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Buying New PC. Suggestions?

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dk70:
If he catch interest for gaming he will be upgrading video card no doubt. AGP situation will only go from bad to worse compared to pci-e. Unless big price difference chose pci-e for sure. Integrated video solution will work and is about the only way to get other goodies. A decent video card which can play newer and coming games at 1280 will blow budget. 7600GT would be nice for this but 219$ more. I think you can survive with integrated chip for a while then upgrade for may be 150-200$ when you cant wait any longer  8) As said the only disadvantage with LCD is you often need more power from video card. With CRT you can adjust resolution more easily. Still go LCD.

They have another amd solution with dual processor, newer am2 socket - but a question of money. May be 100-150$ more expensive for same configuration. Does come with a dvd drive and hd is 160gb http://www.globalcomputer.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2366225&CatId=1307

app103:
My question about the CD & DVD drives is are they burners? You will want that ability. Go for a DVD drive that can burn it all. Then if you want an additional drive, get a less expensive additional dvd drive that can read it all. Handy for copying disks. But it is not necessary to have the second one. You can copy disks without it by creating an image file and burning that.

I would opt for a built in card reader that can handle most kinds of cards over having a second CD/DVD drive.

One thing you will also want...a BIG CASE...and plenty of PCI slots.

That will become important when you start adding more hard drives and more cards. You will need to have a case big enough for it to all fit without being cramped.

A cramped case can cause cooling problems and is harder to keep clean inside.

And make sure that XP Pro CD you have isn't an OEM that needs a specific brand of PC in order to install it. Otherwise you will be out of luck and stuck with XP Home, or need to buy a new copy of XP Pro.

Make sure you get a real Windows disk with that PC...none of that restore partition crap and none of that special disk that will only work in that PC...or restore disks that wipe out everything and can't do an OS repair.

f0dder:
Remember an LCD almost require you to run games at its native resolution, 1280x1024.
-dk70
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Not really - in games you won't generally notice running at non-native resolutions, that's mainly visible when dealing with text. And I doubt you'll find any video cards, even integrated, that can't deal with that properly at native resolution :)

And yes if you had both a 17 CRT and 19 LCD plugged so you could compare you would pick 19".
-dk70
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Personally I'd pick a 17" TFT with decent refresh rate, then add another when I got the cash. Two monitors rock, and 1280x1024 on a 17" is just fine.

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Don't worry much about XP Pro vs. XP Home unless you know you need Pro. Iirc the differences are in some domaing logon stuff and support of EFS (encrypted NTFS files). There's a chart somewhere at Microsoft showing the differences. Both Home and Pro require activation and has "call home" crap, you only get rid of activation by a "corporate" or "volume license key" version, but you can't afford that :)

Unlike mouser, I'd definitely worry about PCIe vs. AGP. The price difference on a motherboard should be almost non-existant today, while AGP cards are getting scarcer and more expensive.

You won't need a dual-core processor right away, most games don't take advantage of it, and some even fail (unreal tournament engine games) until you tweak a bit. Dualcore does make the whole computer experience smoother, but unless you do heavy computational tasks it's a bit much of a luxury to pay for.

One thing you will also want...a BIG CASE...and plenty of PCI slots.
-app103
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Agreed. A big case with good airflow so you don't get overheating problems.

dk70:
If scaling is no problem then more reason to get the 19". How it behave probably depend on panel type, driver, game - monitors are not created equal. Also some can see things others cant. Integrated should be good for some 800x600 gaming at least.

I dont think case can be replaced but should be ok. Small since format is micro-atx, only room for 1 fan. I saw a picture somewhere. If video card have arctic cooler or similar there should not be any heating problems. http://www.arctic-cooling.com/vga1.php Some brands have cards with such coolers installed, cost a little more but not much. Heat is directed out of case - takes up 1 extra port for the outtake but noting to do about that.

The 350W power supply will work but there was another picture where it showed 17 or 19 amp for 12v line. Close to minimum requirement for a modern computer. All these integrated gadgets are economical. Dont know specs for 500W but it should be more ready for a better video card - even if you start to overclock cpu a little. If lower quality it could be worse but most likely same brand/model. 

Mizraim:
Personally I'd pick a 17" TFT with decent refresh rate, then add another when I got the cash. Two monitors rock, and 1280x1024 on a 17" is just fine.
-f0dder (October 04, 2006, 07:39 AM)
--- End quote ---

I agree. I would take the two 17" over a 19" anyday.

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