Getting new pc with these specs...

[Tarun]

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum.

I'd like to know what people think, if this is a good deal or if I can get a better price.

Gateway PC:

3.2GHz P4 w/hyperthreading

2GB RAM @ 400MHz Dual Channel

CD/DVD Burner (4-in-1)

7 USB ports, 8-in-1 media card reader, 2 Firewire

17" LCD Flat Screen/Flat Panel

160GB HD

ATI Radeon X300SE with 128MB DDR Video Memory, DVI and TV Out

Sound Blaster Augidy Dual Channel sound card

GMax Speakers with subwoofer

56k Modem

10/100/1000 Ethernet card

MS Work Suite 2005 (Word, Encarta)

Windows XP Pro SP2

2-Day FREE express shipping

$2,026.50 with tax and if I order by 11PM (Dec 17, 2004) EST I can get it for $30.00 less.

[Drewdatrip]

In all honesty I really wouldent go with a Gateway.

All the hardware you mentioned was not bad, but then agin they probly cant tell you the Make of the Mobo, ram LCd etc.

This is kinda critical to make an proper review.

For instance certian ram makes and models are better then others.

The same goes for Mobos as well as LCDs

What are you going to be doing with the comp?

If your playing games i would make sure that the LCD has a responce of 16ms or less. Otherwise your going to have ghosting effects that will make the game unbarable to play.

One thing i would reccoemd is droping the ram down to 1gb and upgrading your vid card

|Drew|

[Tarun]

Primary uses will be programming, gaming, chatting, etc. Still tweaking around and may get it for less.

I've researched the vid cards and it's a PCI-Express card. May try for the X600XT Pro.

As for the RAM, I want the higher RAM to handle the intensive multitasking I tend to do.

I figured I'm going to wait and try to haggle the price down to $1800.00 or less.

Also, why I'm going with Gateway again instead of Dell.

Dell used to be #1 in support, now people would like to #1 on their support.

They also suck because they had the audacity to rewire their parts to be incompatible with 'universal' parts (see here, which is just one of many examples), and then their parts cost 300% more to order from them than a 'universal' part would have. For instance, a $40 power supply costs over $120 from them.

You may want to have a look here at customer and employee experiences of Dell: here.

As for other computers... well, Dell has gone from good to bad, and others have gone from bad to good. The latest eMachines are rocking a**, and so are the Gateways. The HPs leave much to be desired, however.

Despite the incredible price fixing they do, there is nothing that beats building your own computer or having a local OEM computer, because of the quality of parts, local support, and universal nature of the parts.

I hate to be all... holy war-ish about big name computers... but I really can't put any faith behind any of them. I was quite impressed at the parts and quality put into the latest eMachines and latest Gateways. Especially the latest widescreen Gateway laptops, they're awesome.

I'd still try to build it myself, though I need to learn more.

Despite the savings of those cheap a** Dell computers, they're cheap for a reason

[prathapml]

Woohoo!!

One monster of a comp there.

The only thing I have to add here, is that an assembled configuration will be more tuned towards your own requirement. Get some dealer with good connections with the industry to assemble it for you, and he will even take care of any replacements or other head-aches with the hardware. The advantage of going for a branded machine normally is the bundled software - but I'm sure you don't need that, its easily taken care of. Plus, since the software cost is reduced from the total cost, the price will be lower too.

And as drew says, a major minus point has got to be, that branded machines will not allow you to choose the MoBo/chipset that you want.

[Tarun]

Thus far they've gone with everything I've wanted. I've been touching up on my research with P4's with hyperthreading and sone of the overall speed benchmarks due to pipelining etc is amazing how much faster it is than AMD.

[Tarun]

I pulled it off. I got more for less.

Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 550 (3.40GHz) with hyperthreading

2GB (2048MB) DDR SDRAM PC3200 (400MHz), Dual Channel

CD/DVD Burner (4-in-1)

7 USB ports, 8-in-1 media card reader with Floppy, 2 Firewire ports

FPD1750 17" LCD flat panel display analog (17" viewable) (12ms response time)

160GB Serial ATA100 7200rpm hard drive

ATI RADEON® X600XT Pro PCI-EXPRESS with 128MB DDR Video Memory, DVI and TV Out

Sound Blaster Augidy 2 ZS Dual Channel sound card (with Dolby!)

GMAX 2100 2.1 Speakers with Subwoofer

56k Modem

10/100/1000 Ethernet card

5 expansion slots, 4 available, 2 PCI Express slots

MS Work Suite 2005 (Word, Encarta, Money, Picture It, Streets & Tips, Works 8)

Windows XP Pro SP2

2-Day FREE express shipping

Parts can be seen here:

Monitor

Speakers

Software