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A good, pre-built PC? Really?
TubularLuggage
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So a friend of mine was saving some money to build himself a PC. He was actually going to get a few friends (including me) to build it, since he's not especially good with that kind of thing.
But in a recent Futureshop flyer, he insists he found a pre-made PC that isn't a ripoff.
The specs are as follows.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual core 4000+
2GB DDR2 memory.
250GB SATA HDD
DVD burner w/ lightscribe
GeForce 6150 SE
A '15-in-1' card reader, as well as obviously having USB 2.0
Vista Premium
It includes a 19" widescreen LCD monitor.
The price? $800 CAD (plus tax)
He intends to play games on it. Largely CS:S.
Should he buy this, or can he get a better deal custom building something?
Edit: Oh, and it's Compaq, not Dell. If it were Dell, I'd advise him strongly against it.
But in a recent Futureshop flyer, he insists he found a pre-made PC that isn't a ripoff.
The specs are as follows.
AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual core 4000+
2GB DDR2 memory.
250GB SATA HDD
DVD burner w/ lightscribe
GeForce 6150 SE
A '15-in-1' card reader, as well as obviously having USB 2.0
Vista Premium
It includes a 19" widescreen LCD monitor.
The price? $800 CAD (plus tax)
He intends to play games on it. Largely CS:S.
Should he buy this, or can he get a better deal custom building something?
Edit: Oh, and it's Compaq, not Dell. If it were Dell, I'd advise him strongly against it.
TubularLuggage on
0
Posts
...are there seriously 15 different formats of memory cards? That's ridiculous.
PSN ID : Xander51 Steam ID : Xander51
There's at least twenty-one.
Could he swap it out for something better after the fact?
Also, suggestions for alternatives, especially custom parts, are very welcome.
Thanks for the assistance guys.
1. You don't have to worry about the case not fitting something if you want to upgrade later on. Proprietary designs and limited PCI slots, limited SATA ports, limited powersupply, all suck ass. And not in the good way.
2. You'll actually have a REAL DISC with an operating system on it, not some "restore" disc.
I'm going down to Futureshop with him tomorrow to get more details, including that. The main reasons I'm going is that he doesn't understand much about all that, and to make sure he doesn't buy it then and there.
I'll probably report back here with my findings.
However, there are decent gaming PCs build premade, especially for a good monitor and or RAM upgrade. If you can' t get those, I'd say pass. I got a P4 3.0 with a gig of Ram and an ATI X600. I bought an X800 XL to replace the X600. I sold the X600, and at the end of it all I got the PC for under $1,000. This was in 2005; it was able to play UT2k4 on max settings, CS:S on high settings, and Quake 4 and Call of Duty 2 on high settings, all games which I played on multiplayer.
If you don't know how to build, or you want a legit copy of Windows, and you need a good amount of Ram or a decent monitor, you're not necessarily screwed.
He didn't say it was a gaming PC, although I guess I should have assumed considering where we are. Personally I don't use a computer for gaming at all so a good monitor and RAM is a big plus for me. Speaking of RAM someoone correct me on it seemingly being cheaper on pre-built computers I know it shouldn't be but any source I can find to buy it has it for a pretty expensive price or with high shipping.
I think my card reader advertised itself as 49-in-1, or something like that.
You can reffer to each of the card types by all of their individual names, and probably hit fifty.
Not to expose my ignorance but RAM is pretty much RAM isn't it? I know there is bad RAM out there and maybe cheap, generic RAM has a higher chance of being bad but if everything is alright it's the same as any other (of the same type) RAM.
Generic RAM has a much higher failure rate, and good RAM is cheap as hell anyway.
That and it most likely has very wide timings set.
CF
SD
XD
SmartMedia
and then 46 types of Sony MemorySticks.
Sounds about right.
I hate how these BS card readers try to sound all the better than each other by advertising ridiculous numbers of compatible cards. Just tell me how many different slots you have for the generic type, because I really don't need to know that you read SD and MMC cards as two types, because they're going to go in the same slot because they're practically the SAME CARD. You don't have 15 or 21 or 49 slots, you're not a 15 in 1 card reader. At most you're 5 or 6. Perhaps if you are special, then an extra 1 or 2 for micro and mini SD cards so I don't need to carry an adapter with me.
Easier to get, less likely to have things go wrong, and maybe cheaper. I've never had an issue with getting pre-builts.