Tight budget pc my son really wants for his b-day

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breakthesilenc21

New Member
Hi Im very new to this forum but i feel i can get alot of help from everybody here. My son is turning 14 in 8 days and he wants a new computer and im willing to spend at most $500. He loves the game counterstrike and he wants a media center pc.He is also very into music and videos.He wants to edit videoes on it and wants it to have a tv tuner if possible. It doesnt matter if it is refurbished or custom built but i want to be able to get it for him because hes not going to have a party so that he can get one.

Also i have one computer picked out but i would surely appricieate some feed back on this pc.

It is a Gateway 816gm Refurbished pc and here is the url:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-Details.asp?EdpNo=1361643&sku=G153-816GM
 
Your not going to get a computer for $500 that will live up to all those tasks, especialy gaming. But for general use that budget should be fine. Whats his current PC? It might not be worth getting a new one untill you have a bigger budget.

You should consider building, you'll get alot more bang-for-your-buck.

EDIT: Praetors $500 from computer specs 101 will run cricles around that computer: http://www.computerforum.com/showpost.php?p=267491&postcount=5
 
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it will play counter strike, it has got a nice big HDD for music and videos, tv tuners you can get at any time. for the price that is quite good
 
breakthesilenc21 said:
is that a good computer for Video games and music software? because i forgot to mention that he plays guitar and he likes to record..
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Can you find out what version of counter-strike he plays? If he is playing source, he cannot play it with the gateway you linked above, you would need to purchase a better graphics card due to requirements graphically. If he plays the older version (1.6) then he would be good to go.

If he likes to edit videos and such, tell him not to expect super fast editing, athelon processors are a bit behind in tasking applications such as photo editing, compared to intel, who's single core cpu's dominate in that area.

Being on a budget is hard, and you could buy this computer as a base, and upgrade it in the future, heres a few suggestions if you go that route :

Upgrade the ram-Editing app's eat up memory, try to get him at least 1 gig of memory in the future.

Video card- Look into the nvidia 6600GT AGP version, great card, reasonably priced.

That's all that I can recommend.
 
34erd said:
Your not going to get a computer for $500 that will live up to all those tasks, especialy gaming. But for general use that budget should be fine. Whats his current PC? It might not be worth getting a new one untill you have a bigger budget.

You should consider building, you'll get alot more bang-for-your-buck.
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Not when it's 500 dollars, then pre builts are usually necessary. Customs are only more bang for the buck when you are building a computer that is 800 or more.
 
That could be perfect, but there is need to add a only one thing is 1GB DDR RAM Memory... Then it will be extreme perfect for his birthday :)

Cody J. §
 
well considering he has a very old dell dimension xps r450 with :

Intel pentium 2 Processor
448Mhz
384 Mb of ram
and a nvidia riva TNT video card
 
wow!! i didn't see those computers that Praetor talks about in the 101. those are sweet for the price
 
Yes, but the rest is really bad for the money. A 300watt power supply just won't be enough, as will the integrated graphics. I would build it. You can easily upgrade to a bigger drive, but a better mobo is near impossible without a new system.
 
mrbagrat said:
Yes, but the rest is really bad for the money. A 300watt power supply just won't be enough, as will the integrated graphics. I would build it. You can easily upgrade to a bigger drive, but a better mobo is near impossible without a new system.
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Which computer are you talking about?
 
breakthesilenc21 said:
Which computer are you talking about?
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The one you linked to. Basicly we're saying if your up to building, the system spec'd out in the link I gave you might have less HDD space, but it will perform much better.
 
breakthesilenc21 said:
how is it better because the one i linked to has a 3400+ processor
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Well, for starters thats socket 754. And paretors system has a decent video card which is much more important for games. Also its got 1 gig of RAM.
 
If you're looking at $500 for the whole thing then that gateway is probably better. If you have $500 to spend on the case and internals (like most people assume you are talking about when price is mentioned) then go for praetor's.
 
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