I am in the market for a new computer for the house. Basically I have around $1000 give or take a few. I need it within the week as my wife just started law school and our old P3 went craps.
I am not really a gamer, so I don't really need a 500 Ghz machine (sarcasm) but I want something that won't be obsolete in 3 or 4 years either. So I thought I would ask my friends here, what do you recommend?


I have been looking around for about 2 days, and this is what I have found so far, and am close to buying.
PCV-RX450
AMD Athlon 1.0 GHz
40 GB
128 MB
V.90 Win ME
DVD/CDRW
$ 899.99**
http://www.sonystyle.com/vaio/rx/index.html

i have a comp shop here that makes good computers, i can probably get you the above for 900 cdn

but i recommend you get a p4 :D if you don't want to be behind in a couple of years

I want something that won't be obsolete in 3 or 4 years either.

Everything will be obsolete in 3 or 4 years. :dgrin:

Why not build your machine yourself? I am sure it would save you some bucks and you could have something more powerful. Also, with the price of memory, i would suggest you to get at least 256MB.

Are you kidding everything is obselete the day after you buy it

Get a dell desktop, they're awesome. I've never had any problems with mine. Their pricing is pretty reasonable too.

I agree, everything will be obsolete in 3 / 4 years time - I had a P2 233MMX just under four years ago, I dread to think how slowly it would run today. And, my personal machine is being upgraded about every 6 months now (a little overkill, but I like speed:) ).

I recommend that you purchase an Athlon, as it will go well with your budget, you can pickup an Athlon 1.4Ghz for a good price now.

If you go with Sony, you pay for the brand and the case - with a lot of the big name companies you do, but if you do want to purchase a computer from a larger company, then Dell are my recommendation.

Also, RAM is so cheap currently, it would be worth getting 256Mb or 512Mb, and if your manufacturer won't install it for you, it's easy enough to do by yourself - all you need is a screwdriver, and a stick of 256Mb of RAM will cost you $35 - $30

Regards
Matt

Originally posted by reflexhost.com
. . . . a stick of 256Mb of RAM will cost you $35 - $30 . . .Where's that? (if you can post that)
Not that I need to know (I have 512), it just seemed like a good price.
But, then, maybe I need to get out more:eek2:

I live in England, and prices here are about £20 - £25... so I covered it to $, getting the above price...

http://www.crucial.com would be a good bet though :)

Matt

Thank you all for your insight. I know that everything will be obsolete in a few years, I just don't want to spend a grand and then in a year, kick my self in the @$$ for buying. We originally bought our P3 for about 17K and it had a whopping 32 Mg of RAM and a 2 GB Western Digital, which I upgrading to a total of a whopping 64 Mg and added a 3.2 GB slave to it.
As I am asumming you all can tell we didn't do a heck of lot on our home 'puter. We both primarily do most of our work at the office.
I was almost going to buy that Athlon but my techies here are lol about not wanting a P4. I don't ever use the home 'puter, just my wife who only writes papers in Word. We could get by with a small Celeron....but these prices are CHEAP!!! Again, thank you all.

The biggest reason I only want 128 Mg is that I enjoy upgrading and tearing it apart and adding stuff. + I should get it a lot cheaper than initially installing it preconfigured.

Originally posted by cbaker17
Are you kidding everything is obselete the day after you buy it

Yup!

If you're thinking about spec'ing it out yourself, hit www.pricewatch.com

I've been buying Micron 256MB SDRAM from a company www.peachpc.com for about $40-50 and they include ground shipping on certain things.

Originally posted by reflexhost.com
I agree, everything will be obsolete in 3 / 4 years time - I had a P2 233MMX just under four years ago, I dread to think how slowly it would run today.

LOL, I still use my P2 233MMX w/64MB RAM. I run it with winMe and it works great. I run Dreamweaver4 on it and TopStyle and PSP7 and a couple of browser windows all open at the same time and it works great. I could use another 64MB RAM but can't find those SIMMs any more.

To tell you the truth for what I do I do not see a significant difference from a PIII 900 I use at work.

Ouch! How can you use a P2 233?

I got rid of mine 2 years ago... :) - I keep Intel, AMD and other hardware manufacturers in business... hehe

I think my laptop has a Pentium One 233. Did they make a Pentium One 233? I'm not certain anymore and the manual didn't specify. Have to go looking.

Originally posted by reflexhost.com
Ouch! How can you use a P2 233?

I got rid of mine 2 years ago... :) - I keep Intel, AMD and other hardware manufacturers in business... hehe Heh heh... I still have my old machine sitting up there waiting to act as a firewall. In terms of powere consumption it's low on the bills and will help me in moment when everything else is dead because of the latest bloatware.

Couple of tips for you JKLIVIN:

1. Get a GOOD monitor. high refresh rate, quality image. It will save you serious money at the opticians

2. If you're thinking of using your old monitor to widen your desktop space then think seriously about a Matrox G550. I went to dual monitors for my setup and I'm about to hit max with 2 mitsubishi 730 pro's :-)

3. Ram really is low cost at the moment... For an extra $50 (or thereabouts you machine can handle more throughput and less stress on your hard drive with 380Mb+ instead of 128. It's one of the easiest ways to upgrade.

