Where to buy a new PC?

[jmcqueen]

Hello,

I have been shopping for a system for the past week and trying to find the best all around deal. Like most any person shopping for a computer, I want to deal with a good company and get a great product for a fair price. I’ll tell you early on that I don’t know enough to build my own computer, but I do know enough to not buy from Dell. ) They are great for people that want an easy solution, but I feel that they tend to cut corners and charge a little bit too much for their systems. I am not a gamer, but I do want a system that is a slowpoke. Basically, I want the most bang for my buck. For instance, I figure that an AMD processor will give me more for my money than an Intel chip would.

With that said, I started my search at PCWorld.com and found what I considered to be a good review of the ABS Bravado 2280 ( http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/artic...,111295,00.asp ). I built the computer that I wanted on their website and it actually came out to be a good price. Although I am not very comfortable with the company considering the last couple of phone calls I made to them did not exactly result in a warm and friendly response. Nothing too bad, but just like they didn’t seem to care either way.

I just visited ResellerRatings.com and saw that the top five resellers are as follows:

1 KC Computers
2 Envision Computer Solutions
3 PC Torque
4 Performance PC's
5 PowerNotebooks.com

I tend to trust these rankings because I have read many of the posts on this site and they seem to be from technically knowledgeable people.

Can someone offer me a better way to go about getting a system? I would like to get some advice on the best components like motherboard, video/sound card, etc… Then where to buy them so they will all get assembled in a nice case and be ready to be used when they arrive at my home.

I just don’t want to have buyer’s remorse like I did after buying my first computer from Dell.

Thanks in advance for your advice! )

[sKiT]

How much are looking to spend? Right now you could put together a real nice AMD system(XP2200) with 266MHz DDR RAM for fairly cheap. This type of setup would be more than enough for browsing internet/running day to day programs and if you pair it with a 3D sound card + a mid level video card, your system would run any of todays games nicely(I know your not a gamer but, mentioning you could play them if you wanted lets you know you wouldn't have a slow system) The above system could be built with a 17" monitor + 2.1 speakers for less than $400 USD easily including case/PSU. With a bigger budget you could upgrade monitor/RAM(amount)/speakers or even upgrade to a 333MHz system(AMD Barton XP2500). You could probably accomplish this for less than $600 USD

Welcome to TechIMO

[Omardeth]

if your not gonna put it together yourself just get a dell . if you do your homework , there are tons of coupons out there for dell , you can get a dell without a monitor for about 500$ pretty easy and if your good u can get it for less . not long ago you could get a 2.4 intell 800fsb for under 400$ . thats a great deal .

i had some good purchases with www.ibuypower.com

[theocpcguru]

It's all about pricewatch.

www.pricewatch.com



Peace

[omalleytrading]

A buddy of mine agrees with GroundZero3 -- he bought from www.ibuypower.com, and he loves his PC.

Personally, I agree with Omardeth. If you're not going to build it yourself, just go with Dell. You'll get a quality PC, a decent price, and tech support.

[Christian-Comp]

I'm not exactly sure about quality. I know 10 people who live near me with Dells and all have the same thing to say about it. - "I'll never buy another one."
I will grant you that they do have top notch support, but their quality sure has slipped in the past few years.

[twistedbrntucker]

Any thoughts to building your own?