Posted: 11/20/2011 10:06:51 PM EDT
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My wifes desktop took a crap so I had the task of buyer her a new desktop cheap (Facebook,email and telecommute) . Did a bit of research and found a Dell Inspiron 620 with these specs... not too bad for $600 (Micro center)
Intel i5 2320 3.0 Windows 7 Pro 64bit 8 gigs of RAM 1 TB H/D @7200 RPM Intel Graphic 2000 (I have a spare video card to put in it) Wireless 802.11 Hell,I dont think I could even come close building that for that price. She'll be happy, its replacing her broken P4 2.4 desktop with 1 Gig of RAMBUS memory 
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That will be a huge leap in capability, but that is very overpriced. Here is a good laptop. |
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Quoted:
My wifes desktop took a crap so I had the task of buyer her a new desktop cheap (Facebook,email and telecommute) . Did a bit of research and found a Dell Inspiron 620 with these specs... not too bad for $600 (Micro center) Intel i5 2320 3.0 Windows 7 Pro 64bit 8 gigs of RAM 1 TB H/D @7200 RPM Intel Graphic 2000 (I have a spare video card to put in it) Wireless 802.11 Hell,I dont think I could even come close building that for that price. She'll be happy, its replacing her broken P4 2.4 desktop with 1 Gig of RAMBUS memory Its good. |
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I am not a mac fanboy, but for people that have constant issues with malware and viruses, I try to steer them towards Macs. FWIW I only own linux based PCs/servers, but I have my Mother and grandparents running apple gear. This should fit into your price range if you have a DVI monitor already.
http://www.apple.com/macmini/ |
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Frankly, for "facebook, email, and telecommute" that machine is probably overboard, but "telecommute" could mean anything from running Microsoft Word to running a virtualized pool of servers for developing the next great enterprise application. I'm just going to assume you're talking about the "MS Word" end of the telecommuting scale.
I assume you're looking at Microcenter SKU 866046. I'd avoid anything that's referb or not current generation, but a low end i3 like SKU 906271, SKU 969550, or SKY 015206 should work for most people. All of those should be available at your local Microcenter. Unless your running big games (not browser-based games), virtualizing multiple machines onto one physical machine, or doing serious graphics manipulation, just about anything new machine will work find as long as you keep it clean. I'd stick to current generation intel processors (i3, i5, i7) and avoid referbs, but that's just to get you the best chance of having a machine that will keep running for years. You mentioned you're planning to install an aftermarket NVidia card. That really doesn't make any sense unless your playing serious games (not just browser-based stuff). Depending on the specific card, you may need to replace the power supply to get it working. When you buy a pre-built box, things like the power supply (which doesn't get advertised) are generally the cheapest parts that the manufacturer could get to work. The key thing you want to look for is going to be the +12V1 on the power supply, and you probably want something around 40A output for a modern video card. Don't be surprised if you need to drop $70-$80 on a "gaming" power supply to get that video card working. Quoted:
I dont think you saw my post, I have a new Geforce PCI-E that I can put in that I recieved free.... Golden That's about as vague as saying "I've got a rifle". You could have a custom belt-fed 30-06 or an old single shot 22. Nvidia's been calling all of their consumer cards "GeForce" for at least a decade, and they've been building PCI-E cards for about half that long, and that includes everything from the more-money-than-sense super high-end super shit and the low end crap. |
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I get daily emails from NewEgg and TigerDirect because I've bought 95% of my computer parts from them for several years. I've seen countless ads for desktops in the $250-$350 range that would satisfy the needs of 90% of the public - email and web browsing. This Windows 7 box I'm on now started out as a cheap ~ $250-$300 bare bones package deal. It uses an Asus motherboard and a fast AMD quad core cpu, and has a fast GPU video chip on board. I added lots of ram, several big drives, this and that to flesh out the bare bones kit more to my liking. The upgrades to the kit more than doubled the price, but it was still cheaper than all those high end boxes that are ready to run. I built another Asus/AMD quad core box to run 64 bit Linux on, and it is very much like the bare bones kit I got, only I recycled an old HP case from a Windows 95 computer that finally died. I don't have any bleeding edge "gaming computers" with ultra fast maxed out everything. Don't need it, and prefer reliability instead. Most of my 14 computers have on-board video and work great for what video streams and clips I watch, etc. I haven't bought a video card for many years. The only time I stick any kind of video card in is if the motherboard simply doesn't have built in video, or if the on board video chip doesn't have satisfactory driver support from whatever OS is installed, usually Linux. I also use several totally routine low end Pentium 4 boxes that originally ran XP, and the only negative comment I can make about them is that they are not fast quad core 64 bit machines. These are boxes that max out at 2gb of ram and cannot be upgraded much at all. For what they're used for they are great, reliability being much preferred over speed. As older motherboards die on me they'll be replaced with something much superior, whatever is on sale at the time. For me, any fast mb/cpu combo is more than adequate. Brand names and all the fidgety technical specs really matter only to gamers and certain kinds of demanding work. Spending $500-$800 on a "kitchen" computer? No fucking way. |
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That will be a huge leap in capability, but that is very overpriced. Here is a good laptop. HOLY SH**!! That is a GREAT price for that PC. |
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I dont think you saw my post, I have a new Geforce PCI-E that I can put in that I recieved free.... Golden That's like saying you have a small block Chevy engine, so you can buy any vehicle with the mounts for a GM SB and you're golden. Race car, rock crawler, hauler, daily driver... it makes a huge difference how that engine is actually built. |
| I'd wait until Black Friday or after Xmas to buy. Any $500 computer will handle what you've listed but whatever you do nuke the OEM load of windows. Every manufacture out there 'bundles' junkware into their factory loads which slow the computer down and generally lead to more problems. Dell used to offer a clean-install option, (for a fee,) but you can easily do it yourself if you have the media. |
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Quoted: If you are patient wait till like Dec. 26 or a couple days after for the after Christmas clearance deals then you will get a good price.I'd wait until Black Friday or after Xmas to buy. Any $500 computer will handle what you've listed but whatever you do nuke the OEM load of windows. Every manufacture out there 'bundles' junkware into their factory loads which slow the computer down and generally lead to more problems. Dell used to offer a clean-install option, (for a fee,) but you can easily do it yourself if you have the media. |