Do you really need a laptop? I think it would be wiser at this time to buy a car instead.

I've heard Vaio's are good though, wish I had one myself.
------------------------
"Don't blow this, Gene!"

I'm with Slayer. Screw a laptop; get a comparable PC you can build for half the price, and use the rest to save for a car.

But if your heart is set on a laptop, that one sounds pretty good, but remember that laptop's aren't future-proof.

One of my coworkers just bought a like new laptop off Craig's list for $400. It's not as nice as the one you're considering, but it's an excellent laptop for basic computing. You pay a lot for the VAIO name. I would suggest shying away from Sony unless you really do want the name.

As Mintz said, unless you really want portability, I would go with a PC. You can build a desktop PC more powerful than that laptop for about half the price of that laptop, and it'll be upgradeable later.

Just to make sure you heard Slayer and Mintz...you do realize that you could buy a car with $1400, right? Cars can take you places, like on dates.

portobility is a really big issue, but the name is not. If there's a better laptop/just as good but a different brand but cheaper then i'd gladly get that instead. That beeing said anyone know of any good laptops??

Haha i'm very aware of my car situation, believe me more so than any of you, i'm reminded everyday.. I have the money for a car, I've looked at alot of cars. I actually looked at one today and will be looking at another later in the week. So no worries on that front aside from the fact that all the cars I look at have a major problem..

A quick look on pricewatch.com, and I came up with this in less than 2 minutes: http://www.ascendtech.us/itemdesc.asp?ic=LTPDELINS150116

It is a Dell dual-core, 2GB RAM, 160G HDD, Vista Home Premium, 15.4" WXGA, 6 cell battery, for $550 shipped.

I would say a Dell Inspiron is just as good as a Sony VAIO. I'm not saying this particular model is as good as the model you listed (more RAM, higher clock processor, more wireless options, etc.), but it would still perform very well, and is $900 cheaper.

Dell has had some good deals recently on Inspiron 1525s. Less than $600 can get you Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM, 120-160 GB harddrive, and the usual accoutrements. It would have onboard video, though, so it won't be a gaming laptop.

Do you want to be able to play (high end) PC games on it?

Search fatwallet.com for laptop deals. You can get a good DELL for well under $1000. You can even get DELL laptops that cost less than $500. Our Gateway with Centrino technology was less than $400 after rebates and is still doing fine.

By the way? Levino, yeah I've never heard of them, sells more laptops than Apple. Don't buy into the Apple hype.

The SONY laptop is a powerful computer. But, I'm guessing it's overkill for whatever you are going to be doing with it.

What are you going to do with the laptop?

Gaming? Don't expect to be satisfied with 3D gaming on a laptop. The graphics are low quality and logistically, it's just hard to game on a laptop. If I were going to get a laptop for gaming, I wouldn't be happy with anything less than a $3000 or $4000 laptop. Laptops are expensive to maintain and upgrade.

Microsoft Office/Email? Can easily be done on the $500.

Image/video editing? Can be done on the $500 with some performance hits. However, you are saving $1000.

If portability weren't an issue, I'd suggest building a desktop computer. CPU prices are amazingly cheap now. I'm thinking about upgrading and I don't even need a faster processor.

Tom's Hardware just did a field test:

The $500 Gaming PC cost only 63% of the System Builder Marathon’s “Low Cost” configuration’s current price, yet provides 76% its stock-speed performance and the same “overall” overclocked performance. That gives the overclocked $500 machine a huge 73% value advantage over the stock SBM system, and a significant 63% lead when both systems are overclocked.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-graphic-game,1907.html

I spent $2000 on a desktop computer when I entered college. At the time, it was great and it got me interested in the internet and video gaming and technology in general. However, looking back, I probably would have done just fine with a $800 and put the money somewhere else. $2000 is a lot of debt...especially when the computer is losing value every week.

We bought the sub-$400 laptop about 3 years ago and we still use it. It's been great for surfing the internet and using Microsoft Office. It'll even play Civ3 and 4. However, it doesn't play any 3d games that have come out in the last couple of years.

So, if portability really is an issue and you aren't interested in gaming, a $500 is probably a good deal for a laptop.

Bottomline: don't spend $1440 on this laptop.