4. If you're going for longevity, look at the Athlon DDR Ram boards with the appropriate chip. They are the closest to "latest" technology but will still be obsolete in about 4 years.

5. Don't get the "latest" OS i.e. XP... it'll be bug infested for quite some time and subsequently annoying so think in terms of something more stable.. I'd put my money on Win2000

Final point... If you can, get the DVD and CD-RW as seperate drives... that way you won't be putting all your eggs in one basket. It'll cost a bit more but it won't be a case of losing both media capabilities with one drive failure.

In terms of price... Well if we in the UK can get a top of the range system for $1,400 (I priced up a spec for a friend recently) then you should be able to get a medium spec machine for about £1000 without too much trouble.. Be sure to shop around and look at quality of after sales service as much as the pre-sales spiel. Spending a little extra early on may well save you serious dough when the proverbial **** hits the fan.

Looking back through that lot it might sound a bit patronising but there's a lot of hard won info and lessons in there. Good luck choosing :)

Martin

Be careful with those pricewatch sites. A lot of them are fast and great to use, but there are a few wrotten ones out there like with any business. I've used a few of them myself and only had one place that I had to have my bank do a chargeback on. They responded perfectly, they called a few times and were extremely friendly, and the second they had the item I returned back and proof that someone signed for it, all responses stopped and their telephone number magically stopped working.

Make sure you buy everything so it arrives around the same time giving you enough time to test things out and send anything back that may be broken. Also, always make sure you read their return policies.

I just have to put in a vote incase you haven't bought one yet.

coughcoughDELLcoughcough hehehe :D

We ended up going with a Dell, I found some excellent prices on pricewatch, but my wife had to hear a name brand, even though I could get 3x's the machine for less money than I spent on the Dell. If we weren't pressed for time, I would have rather bought everything individually and built it myself, which I WILL do next time. Oh well. Thanks all.

Those of you talking about a 233 being old and slow... I use a dual p90.....

Originally posted by Chicken
I think my laptop has a Pentium One 233. Did they make a Pentium One 233? I'm not certain anymore and the manual didn't specify. Have to go looking. It's Pentium 233MMX :)

I'm using a Compaq Armada laptop with that as well, along with 128mb of EDO RAM :eek2:

I'd have traded it in for a newer model but it looks so beat up (the way I like it) and when I pull it out of my backpack it just feels right :)

P.S. Yes I use a desktop when I come home :)

That sounds right. Ohhh and by the way Mr. 128 MB, this laptop has 96MB of ram. 32 MB non-removable (what a brilliant idea there), and can take either 32 MB or 64 MB (I have the 64) of EDO under the keyboard, 'butterfly' ram stick of some sort (I believe that's what they call it). Current price of the 32 is almost twice as expensive at crucial I noticed (go figure).

I wasn't paying attention when I bought this laptop. After all, when would you ever need more than 96 MB??? DOH!

I forgot about this post I made a while ago, FYI, Dell sucks. And here is why, I specifically told the sales guy that I needed it as soon as possible, I would pay next day air, rush fee, anything. He said fine, the quickest he could have it to me would be like 5 to 7 business days. Day 7 came, no computer, so my wife called, then said that it would probably be 3 or 4 more days, and 'why didn't you do next day air,' she told them we tried, the sales guy didn't put it on there. Day 10, no computer, we called it hasn't been shipped, would probably be 3 or 4 days. Day 14, no computer, we called, again!!! 3 or 4 days, we cancelled. Dell Sucks!

:( Sorry you had such bad experiences with them. Took awhile to get mine, though I got it a bit sooner than I expected. Rushing stuff out has never worked for my family.

Originally posted by coolguy23
but i recommend you get a p4

I will go with Athlon XP ... They are really cool. At the same clock rate, they beat P4 badly .... See review here (http://anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1543)

cheers,
:beer:

Just had to share that I also have a 233mhz laptop, though mine is a PII and it is maxed out with 144mb of RAM (2x64mb removable + 16mb fixed). It will be three years old next month and runs Win98 ok. It's fast enough for Office, Quicken, web browsing, and other light tasks. If I try to run too many things at once it grinds to a halt, and I wouldn't bother trying to run any of the games that I play on it. Such is life. It's an old computer.

My desktop system is a 1 ghz PIII from Dell (Dimension 4100) that I've been pretty happy with. I had some problems with the NIC, but it's been far more hassle-free than the last system I built from parts. I could probably build something better, but Dell has pretty good prices, especially if you are interested in having the latest versions of Windows and Office on your machine with completely legit licenses (which add significantly to the price if you are building a box from parts).

-joe

Originally posted by cbaker17
Are you kidding everything is obselete the day after you buy it

Yup. That's why I buy desktops at the auction sites.

Refurbished HP Kayaks are my current preference. Nice box, dual-CPU, dual-PCI bus, dual SCSI controllers, high-performance design, and excellent cooling for my 15krpm SCSI drives. :)

RAM... you need more RAM....


RAM....


