Whats up everybody, I'm in the market to buy a computer for the house, preferably a P.C. So what kind of PC do you have? And which would you recommend? Thanks in advance......

 

I build my own.

If you want a prebuilt, I recommend a Dell, in spite of all the complaints you hear about their customer service. It's the closest thing you will get to a generic industry standard machine without custom building from parts, and the other major big box makers don't have very good service either.

 

I built my own, 3.5 years ago. I really NEED a new one soon. There's only so much memory you can throw at a machine to make it keep up.

Pentium 4 2.66Ghz (512KB L1 Cache, 533FSB)
1024MB DDR
128MB ATI Radeon 9200
40GB HDD - Master
160GB HDD - Slave
16x LITE-ON DVD DL Burner
17" LCD Flat Panel

 

Homebrewed...
Intel Core 2 Duo
NVIDIA GT Force 8600
Vista Ultimate

 

At home, an out of the box HP from Sams Club. Has been a great machine. At work, a Dell, has been good as well.

 

Hi FX4.

Could you elaborate a little on intended usage? Expectations, future plans if any, etc...

It may help folks here to offer more appropriate guidance.

I concur with GLC, though, for a 'general usage' appliance... go with Dell.

I think if you buy a Dell from a place like Costco, Sam's etc, you get a bit more protection intially against a bum unit and a bit less hassle if you need to return it (at least for the first 6 months, I believe)...

Good luck

bubba

 

Dell Dimension desktop. I've had it for about 3 years now and still love it!! No major issues and the minor ones have been resolved quickly. We started out with an HP, we had to install a new hard drive in it a year after we bought it. We had it about 4 years and had no end of issues with it. I'll never buy HP again but I would buy Dell again in a heartbeat!

 

Definitely build your own. It is not that difficult as long as you make sure the components you pick will work with each other. Listed below is what I have, and over time have upgraded to this from the original build without replacing the whole system at one time.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 2.66ghz
Intel DG965WH MB - Onboard HD Audio
BFG GeForce 8800GTS OC 640MB Graphics Card
Western Digital 250GB SATA 300 main HDD
Western Digital 250GB SATA 300 secondary HDD
Western Digital 400GB SATA 300 HDD --| All in an AMS 4 drive
Western Digital 500GB SATA 300 HDD | eSATA enclosure
2 Samsung 500GB SATA 300 HDD --| JBOD setup
3GB DDR2-800 memory
Lite-On LH-20A1S DVD Burner
Lite-On LH-20A1L DVD Burner
Windows XP Home SP2
Gateway 24" FPD2485W Monitor

Honestly I enjoy upgrading and tinkering.

As far as off the shelf, I have had HP and Gateways with no problems whatsoever. Dells are a totally other and bad story.

 

1 dell
3 compaq's
15-20 frankensteins

recommend (off the shelf) = dell or alienware

 

I always build my own and always insist on three things.
Asus motherboard, Pentium processor and Nvidia video card. I get the best I can afford at the time (or want to spend) of those three things and then finish it off with lots of quality ram, a good power supply and a fast hard drive for C:. The rest doesn't matter much to me. I use what I have laying around.