Refurbished System vs. A New Build

Beavis

Beavis

New Member
Hello everyone,

I'm new here and have a question for some of the experts out there. I currently have a computer that is almost 8 years old and it's time to replace it. I use my computer for surfing the web, graphics (Adobe Photoshop), watching movies, and light gaming.

Recently I've been looking at possibly buying a refurbished computer. My question to you is if the following configuration makes sense for my needs, and also how much it would cost to build an equal system on my own.

PROCESSOR
Intel Core i7-920 processor (2.66 GHz/8MB Cache/4.80 GT/s Intel QPI)

MEMORY
9GB DDR3 SDRAM (4x2048MB and 1x1024)

HARD DRIVE
1TB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive

PRIMARY MULTIMEDIA DRIVE
LightScribe Super Multi 16X DVDRW w/Double Layer

SECONDARY MULTIMEDIA DRIVE
16X DVD-ROM

GRAPHICS CARD
1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT220

SOUND CARD
Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer

COMMUNICATION
802.11N WLAN and Bluetooth

NETWORKING
Gigabit Ethernet 10/100/1000 Mb/s

EXTERNAL PORTS
Front:
15-in-1 memory card reader
Two USB
IEEE 1394
Headphone
Microphone
Line-In

Back:
Four USB
IEEE 1394
2 eSata
One Ethernet port
PCIe
HDMI
DVI
VGA

DIGITAL MEDIA
15-in-1 memory card reader

OPERATING SYSTEM
Windows Vista Home Premium (64 bit)

Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! :)
 
What are they wanting for it? The Video cards sucks and 9gb. of memory is overkill. Go for 6gb. of memory and a better video card.
 
$700, we can't beat the price...
Only downside of this machine would be video card and psu. But you can change it yourself in later days.
 
Fatal1tyXx said:
Can you post us a link for the build? Doesn't even looks like it comes with a case!
Click to expand...

It wasn't a computer that was built with aftermarket parts like they talk about on this forum. It was a refurbished HP computer. Sorry for the confusion.
 
Yeah, It come with a case?

Why he selling it? (make sure no defects)

9GB of ram is overkill, 4-6gb's of ram should be enough for whatever your doing.

Video Card sucks, but for that price, if it is a decent case, buy it, change video card.
 
Skorax said:
Yeah, It come with a case?

Why he selling it? (make sure no defects)

9GB of ram is overkill, 4-6gb's of ram should be enough for whatever your doing.

Video Card sucks, but for that price, if it is a decent case, buy it, change video card.
Click to expand...

Yeah it is a complete computer. It's an HP Pavillion Elite that is being sold in an online auction. I've bought stuff through them before, so I trust the site. I was just concerned because it seems like HP is always at the bottom of the list when it comes to reliability and customer satisfaction.

I've never built a computer before, but was thinking that maybe if I could build a comparable or better system for the same money I might give it a try.

Another thing I didn't like about the HP is that it has Windows Vista, and I've heard that you're better off going straight to Windows 7 instead. I have been using XP for about 7 years now.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the advice everybody. I decided not to buy the HP computer because after researching it I found out that they have been having a ton of problems with the mother boards on those computers, and apparently HP isn't all that great about helping people out when they do have problems.

I guess it's back to the drawing board. :)
 
Yeah you should stay away from Vista.

What is your budget? People on here can put together a build for you. It is not that hard to build it yourself.
 
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