[Scorched Earth]

Im looking to buy a new computer because my current one is soo outdated. This comp is....1.7ghz, 512 mb ram, 80 gigs harddrive space..sounds ok but my vid card is also a NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 (no "pixel shading" so all these new games are way too advanced for my comp. a combination obsolete parts and overload of unkillable viruses has led me to decide to buy a new comp. Im looking for a computer more directed towards gaming but also below $1300. i found the Gateway 830 Media Center Desktop 840GM ($1050) , and a few other gateways very similar to that but $850. Im not sure if i would rather buy parts, which is most likely cheaper but with the chance of me screwing up lots of stuff and ending up paying more, or to buy a preconstructed. Any suggestions for what to do and good sites to look into this on? Thanks.

[Johnj]

You will get more bang for your bucks by building the system yourself. I bought most of my parts at newegg.com. You can also save some money by reusing your present case. I built a kickass AMD64 for just over $1000.00.

[Judas]

^^ yup, and you can always recycle shit out of the one you have now to help save dough.

[Scorched Earth]

thanks...i knew it would save money, but also after watching brother end up spending more money than buuying a prebuilt due to all the crap taht went wrong, i started doubting it. but seems good..

[Akuma]

Most 'gaming' grade computers are horrible. They try to pass off stuff like FX5200 as video cards.

Definitely build your own... For $1300 you could get A64 3200+, Asus K8N-SLI, 1gb RAM, 6800GT...

If you aren't going to build for some crazy reason... check Dell. They usually have decent prices. Customize one of their higher end desktops, but not the stupid XPS gaming ones.

[geRV]

Get an asus motherboard and a pentium m mobile with a converter slot and watch those fps fly. Even better for gaming than anything amd currently has. happy:

[Mr.Buttocks]

eek:

[Scooter Pie]

Definatly buy the parts and build it yourself. If you're afraid of sucking it up buy the parts and take them to some local computer store and have them put it together. That's what I did and it cost me about $1100 total.

[Scorched Earth]

hmmm..after checking up on newegg.com and such and lookinga round. im jsu gonna buy a refurbished computer for like $500 and then use the rest of my money to jack it up if need be...risky but i saw some nice high end comps for as low as $250....pentium d, 250 gig hardrive, 3.2 ghz, 1 gig ram, and such

[Akuma]

ew refurb...
ew pentium d...
ew 1gb of ram...

[Zoner]

If I wasn't hardware retarded, I'd build my own system. I can pick out the parts, but I'd be too chickenshit to try to set it up for fear of zapping something beyond all recognition.

sleeping:

[Stammer]

Originally Posted by Zoner

If I wasn't hardware retarded, I'd build my own system. I can pick out the parts, but I'd be too chickenshit to try to set it up for fear of zapping something beyond all recognition.

sleeping:

Highly doubtful it will ever happen, and if your that estranged by shocking your system buy on of thoose little wrist bands that grounds you. Or just touch the power supply.

[geRV]

Originally Posted by Akuma

ew 1gb of ram...

spank:


Ive still only 1 gig of ram in each of my pc's. loney:

Only game that really fucks me over for ram is bf2, besides that everything else runs fine.

[Apocalypse | NoW]

"Firing Squad" built a gaming rig for about $1000.

http://firingsquad.com/guides/building_ ... gaming_pc/

Gets about 90fps in bf2.

[Stammer]

If I my interview goes well tommorow and I get my job, I'm going out and buying another gig of ram. Two gigs is going to be the norm soon if you want to play your games and decent settings. IMO