3grand . one new comp.

[boneshadow]

Hey all. Wife just got a new laptop and told me i had 3thousand $ to get a new desktop.

Would like some sugestions from you all on what is decent. I am really lookin at intel quad core. I always owned amd , but wanted intel ( amd was always cheaper ).

The problem i have there thou is. i read Nvidia cards dont do well with intel. I and so Hate Radion cards ( spellin is bad i know).

I know most will say build the comp myself for most bang for the buck. But i am lookin for prebuild, Putting it together is no problem i built one before. Its the sofware and bios that gives me issues. So i dont want to mess with that again and take a chance on messing it up.

I am still lookin at 5 boxing and quakewars. So any sugestions is apreciated. . ( sry for terrible spelling, i know).

[zanthor]

$3,000 US?

Do you want monitors included in that?

Bios settings on modern machines pretty much set themselves, it's come a long ways in the past 5 years... software, the worst you'll have to deal with is installing a few drivers.

Premade machines, I'd be at a loss to recommend one, if you want to spec out a system to build, I can offer some suggestions in that price range.

[Nitro]

Any prebuilt machine that will cost $3000 you can likely build yourself for $1500. These days if you want a quality machine you should really bite the bullet and build it yourself. Plenty of people here can give you a shopping list for newegg.com and help with instructions to build a box if you need assistance.

[boneshadow]

Well if worse comes to it , i can have the tech here in town put it together cheap. Looking at atleast intel quad core 6600, want vista 64 so i can get more than 4gigs of memory , be nice to have duel 8800 cards. i been reading alot of reviews last few days on new egg and all. Seen tiger has better deal. Can get quad core/2gigs mem /mb for 399.

anyway thx for imput. much apreciated.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Bios settings on modern machines pretty much set themselves, it's come a long ways in the past 5 years... software, the worst you'll have to deal with is installing a few drivers.

Uh, I beg to differ. Most modern motherboards set default timings and voltages that are supposed to work within the basic JEDEC standards but all combinations are not correct. I just went through this with Crucial and Gigabyte. On my board, the defaults set my Crucial up as 5-5-5-18, 1.8v, where the specs for mine are 5-5-5-15, 2.0v. Without the correct settings, you may still see data errors, even if they're rare. The short version is that you need to educate yourself on what the correct timings and voltages are supposed to be per the manufacturer and then verify that your system is setting them correctly. The major memory manufacturers have either datasheets that state the specs and/or memory configurators that tell you if your motherboard is recommended for use with the selected memory models.

[boneshadow]

Another thing i am lookin at with a prebuild is the warenty if something screws up.

[boneshadow]

I know i can get better parts and more for the money.

Anyone have a sample set up ? looking at 22 or 24" lcd also. if it comes down to it i already got full dragon tower from last comp i build. it still runs just buggy. was saving it for daughter. One of the things i am lookin at is i want extra hard drive to run OS on and other for my games. Many thanks again everyone.

[boneshadow]

This is one of them i am lookin at .




Operating System
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium (32-bit)

Processor
Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor2 Q6600 (2.40GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 8MB cache)3

Memory
3072MB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM (2-1024 & 2-512)

Hard Drive
1000GB 7200rpm Serial ATA II/300 hard drive w/ 16MB cache & Raid 0 (2-500GB hard drives)4

Optical Drive
Hybrid Blu-Ray/HD DVD Player and SuperMulti Format DVD-RW DL Drive (Vista ONLY)

Optical Drive
16X Super MFDVDRW/DVD-RAM+/-R Double Layer

Video
Dual NVIDIA® GeForce® 8800GT 512MB Factory Overclocked with SLI™ Technology (Dual DVI, VGA adapter and TV Out)

Sound
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer PCI Sound Card

Media Card Reader
9-in-1 Memory Card Reader

Speakers
Logitech® X-240 2.1 Speakers

TV Tuner
Analog/Digital TV Tuner with 3D Comb5

Application Software
Microsoft® Works® 9.0 & Microsoft® Office Home and Student 2007 (60-day complimentary trial)6

Backup Media
Gateway FX540XV Recovery DVD V1.0 - MENTOR

Chassis
Gateway® 7-bay BTX tower case

Color
FX Logo Accent - Black Steel

Expansion Slots
(1) PCI Expansion Slots, (1) PCI-E x1 Expansion Slot, (1) PCI-E x4 Expansion Slot, (2) PCI-E x16 Expansion Slot

External Ports
(7) USB 2.0 (3 front, 4 rear), (3) IEEE 1394 firewire (2 front, 1 rear), (2) RJ45 connector, Audio ports, and (2) PS/2

Finished Goods
Batteries for Remote Control 2 1.5V AA

Finished Goods
IR Receiver Blaster for Remote Control Vista Black

Keyboard
Gateway® Elite Keyboard (Windows Vista® Certified)

Motherboard
Systemboard with NVIDIA® nForce® 680i LT Chipset

Mouse
Soft-touch USB Optical Wheel Mouse

Network
(2) Integrated Gigabit (1000) Ethernet Connections

Power Supply
700 Watt Power Supply

Security Software
Norton Internet Security™ (60-day live updates)7

Software Documentation
End User License Agreement for Non-Microsoft Software

TV Tuner Accessories
Remote Control

Warranty

1 Year Basic (Tech Support - Parts - Factory Lab



sry for big past. it runs 2,100, and a free 19 "lcd. i bought this comp i on now at ibuypower , its really been a decent one. except when i tried to update bios in vista. Had to revert to XP.

[marvein]

I personally hate gateway, had nothing but bad experiences with them myself. But I will still give you some pointers about what you posted.

Also,

Hard Drive
1000GB 7200rpm Serial ATA II/300 hard drive w/ 16MB cache & Raid 0 (2-500GB hard drives)4

no reason to get RAID 0, performance boost yes but nothing earth shattering at the cost of adding a larger chance of data loss should hard drive die. However getting 2 drives is a good idea, put OS and Apps on one and put your WoW on the 2nd.

Memory
3072MB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM (2-1024 & 2-512)

uhh why? if you wanted to be able to get more than 4gb of ram atleast start with 4gb, not to mention matching memory sticks can help performance a little bit. go with 4x1024

Security Software
Norton Internet Security™ (60-day live updates)7

Id recommend uninstalling that and installing antivir, its free and works much better.

Warranty

1 Year Basic (Tech Support - Parts - Factory Lab

that is a skimpy warranty, get 3 years if you can, if not....try dell. a 3yr extended warranty with dell should run you around 250bucks for a system like this i think

[boneshadow]

Thx. That was a prebuild , not custom. no clue why they listed what they did.