For the money you will spend on a laptop I think that either HP or Acer is the way to go right now. I've become very interested in Acer since they are one of the top computer names now that they bought out or are buying out Gateway. You will pay a few more $100 bucks for just the sony name, when you can get a "lesser" known brand that will give you the same and probably better experience.

Here are a few that sound really nice for the price:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8780125&type=product&id=1204332500899

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8760879&type=product&id=1202650401237

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8771297&type=product&id=1203815723402

http://www.newegg.com/Store/Brand.aspx?Brand=1146&name=Acer-America

I'm not suggesting you buy it from best buy because there are usually other cheaper options, but worth a look to find something cheaper. It's your money, but if you spend that much on a laptop now you will be losing money really quickly once you chips and such come out. Plus, if you just need it for work, school, internet, minesweeper then sony might not be the best option.

I just got a Dell Inspiron with similar specs. You should be looking at around $1000 and under, you can build a really good laptop for that. With a 256MB NVidia card, it plays 3D games at about 30-40% of what my tower PC can currently do (and my tower PC isn't decked out either). So I don't expect any great gaming out of it, but it lets me game when I'm not at home.

Go google "Dell coupons" then build a laptop based on the coupon codes you find. I tend to save the most money this way.

Nothing beats a laptop. I love them. But if you're gaming, Raps right, your gonna have to spend $3000-$4000 to get something worthwile in a laptop. Otherwise you can build a killer gaming tower with $1400 bucks.

If I was building a new tower, I'd base it off of this motherboard, then just add pieces as I go:
XFX nForce 790i for around $300

That, plus 4G Corsair RAM for around $120
Core2Duo or Quad Core for around $200
a $120 case
an XFX 8800 GTX for $500
a 650W PSU for $120
a CPU fan for $20

If you've already got the drives from another PC, then that brings the total to around $1380 give or take for a completely badass gaming rig that I would trade you mine for right now!! hehe ;) Of course you can get very very close to the same performance and get a level down in graphics card, RAM and CPU and still probably not be able to tell the difference that much. Of course don't let us talk you into getting a tower if you've got your heart set on a laptop. If that's what you want, go for it!

--------

I'm not planning on playing High End PC games, but I would like too play some games. Idk i'm probably going to hold off on the laptop for now, and look more into a tower? plus I have a friend who builds comps so i'll prob talk to him about it, and see how much he'd charge.

Do it yourself, man. You'll save money, learn exactly how a PC is constructed, and be confident to do it again for the rest of your life. There are plenty THX'ers that are very knowledgeable and will be happy to help you (I can't say I'm as knowledgeable as many here, but I can help). It's really about as simple as this, buy a

case
motherboard
processor
power supply
RAM
hard drive
optical drive
video card

...and put it all together. Choose a common set of standards like an ATX case, a mobo that accepts a PCI express x16 video card, and a SATA hard drive.

Some of the acronyms sound daunting, but after a few minutes of reading you'll be comfortable with them. Next time you come over I'll be glad to take the cover off my Vista machine and show you how it's put together. Oc, Disavowed, and EA have done much more of this than I, and they can probably give you very detailed advice. Mintz also built a computer recently.

Heck yea man, if you decide to go that direction, do it yourself. Tell us any components you've got your heart set on (like a particular graphics card, processor, or cd drive) and then just post up a price limit. We'll even do it here on the forum and provide links to buy all of the stuff for el-cheapo. You'll be able to throw the pieces together in like 30 minutes, and it'll be a killer system. The hardest decision to make is really just the case.. and that's a more personal preference and space than anything.

--------

We will help you build it, SHYZZA. Heck, might be able to give you some parts that we don't need any more. I'm pretty sure we've all got old parts laying around that we aren't using.

Oc, D15, I, and others will be more than happy to help you build a system. Once you have all the parts, it can be built in an hour.

The great thing about building your own system is that you can buy it in parts. You don't have to buy the whole thing at once. So, you can spend $50 on a sound card now or $100 on RAM later or $300 on a video card in the future instead of spending $1400 at one time. And if you build it with the right standards, you can continue upgrading your PC for years and continue to have the latest and greatest for a few hundred bucks in upgrades a year.

If you want a good computer at a cheap price, building a tower is the way to go.

