If you had $3000....... Poll / Questionnaire

[Compusical]

If you had $3000 to buy a PC with an LCD monitor and a Printer, what would you buy? For example, Dell, Alienware, or another company? Extremely compact case for lan parties? P4 or Athlon? Leave what you would do in a reply.

[PacNW CE]

17inch flat screen monitor $600
Shuttle NForce2 XPC $380
ATI Radeon 9700 pro $350
AMD Athlon XP 2400 $150
512 mb of DDR 3200 (400mhz) $165
80 GB Maxtor ATA 133 $110
Windows xp Pro OEM $143 (thru Newegg)
Some Printer $200 max

Total $2098

Save yer $900 and change for system upgrades in the next 6-12 months.

I like the NForce2 chipset since it is upgradeable to a 333 and 400 mhz fsb for future xp processors. 333's are on the way, who knows if 400's will or not.

I say go with the XP 2400 since it has the best price/performance ratio of any currently offered Athlon.

I also wonder why a flat screen. I have a 17inch sony flat screen for my wife. Great to look at, but the refresh rate is locked in at 60mHz and the max resolution is 1280x what ever. Not so marvy for games. CTR may be bulky, but I swear the image quality is better.

[Compusical]

prices for everything seem a wee bit high. though a good selection of parts. although a CRT has better picture quality, it doesnt work too well on a shallow college provided desk. www.pricewatch.com = very low prices

[$1500-P4 gamer]

Dell-Alienware- why so you can get ripped off. Nope build your own. Alienware is WAY over priced and when it comes to dell compaq and the rest, well I dont buy propriatary ****. Build your own, learn from it. Know your parts well, and never look at that junk again.

[Billforce]

Build your own from a variety of good reliable hardware, motherboards are like Ford or Chevy, take your choice.
The rest of the parts are a no brainer, i.e. ATI Radeon, HD, CPU etc. Stay away from the propietary name brands, nothing but trouble.....if somebody comes into my shop with a name brand to repair, I want to scream and run. AND they are all, one as bad as the other. I have a Compaq laptop only because I couldn't build it from parts.

[BipolarBill]

Pricewatch is a great source, but run the vendor through the BS filter:

www.resellerratings.com

[Tech^salvager]

Put $1800 in computer with 21inch CRT. Use the rest for upgrades on the other computers or for future upgrades.

[leprechaun_40]

Hmmm,, just from the looking I've done,, it's about what I need to build my next system,, where do I sign up

[PacNW CE]

Originally posted by Compusical
prices for everything seem a wee bit high. though a good selection of parts. although a CRT has better picture quality, it doesnt work too well on a shallow college provided desk. www.pricewatch.com = very low prices

Sheesh, I save the guy almost a grand and he says I am still too high.
I based all prices off of newegg.com for my own ease. Yep, pricewatch is cheaper for most everything I listed. However, you may end up getting OEM parts instead of retail. Be careful and follow BPB's advice. Check the reseller ratings!

[LenChan]

Here's a recent system I built for $2,021

Intel P4 2.4GHz-533MHz FSB OC'ed to 2.61GHz
Wester Digital 100GB HDD
1024MB Corsair PC3500(434MHz) DDR RAM
Asus P4S8X (P4G8X is on the way when prices drop)
Plextor 48x24x48
LiteOn DVD 16x
ATI AiW 9700 PRO
SB Audigy 2 Platinum
17" Viewsonic Monitor
Lian Li PC60
Rounded IDE Cables
Rounded FDD Cable
Windows XP Pro
Enermax 431Watts PS

[Giblet Plus!]

Samsung 17" LCD
$500

Coolermaster ATC-111C-SX1 case
$185

Sparkle 400W power supply
$60

Radeon 9700 Pro
$290

Epox 8rda+ motherboard
$120

Amd XP2100 Tbred in a good stepping
$100

Thermalright SLK-900
$50

92mm fan
$10

2 x Sticks of Kingston Hyper X PC3500 Ram
$340

16x dvd
$50

40x Burner
$50

SCSI 15,000 rpm 16gb drive
$180

SCSI controller card
$80

Maxtor Special Edition 100gb 7200 rpm drive
$120

$2135