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ex · Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2001 4:24 pm

OK, I've looked at DELL, and I came up with this:
p4 @ 1.8 ghz
40 gig HD
512 SDRAM RAM
17" monitor
32 MB geforce 3 w/ tv out
dvd 16x
free printer
$ 1500 (with shipping and tax)

Then I went to http://www.gentechpc.com/ and get something like this:

New! Athlon XP 1600+ at 1.4 GHz
1 GB PC2100 DDR SDRAM
60 GB UATA100 Internal IDE
nVidia GeForce 2 TI TITANIUM 64M DDR w/TV-Out
16X DVD-ROM
Gemstar 19 inch .26 1600X1200 High Resolution Monitor
Cyberdrive 16X12X40 CD-RW w/Exactlink

$1442.00 (before tax and shipping)

Wow, which one?

I so need help right now.

I'm kinda leaning towards DELL because I am farmiliar with them because my brother has used them before, and no problems with them. Both come with windows XP Pro.

help guys

ex · Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2001 5:01 pm

new dell

instead of 512 ram, i got 256 and a cdrw and a 64 mb video card. ram is cheap, you know?

It's now $1,317.00

Lunatique · Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2001 7:42 pm

Hmmm, Dell is reliable and reputable, but the specs from the other one is far superior.

Better gfx card, monitor, ram, and HD space.

dr . bang · Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2001 8:06 pm

go for the 2nd one, plus, you dont need 1 god damn gigabyte of ram. I'm running a 50mb Photoshop file while running 3dsmax at the same time and it can barely uses up my 512 mb.

[ November 14, 2001: Message edited by: dr . bang ]

christian cox · Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2001 9:04 pm

Actually, 1 GB of RAM is very nice for especially large renders for print media. I've got 512 MB of RAM, but I am sure my renders would swap less on the hard drive if I had twice that. It's really all in a matter of what mediums you'll be doing, 2D or 3D, extremely high resolution, or low res for the web and etc. But the 2nd system is much better than the first, do a little more searching on the net to make sure those are the absolute best prices. You also want to go with a place that has good, reliable service and waranties if you're ever in a jam.

Good luck with your purchase.

***edit*** Oh, those nasty little typos!

[ November 14, 2001: Message edited by: christian cox ]

FireFry · Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2001 9:32 pm

I would just shop around and build your own computer. If you have money to throw around of course. You can find some good deals out there. AMD has the Athlon XP 1900+ (or 1.6 Ghz) that just came out.

sacrelicious · Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2001 9:52 pm

Lunatique- is a 64mb geforce 2 really better than a 32mb geforce 3? I'm genuinely asking, no sarcasm.

ControlledBurn · Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2001 10:08 pm

Just for the record, there is no such thing as a 32mb GeForce3. Knowing Dell, it's most likely a GeForce2MX with TV-Out. Hence, a GeForce2Ti is better.

strata · Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2001 1:48 am

plus you said ram is cheap.. be aware that if you buy a dell you have to buy dell Ram... I had this problem with both my old dell's where some guy would come and practially want to give me 512 megs... and I couldn't use it... caus dell makes a lot of money making their machines dell-standard... build your own! =)

Gandalf- · Posted: Thu Nov 15, 2001 11:04 am

Choose the Athlon.

Athlon's Thunderbird chip (not even their newest XP technology) at 1400mhz performs FASTER on MOST instances than Intel's Pentium4 @ 2.0ghz.

Plus, AMD is generally cheaper and more reliable. Dell is fine if you want to get a cute little computer all gift wrapped for you and stuffed full of useless bloatware that you will never use, then by all means buy a Dell. :P

corvax · Posted: Thu Nov 22, 2001 12:52 am

Dell is a reliable company, that offers a good range of tech support, etc, for their customers. However, you pay for this support. If, like my grandparents, you plan to phone them up weekly because you're not familiar with what you're doing and you really do need their help, then get your box from Dell. On the other hand, if you know what you're doing, don't pay for a service that you aren't going to use.

When you buy a computer from a big company, you get a big-company-computer. It comes with the operating system and some office-type utilities already installed, everything is preassembled, all you have to do is take it home and plug it into the wall. Whether or not you realise this, having all this stuff done for you is a service, and you pay for this service. If you want to pay for it, cool! Not everybody has the time to be totally nerdish about their computer. However, if you've got enough know-how to go to a smaller store, maybe mix-and-match some bits, etc, you will invariably get a better deal.

Personally, I find www.arstechnica.com slightly over my head, but I'm comfortable enough with computers (or cocky enough) that I'm not going to buy my next computer from Future Shop.

Lord, that's enough from me... Good luck!

Actually, hang on... there are quite a few sites like the one I mentioned above that have recommended set-ups for different types of users; you could find one that you like, print it off, take it to a little computer store, and buy the separate bits... It's like having the bundle done for you for free...

[Shizo] · member Member # Joined: 22 Oct 1999 Posts: 3938

amd - good
intel - poop

What you need is a dual 1.2GHz athlon MPs on some excellent server mobo with 64 bit pci slots. It will blow away any other computer away by miles.
Of course it's not cheap, but if you dont buy useless DVD crap, and get dual mobo instead the price wil be the same.

almost forgot, for HDD buy IBM deskstar 7200rpm's because they are fastest in most benchmarks. unless you'd rather get a nice SCSI 10000rpm setup

[ November 22, 2001: Message edited by: [Shizo] ]