If you want to go this way, let us help you. There are a few things that you've got to get right when you start out or you'll be stuck with a system with no upgrade path. Let us advise you on all your hardware purchases and you'll be set for years.

Don't be intimidated by all the parts inside a computer. The parts are plug and play. The hard part is the standards (knowing what chipset to buy, knowing what brand to buy, knowing what factor won't work with your motherboard, etc.). But, like I said, we'll be glad to help you.

If you are going to get serious about this, then look at Tom's Hardware Guide's $500 computer that I linked to above. That's a look at how you can have a powerful computer for $500.

Here's the link: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-graphic-game,1810.html

If you've got $800 to spend, then you can have a good entry level machine. This link will show you the low, medium, and high computer costs for do it yourself:: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/system-builder-marathon,1794.html

I also agree with building your own PC. Like Jeff said, not only will you save a ton of money, you will learn. I built my first pc back in 8th grade with my summer job I made from selling Ultima Online accounts! (Yes, I sold 2 different accounts one for $1000 and one for $750 I believe) with little to no knowledge. It's the same pc I currently have today, which I used to upgrade every so often to new and better things. Most of my spare parts I have lying around are pretty obsolete now, but I do have a decent video card laying around that could help get you started, I'm actually getting ready to upgrade soon so I will let you know what I have left over. One good site I have always kept in my bookmarks for computer parts is newegg.com They have very good customer service and extremely fast shipping, no need to pay for the express shipping when the normal is just like express. They also have killer deals from time to time so you have to just keep checking in with them. Good luck if you go this route and I'm sure between everyone here we can answer any questions.

Thanks for all the advice and the offers to help!! I'm deff going to do this. I won't really be able to very fervently till Like two weeks cause i'll be done with all my school and stuff then. Any ideas on where to start?? cause I am pretty lost..

Games don't make people violent. Lag does..

There's not too much to say that hasn't been said already about the advantages of building it yourself. And you'll have plenty of help. Rap's suggestion about the $500 rig from Tom's Hardware would be a really good place to start, or even build the exact same rig. And newegg.com is definitely the place to go for most (actually ALL) of your parts.

One thing that deserves mention is that, when you build it yourself, not only is the quality of the parts better, but since you are the system builder, those manufacturer warranties are extended to you, and not Dell or Sony, etc. Most parts carry warranties that last much longer than warranties that come with a pre-built PC. RAM usually carries a lifetime warranty. Most Hard drives have a 5yr warranty. Even some video card manufacturers back their cards w/ a lifetime warranty (XFX is the one that comes to mind). You get the point. And you don't have to pay anything extra for it.

Take advantage of the resources you've got here at the THX community. I'm sure you'll get more advice than you ever thought you'd need, but you'll have a killer rig and a good amount of knowledge to show for it!

Tell us what you want to do on your computer and how long you expect to continue to do whatever you want to do with it. Are you expecting to play 3D video games on it after it's built?

Tell us how much money you have in your budget.

Tell us how long you are willing to wait to get the computer assembled.

Guys: I'm thinking he needs a Core 2 Duo and nVidia 8800GTS probably on a 680i motherboard.

SHYZZA: One thing that's really up to you is the case. So, go to Newegg and select an ATX mid or full tower cases: http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=9&name=Computer-Cases

Start by defining your goals for this computer and your budget, then everyone here can make recommendations on each component. You can then decide on components and purchase them as you find time/money.

1. What's your budget? If you're wishy-washy on this then it'll be difficult to recommend a system to you, so please just draw a line in the sand. Be honest with yourself on how much you're willing to spend. If it's $400, that's OK. If it's $1400, that's OK too.
2. Is this going to be a gaming PC? If so, what games do you want to play on it?
3. Besides basic home computing (word processing, pictures, surfing the net) are there any resource-intensive programs you wish to run on it? What programs? It's not abnormal if the answer is "none."
4. I assume you want a DVD burning optical drive? If not, please specify.
5. Any desire for a HD video optical drive (Blu-Ray)? This means you would be able to watch Blu-Ray movies on your PC. These are rather expensive right now.
6. Are you purchasing a monitor as well, or just building the PC?

If he doesn't want to play cutting edge FPS games then I recommend an 8600GT video card. Will save $100. All depends on his goals.

The 8600GT seems like it can handle most of the cutting edge pc games on the market at a good price might I add.

