Bought a new PC.....my excuse was to do the f-body logos!

[darkz711]

Thanks Taso. Do you think that is one of the better PCI-E cards?

the 7900 GTX and the x1900xtx are the two best cards out right now. There is a 7950GSX or something of the sort coming out really soon which is like having two GTX in one board. Depending on how computer knowledged you are... id go into more depth... if you want.

If you put in 4 gigs of ram you have a timing issue. The biggest problem you may run into is that your ram is currently running pc 3200 in dual chanel, which amounts to 200 mhz per channel (400 mhz total). However, most motherboards, when running 2 pairs of dual channel, can not run 4 sticks at pc 3200 speeds, so they run them at pc 2700 speeds which is 166 mhz per channel.

[fastTa]

What's the reliability record for HP? Everyone recommends Dell, but it seems like you can get a lot more power for quite a bit less moeny with the HP's. All the chain stores carry them. Only problem is they bundle them with printers, speakers and other stuff I don't want. I like the one you linked.... looks like just the computer, and allowed you to pick the display you wanted, and add options like the additional memory.

Whatever I get has to be better than my 8-year old Gateway.

I've been using HP's for about 8 years now and I honestly have to say they have been rock solid reliable. I couldn't ask for a better hardware package. I've had a few Dell's and I had a few problems with them hardware-wise. Dell customer service is a nightmare. HP customer service is excellent.

Like you noticed, I liked the fact that this system was sold as a tower, keyboard and mouse only. I wanted to pick my own LCD flat screen.

The 2GB of memory it comes with is more than sufficient for most regular computing, but I just couldn't resist the extra 2GB. It's overkill, but you guys know that I am just an overkill kinda guy!

I really recommend HP's.

[fastTa]

i just "cut something for you"........but it wasn't a check.....................


















bwwwhahahahahaa

Save it under the covers for Mary, then when she gets in bed let her have it!

Don't really do it.....Mary might kick my butt!

[Y2KHAWK]

Save it under the covers for Mary, then when she gets in bed let her have it!

Don't really do it.....Mary might kick my butt!

Yep she would kick your butt...

[DeWynter]

What's the reliability record for HP? Everyone recommends Dell, but it seems like you can get a lot more power for quite a bit less money with the HP's. All the chain stores carry them. Only problem is they bundle them with printers, speakers and other stuff I don't want. I like the one you linked.... looks like just the computer, and allowed you to pick the display you wanted, and add options like the additional memory.

Whatever I get has to be better than my 8-year old Gateway.

I'll state right out that this is my personal opinion, backed by 6 years of service support and system building, plus 5 years of school. I think that HP puts out a heck of a machine for the money, but for me and most people who are performance oriented; this just isn't the way to go. HP or (insert box brand here) are great machines for people who want to do everyday stuff like e-mail, word processing, web browsing. They most certainly don’t cater to the average gamer or more extreme gamer/video editing 3d graphic work etc. They do make machines for this but they are not very upgradeable or feature filled, at least not for me. I’m defiantly not a fan of DELL. Everything they sell today is at the end of its life cycle. They sell machines so that you have to buy another one in 2 years. Cheap always comes at a price. If you can I would recommend building your own out of the best and newest parts you can find. You can cheap out on things like Case as long as it has proper ventilation, Floppy (if you even need one) CD/DVD/CDRW drives, you don't NEED to buy Plextor, LG will do fine. The things to spend the money on are #1 the motherboard, it is your first building block. You can always buy a cheaper CPU today and upgrade later, but the MB is where it all starts. Ram is next buy good reputable stuff because it equals fewer crashes or non at all. Next is power supply, the thing most people skimp out on, but a good stable power supply can make the difference between a stable machine and a buggy one, good power is king, sensitive electronics don't like fluctuations. Another important decision is hard drive; this can make a huge difference in speed on the machine. The Larger the drive, the slower the seek times. Also Spindle speed here plays a big factor; most are 7200rpm or 5400rpm (not to common). If you can get a Raptor (10,000rpm) it’s a big speed bump for loading of the OS and programs. These are not always the things that are considered by HP and Dell or any other manufacturer. If you want to play games or do video/audio or 3d art editing box computers just don’t cut it.

[fastTa]

I have been running Adobe Premiere Pro and Avid Technology Liquid 7.0 simutaneously on this machine without a hitch. When I have these programs open, I also normally have Photoshop CS2, Dreamweaver, and Mac Flash Pro 8 running as well. I bounce back and forth between these apps often and it doesn't slow it down a bit.

I'd say that is MORE than sufficient for an out of the box computer.