I assumed that the price they quoted was out the door.

As far as building, home much more computer could I get for the same $$ and/or I much could I save if I went with a similar setup?
 
The price they quoted you for being built and carrying a 3 year warranty seems to be a decent price. The price can be majorly effected by the graphics card you are using, if you built the combo of the parts I quoted you and the stuff you wanted from them you'd be looking at around $1,200 I'm guessing. If their price isn't much higher and still carries a 3 year warranty, go for them. It's a great experience to build your own, but a 3 year warranty at that price with support locally would be fantastic.

You can always build a secondary computer later on that isn't a beast like that one to get the experience. ;)
 
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