You might want to look into running XP over Vista if you want a pure gaming machine. I went to Vista about 2 months ago and it's been nothing but headaches, they are slowly fixing the issues.. and to get certain games to run requires all kinds of patches/tricks etc, and Vista sucks for running older games out on the market if that was in your goals for your PC.

Hmm, I'm gonna keep all this in mind for when I decide to build a new PC.
------------------------
"Don't blow this, Gene!"

Now that I think about it.. My budget is prob no more than 800, But if it would make a big difference in performance and whatnot then I would be willing to go over.
Yes I want it to be a gaming pc, mostly either Mythos or Rappelz (sp) which are not very graphically chalenging I don't think, but I would also like to be able to play Crisis..
Well I want it to be able to run Flexi Sign/Photoshop
Yes I want to be able to burn DVD's
I have no desire to have a Blue-ray drive
I will be purchasing a moniter at some point. We have one I can use till I find one I like, so don't configure the moniter price into the total cost. It'll happen when it happens.

I'll try to find a case in the next couple days..

Games don't make people violent. Lag does..

Quick and dirty $500 build. Jack of all trades, master of none. All components have pretty good reviews. Will examine an $800 build now that James has posted his budget.

2.8 GHz AMD dual core
8600GT
320GB harddrive
4 GB RAM
Basic case with 400W PSU

What do yall think of this case?? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811226013 it's the cheapest (after mail in rebate). Or this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811156203 it's between these two.
Games don't make people violent. Lag does..

I'm not digging the leather front panel, thats a first for me. The other downside to the other case is you have to open the front panel to access your usb ports, which is a bummer if you don't mind opening it all the time. I currently use 4 usb ports on my laptop, I have 4 in the back and 2 on the side, on my pc I have 2 in the front, 2 in the back. If I had to keep that front panel open all the time to access those usb ports I would just rip off the panel. Might want to keep that in mind if your leaning towards that case, but both should be fine. You just want to get a nice study case with room.

I have an XFX 8600GT 256MB video card. On an Asus nForce 500 SLI mobo, AMD 5000+ dual core CPU, 2GB G.Skill RAM, and 1 250GB HDD. Bioshock plays great on it. Crysis, however, would not. The GDDR3 RAM is great, but the 128bit memory interface just doesn't cut it on the latest games.

Shyzza, since you mentioned you'd like to play Crysis, I'd go w/ the 8800GTS (nVidia), or the HD 3870 from ATI. Both are about the same cost, and offer near equal performance. nVidia has a slight performance edge w/ games since most developers have the best support for it's chipset, and from what I've read, typically offers better drivers, although ATI is rapidly closing that gap since it got bought by AMD.

As for the two cases you looked at, I'd go with the Raidmax. Or, look at a case/PSU combo from Antec. It'll be a little more pricey, but Antec's Power supplies are better than what you'll get from the Raidmax combo. I have a Raidmax case/PSU combo (Smilodon). My 500W PSU went bad, and fried my mobo. I had to have the mobo replaced (luckily still under warranty, so no money out of pocket) and bought a new PSU, as opposed to having Raidmax replace it (under warranty, as well) w/ the same model, and likely to go bad again. Newegg was cool enough to give me a credit towards a new and better PSU, after I explained to them what happened.

Its got to be able to run Age of Mythology! :) Seriously though, I am sure we will be lanning newer RTSs in the future, so you may want to take that into account. Starcraft 2 is a big one.
------------------------
"Don't blow this, Gene!"

No one says you have to buy everything at once, so here is what I came up for you. If I were to build a really nice pc this is what I'd do:

Intel 2.66ghz dual-core
4 gb ram
500 gb hdd
8600 GT
600 W power supply

The total comes to 887.26 shipped...you could easily downgrade a few things and get it down to your $800 level. This would be a very solid rig for what it sounds like you need it for. What are you planning to use for your OS? XP?

All this pc talk makes me wanna upgrade from my p4, 1 gb ram, 250 gb hdd...

Sounds like everyone else has you pretty much covered, but I just wanted to say a couple things.

Actually putting the PC together is really easy, and you feel really good once you complete it and it boots up.

I bought my PC for about $500, and it's served me perfectly with absolutely no complaints. It runs Crysis, but you can't have all the settings maxed. You shouldn't have a problem running games that are ~1 year old if you spend the same amount, and I'm sure Starcraft 2 will work just fine.

