Looking for a new computer

DeMoN

Alright, so, my current computer is a piece of crap. I've recently begun college and my mom has decided to buy me a new computer for school. She says she's willing to spend 1,000$. I'm not very computer savvy, so, what's the best comp I can get for 1,000$?

Thanatos

What are you looking to do with your computer? Is it just for general use college stuff? Gaming? Any sort of art or design? Programming? Any particular software you need to be able to use? Do you want it to be portable, or would you rather have more power (i.e. laptop vs. desktop)?

kaliyama

if it's just for general college use (typing, move-watching), you don't need to spend anywhere near $1,000. You don't need the 'best' comp at all, you need one that will run Firefox, Word and a DVD codec.

Desktops are nice because they don't break very often, and you can usually get a Dell with LCD in the 400-600 range that will do everything you want.

Laptops are nice because they are portable, but ones with a nice enough screen for movie watching are bulky and heavier. They also break at prodigious rates, irrespective of brand or year of manufacture. Don't get a laptop for gaming - the bang to buck ratio is really lame for laptops.

I don't think many people would agree with me on this, but you may not even need a computer. I went to a school that had a 24 hour computer lab. I had my computer for gaming, but definately didn't need it and probably would have been more productive if i just worked all the time at the lab.

Lucky Cynic

Yeah, it's all about what your going to use it for, what peripherals your going to need, and any other extras that might need to be purchased.

TexiKen

Just go to Best Buy or CompUSA and you will find something for at max $800. You can find a nice computer that will last you for 4 years in college that will be able to do a bit of everything.

Hell, you could even get a very low-end iMac if you wanted to, but that would be around $1000.

Lucky Cynic

TexiKen wrote:

Just go to Best Buy or CompUSA and you will find something for at max $800. You can find a nice computer that will last you for 4 years in college that will be able to do a bit of everything.

Hell, you could even get a very low-end iMac if you wanted to, but that would be around $1000.

Ordering online can get you bigger discounts often. I had an oppertunity to get $175 off of an HP and the grand total with monitor, granted, nothing special was about $600.

DeMoN

I'm in an Illustration program, and I'll be using programs like photoshop and illustrator. I'm also going to be doing some animation, but I don't know what programs I'll be using.

robaal

I would suggest staying away from Pentiums and Celerons. You would probably want to get a Core 2 Duo CPU, or an Athlon X2 (4200+<E6300<4600+<E6400).

2GB of RAM would be a good idea, though you can always upgrade do it yourself, which might end up being cheaper than getting the 1GB->2GB upgrade (1GB of DDR2-667 RAM costs <$110 at newegg).

Make sure that there is a PCI Express 16x slot on the motherboard, so that you can get a video card in the future, if you buy a system with integrated graphics, or upgrade it without problems. PCI Express is a completely different thing from regular PCI and AGP is dead.

It would be nice if the power supply would be reasonably powerful (~450W) but it most likely won't, so you could ask if it's a standard ATX power supply that you could replace with a more powerful one in the future.