Well, i've been looking for a new PC to buy myself, and yeah, i'm going to get the money, somehow. :roll: If i keep the christmas money i have, i'm about a fourth of the way there to getting the one i want, but there is still the problem of convincing my parents. ¬¬. anyway, i took a look at the dell selections on dell.com and i chose out the Dimension 2400, its just about the thing i need, because i don't do a whole bunch of crap with my PC currently, (mostly because i can't, but whatever.) You could probably say that its a bad choice, but like i said, i need to convince my parents, and it needs to be cheap and better than the one i currently have (at least.) Currently i have a Dimension L500c. its pretty crappy, its been reformatted entirely 8 times, and the C:\WINDOWS had to be reformatted 4 times because of repeat kernel32.dll errors. Gimme some input on my selection, and try and help me convince my parents. :lol: Maybe you can find an even better PC for another reasonably low price. help me out here guys. :P

[url=http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/dimen_2400?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs:i7jny8so](Dimension 2400 Standard Specs)[/url:i7jny8so]

Just remember that a Celeron is one of the slowest/weakest processors available.

yeah, i'm getting an Alienware Aurora 7500 with SLI now, thanks to my parents reasoning. :P

Oo a Dell!!

[moans] must..have..Dell :p lol playin. But deersiously dude..i dunno if your choice is like the best..you should hold out for one of their better ones. I heard the RAM size on that oiece ain't all that. Might as well just get an eMachine for cripe sakes O.o

Tell ya what homeboy. You find a better puter and I, at least, will use my wiles to get your parents to understand: you learn 2/3rds more off the net then yo ass will eva learn in the classroom. I mean...ugh! But lets not get into mah pet peeves.

Lol next time you go lookin for a new comp, ask some questions:

What is the size of the graphics card[64mb, 124mb, and so on]

Personally, I like AMD procs, Asus and/or Tyan MBs, Seagate HDs, ATI graphics cards are shitty, and Thermaltake for cases, powersupplies, fans, and heatsinks. I'm not a gamer, but I have yet to find software the my friend's Radeon 9200 (128) can't run, and she only paid $80 for it a year ago. As far as OSs, I prefer Linux, but use Win XP Pro more often. It's a solid OS, but I prefer to get around M$, whenever I can.

It all depends on what you want your system for. If it's just a simple home computer to surf the net, email, write a few papers, etc...you'll be fine with an AMD Sempron. Go Seagate for the HD, if you aren't playing games or watching movies, etc on your comp get a board with integrated graphics, however if you are into games, then you'll need a beefier processor as well.

For a gamer, Athlon 64 or P4 is the only way to go. Personally I like the 64's better than the P4 but as stated, it's personal preference. Go with a board from a well known board manufacturer (Abit, Asus, Soyo, MSI, Gigabyte, etc...) and get a Seagate Barracuda SATA drive (make sure your board supports SATA tho) Graphics cards, I'd tell you to steer away from ATI due to shitty ass drivers (And yes, they do have crap drivers, I get people in all the time with driver issues for their cards) Go with Nvidia instead, their newest driver is compatable with all their latest cards, making installing and upgrading a breeze. A good place to find out about boards, graphics cards, etc. is http://www.tomshardware.com. This is one of THE best if not the best review site for computer parts anywhere. Make sure you throw in a DVD burner drive, which you can get for around 60 bucks off newegg. Any other questions you're gonna have to ask for yourself:P

Also if you're gaming, you'll need WIN XP as an OS anyways. As for processor speed, try and not accept less then 3 gigahertz P4 or 3000+ AMD. These processors will be able to keep you going through the year or two, three if you have to lol...

Graphics card...depends on how heavy a gamer you are...

Not a gamer, integrated or 64-128 bit graphics card, low end...FX5200 will do.

Casual Gamer...spend a little more and go with something the the GeForce 6600

Heavy Gamer...accept nothing less than the Geforce GT OC 256mb or X800 pro. Dont spend money on the 6800 Ultra as it's ALMOST a waste of 200 bucks because it doesn't give you a big enough increase over the GT OC.

Stick with name brand cases and power supplies. If your a heavy gamer, make sure it's AT LEAST a 450 watt...500 watt would be preferred.

To give you an idea of a good CPU, here's what my cousin Sarah has...

AMD 64 3000+
Abit KV8 Pro mobo
2 80 gig SATA Barracudas in RAID0 (2 drives, data is split between the drives so the comp accesses them both at the same time, giving you almost twice the transfer rate...also makes it twice as likely to lose your data)
1 Western Digital 200 gig IDE Hard Drive (For backing up important data...and porn, in case a SATA drive goes out)
1 gig PC3200 ram (I have generic crap memory, try to stick with name brands on ram as well, Kingston, Corsair, etc)
Geforce 6800 GT OC 256mb Graphics Card
MSI TV Anywhere Master (To watch and record tv on the computer)
DVD Burner drive
DVD-ROM drive
LG 17" LCD Flat Panel Monitor

If you intend to build something hefty like this instead of buying your mess, make sure you put enough fans in it to keep it cool, nobody likes when their shit overheats and melts!

you could get an Soundblaster card with one of those LIVE IR bays.. its got a 1/4 in right on the front of the computer.. I never tryed it but I would imagine you could plug a guitar into it. Ive seen some crazy hacked drivers for them too.. where it digitally reroutes whatever out to the in.. or routes audio from one place to another.. all digitally so you dont lose anything in analog. My cousin Sarah used to have it set up where audio came out of the 1/4 jack in the front.. to a mixing board.. and from the mixing board she had an alesis air FX and a keyboard hooked to it.. and then it went out to my stereo system. I miss that setup. the Air FX rocks for remixing live music as its being played adn me n homegirl owuld rock our bodies to that mess.

~|BrU|~

well, all I can add to that post is my recommendation:

Don't try to build up a really beefy computer that'll last you for several years. It's much better to just get a near top-of-the-line computer and upgrade it over time. It's a lot cooler that way.

I don't play videogames anymore, or do much of anything that takes excessive CPU juice of a beasty video card.

I'm on an AMD Athlon XP 2400+ that's clocked at 1.84GHz for stability. I had some overheating problem with the system over the summer, plus the hard drive gets hot, makes the click of death and nearly crashes on occasion. there doesn't seem to be any decent software to copy your hard drive's boot sector properly, so the warranty was ineffective.

You got fans for cooling on your stuff zoid?

As for the beefy computer building not being a good idea it depends. If you're not rich, like me, its actually a very good idea cause you can't always afford the new top line. You got the dough however, then it is probably beter to get the newest and keep up using your own modifications. Also personal prefrence does take precedence in this case ppl. Lot of ppl just ice their sh*t out and don't think about whether the machine will overheat or cause problems in the wiring system. Several different wirres intersect inside, many of them the main running wires that keep the machine up and running or the memory store from glitching. Its cool to have mag stuff, but there is a limit ppl.

Okay, nough rambling for me :)

~|BrU|~