I bought a nice 20" LCD monitor for $170 from NewEgg, and that was about six months ago, so it's probably cheaper now. You could probably get 21" or 22" for a little bit more.

That rig that Midnight posted is really nice. 2.8GHz dual-core? Heck yeah. You might even be able to bump that up to 3.0GHz with overclocking, too. I bought a 1.8GHz dual-core, and I managed to overclock it to 2.2GHz, so it's very likely.

Thoughts on JDogg's build:
1. I would ditch the separate power supply and buy a case that comes with one. I don't think he'll need 600W. That would shave damn near $100 off the price.
2. Apply that $100 to the video card and get an 8800 chipset. If he wants to play Crysis then he'll need it.
3. Use the memory I found above and get 4GB for $75 instead of 2GB for $70.

Lots of rebates with that build. Looks like $80 via MIR (mail-in rebate).

Does he seriously need all that HD space? I use a 80g in my pc tower, thats about 75% full and I have a external 80g that is 100% full of music(which is extreme amount of music, so much I don't even want the rest of my brother's collection).. I just don't see the reason to get a 500GB+ hard drive if he has a tight budget, save some bucks to put towards a nicer video card or something else.

I don't require a lot of HD space on my home computers either. I have been getting by with 40 and 80GB in my laptop and desktop. However, 500 GB is kind of the sweet spot for pricing right now. You can generally get 250 GB for $50, 320 GB for $60, or 500 GB for $80. Of course, $30 saved is $30 saved. If a 250 GB drive will suffice then it's probably a good option.

If you watch fatwallet/slickdeals you can also find decent sized drives for very low prices after rebates. However, you have to be patient and willing to handle a MIR. I don't have problems with rebates, but some people don't like to deal with them.

Yeah that was the point I was getting at basically. Sure the prices are down on 500 GB but I personally still can't consider dropping the cash on something I will never get remotely close to filling up. If I had a HD that size I would have to install every nit picking thing possible to feel justified!

Here's my pick for a $800 build. Total is $786 shipped, leaving you a few $ for misc expenses. There's also a $30 MIR on the video card.

Samsung DVD burner. Didn't see much difference between all the optical drives.

Rosewill case with 400W PSU. Rosewill is Newegg's house brand. They're generally reputable. I would go to Tom's hardware and look up power requirement's of each component to verify 400W will cut the mustard with some room to spare.

Western Digital 500GB HD. I don't need 500GB, but for an extra $30 over a HD with half the space, it seems like a no-brainer.

EVGA 8800GT video card. I'm not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed when it comes to video cards. I went strictly by reviews and awards. This one got a customer's choice award, looks solid, and fits in the budget nicely.

A-DATA 4GB RAM. This is DDR2, 800Mhz RAM. Great deal for 4 GB. However, you can only get 3 GB usable out of 32-bit versions of XP and Vista. The extra gig doesn't hurt since it all comes on 2 sticks.

Gigabyte mobo. Very highly rated, won customer's choice award, and nicely priced. Has optical and coaxial audio out in for easily connecting to a 5.1/6.1/7.1 surround sound system. All solid capacitors, which is apparently good, although I confess I don't know why.

Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0 GHz 45nm processor. 45nm chip will run cooler and allow you to overclock more. A quad core chip is within your budget, but I don't think it's necessary.

CPU cooler. Picked a modestly priced but highly rated cooler for socket 775 chips. Don't know much about it.

I think the PSU is the weakest link of the build. Reviews say it's good for a basic build, but nothing extravagant. If I were going to add to the build anywhere I'd go with a different case and better PSU, but I think the build is solid as listed.

What do you guys with more experience think? Have I made any stupid errors on compatibility?

James, if I were you I would jump on this, stat:

http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/825180/

Intel Quad core processor, 500GB HD, 3 GB RAM, all from Dell for $464 shipped. The processor alone on NewEgg is $225. I would upgrade the 3 GB of RAM from 667 MHz to 800MHz RAM for the additional $20 and make it $484 shipped. Then add a $200 video card and you've got a gaming rig better than anything we've suggested so far for less than $700.