512mb :D

Originally posted by MasterMindz
Get a dell desktop, they're awesome. I've never had any problems with mine. Their pricing is pretty reasonable too.

I wish I could say that, BUILD YOUR OWN! Its not that hard, and not too expensive. Or go to pricewatch.com and get a kit....

Originally posted by joe52
Just had to share that I also have a 233mhz laptop, though mine is a PII and it is maxed out with 144mb of RAM (2x64mb removable + 16mb fixed). It will be three years old next month and runs Win98 ok. It's fast enough for Office, Quicken, web browsing, and other light tasks. If I try to run too many things at once it grinds to a halt, and I wouldn't bother trying to run any of the games that I play on it. Such is life. It's an old computer.

My desktop system is a 1 ghz PIII from Dell (Dimension 4100) that I've been pretty happy with. I had some problems with the NIC, but it's been far more hassle-free than the last system I built from parts. I could probably build something better, but Dell has pretty good prices, especially if you are interested in having the latest versions of Windows and Office on your machine with completely legit licenses (which add significantly to the price if you are building a box from parts).

-joe

Man, all you guys are light years ahead of me:(

I have Notebook:
Pentium 133
40 Mb memory
1.5 Gig hard disk
Circa 1995
Paid $5,000
Hard disk are so packed that I have to delete some
of the temporary files while I am surfing:D

Desktop:
Pentium II 450
384 Mb memory (upgraded 256 about 2 months ago)
enough hard disk:)
Circa 1997?
Paid $4,500?

Here are my next machines within one month:D
Notebook:
PentiumIII 1 Gig
256 Mb memory
20 Gig Hard disk
dvd/cdrw combo
Plus all other goodies
Price: $1,600

Desktop:
Pentium IV 2 Gig
512 Mb Rambus
60 Gig Hard disk
Plus all other goodies
17 inch LCD monitor
Price: $2,000 or $1,200 without monitor
Or, I may hold on to current desktop little longer
and get two 17 inch LCD or one 19 inch LCD:D

It's steal compare to just few years ago, isn't it?

I can't wait to get it:D :D:D:D:D

JKLIVIN -

You definitely need to go to sony's web site! I'm not sure of the current price, but a couple of weeks ago, they had a P4 complete with a DVD-R drive for starting at $1299!!!!!!! Boy, I wish I had to buy a new computer! Think of all the fun I could have with a DVD-R!

I just thought I'd let you know because I think it is an incredible deal!

Originally posted by WebSnail.net
5. Don't get the "latest" OS i.e. XP... it'll be bug infested for quite some time and subsequently annoying so think in terms of something more stable.. I'd put my money on Win2000


I have to disagree. XP is the greatest OS (next to W2K) ever invented. Put 98 + 2K Together = XP.

Trust me, go for XP. You won't be dissappointed. It's only $162 for a FULL OEM Copy (OEM = No Box, just CD in a case and key).

Originally posted by Fiber


I have to disagree. XP is the greatest OS (next to W2K) ever invented. Put 98 + 2K Together = XP.

Trust me, go for XP. You won't be dissappointed. It's only $162 for a FULL OEM Copy (OEM = No Box, just CD in a case and key).


I'm staying with Windows 2000 for as long as I can. I don't like the Product DeActivation feature of Windows XP.

I change my hardware a lot and I don't like having to call Microsoft and beg them to reactivate my copy of Windows XP if I happen to make too many hardware changes.


http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/01/10/08/011008oplivingston.xml

http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/01/10/15/011015oplivingston.xml

I'm getting a new machine in March or so (after the tax return check comes in -- having a kid comes handy). I'm going to be putting together my own machine - piece of cake - nothing I haven't done before (I use to put together servers for an ISP, as well as doing stuff like that when I was in high school).

Right now my machine is is coming on 3 years old -- warranty ends tomorrow (I hope nothing back happens after that).

I got it from Gateway in '98. Cost me $1600. 333mhz, 96mb ram (came with 32 originally), 17in monitor, 6.4GB hard drive. I can't put a faster cpu in it because of the stupid bios they put in there (Phoenix). I do have a faster CD writer in it though that I bought last year at tax time - Yamaha 16x-10x-48x. I'll keep this P.O.S and upgrade the mobo and cpu and add more ram. Right now I'm running Windows XP Pro. The best thing that has ever happened to me.... With Win98, I was always running at 80% cpu usage (during regular usage) - and rarely was able to open up PhotoShop 6 for a long period of time without the stupid thing freezing or having to restart it. Now... I rarely break over 30% cpu usage -- with PS6 running. Its a God send.

I don't mind WinXP activation thing... I never had to call MS. It was all done on the internet. I have nothing to hide... :)

That's my .02... :D
Tonya

Originally posted by Mike the newbie



I'm staying with Windows 2000 for as long as I can. I don't like the Product DeActivation feature of Windows XP.

I change my hardware a lot and I don't like having to call Microsoft and beg them to reactivate my copy of Windows XP if I happen to make too many hardware changes.


http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/01/10/08/011008oplivingston.xml

http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/01/10/15/011015oplivingston.xml

You don't HAVE to call in. Or just get a Corporate VLK Key; that has NO activation what so ever.