I spec'd out a sweet Intel C2D / 8800 GTS system last night for $675. I'll post it when I get time.

Also, yesterday I told Celery, either you do want a gaming system or you don't. That is, if you are going to build a system to only play games on it part of the time, then you might as well build a system as if you are going to game on it all the time; else, you might not be able to play games on it part of the time.

Let's build a system that can run Microsoft Flight Sim X and Crysis on at least medium settings, if not max'd out settings at say, 1280 x 1024.

Priority of parts IMO are in this order (and it’s based on getting the most frames per second at a good value):
GPU - At least an 8800 GTS (an 8800 GTS outperforms two 8600 GTS's in SLI. I think money is best spent on the GPU. Splurge here if possible because the GPU is the one thing that will get your more fps's when the new games come out. New games are pegged to GPUs, not CPUs.)
CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo at least 2.4GHz (Go with Intel since so many dev's cater to Intel/nVidia; also because AMD could be out of business any day now…i.e., AMD spent more money on acquiring ATI last year than AMD is now worth). Intel also just slashed prices on all their Quad and Core 2 Duo chips.
RAM - 2GB of at least DDR2-800 PC2-6400 (will add two more GB of same RAM at a later date)
Motherboard - ATX board that supports Intel's 775. Get one with at least two PCI x16 slots in case you ever want to do SLI or in case another device needs an x16 slot. Get one that has plenty of USB ports on the back and has on-board audio.
PSU - At least 500W. Trading out power supplies is the hardest thing to do in a system because you usually have to remove a few parts and you definitely have to disconnect all power connections to every device...and then connect all the power connections for the new power supply. Recommend getting 600W or more here if the price is right. However, if you save good money by going with a 450W, then it might be worth it. Of course, if you lower your PSU wattage to afford more GPU or CPU, you’ll likely be needing that very PSU wattage that you just traded.
Case – Get one with USB ports on the front that can be accessed without opening the case or front panel. Get one with a lot of room on the inside so that you can easily give it the business when you need to. Get one with a quick release side panel so you don’t need a screw driver to get in and out. Try not to spend more than $100 on the case. However, a $100 may be worth it.
HDD – Go cheap. Spend money on CPU and GPU to get more fps for gaming so scrape by with a low capacity hard drive. Install a new hdd a few months from now when you've recouped your costs and add a good 250 or 500GB drive to store you games, videos, and music. Look for a sweet deal on fatwallet or newegg.
Audio - Use on-board audio jacks on the motherboard for now. It will sound good, but not great. However, it'll save you $50-$100. Save up your money for a Creative Fatality card later.
Optical drive – A $25 drive is a $25 drive. But get a Lite-ON or Samsung if you can because of the better quality.

Future upgrade priority:
sound card: $50-$100
RAM (bumps you up to 4GB): $60-$100
hdd space: $50-$100
CPU (for a faster Core 2 Duo): $125-$200 (don’t forget you can sell your old CPU)

BTW: Because it is easy and because of the deep discount, the DELL deal is very sweet. Buy it and then buy an 8800 GT for $200.

Then save up your money and buy a $100 sound card (although you don't really need it).

To get that 10% off coupon I need to have a "Company email". But all I have is hotmail, so it won't send it to me. How do I get past this??

Games don't make people violent. Lag does..

I'm getting you a coupon code from a friend at work. Sit tight.

update: check your email

SHYZZA: How much money are you willing to put toward a video card?

Alright it is purchased.
@Midnight, Thanks for getting me that code, and it did work.
@Rap, idk I guesse it would depend on what i'm getting out of paying more for. What did you have in mind?

Games don't make people violent. Lag does..

Oh and pass my thanks to your friendzorz.

Games don't make people violent. Lag does..

Glad it worked for you. I was having problems getting it to accept the coupon after I left work. You got a great deal. Add a good video card and you'll have a killer gaming system, plus a 1-year warranty from Dell. I did something similar with my HTPC (DVR). I found a killer deal at Circuit City and ended up getting the entire PC (less monitor) for less than $300. I added a video card and extra memory from NewEgg and was in business for extremely cheap. It was bought last summer, so it's nowhere near the PC you just ordered, but the value was similar at the time.

Yes that is a very nice find indeed. I would maybe jump on that for a backup computer that I want to build, but I have money that I have to spend elsewhere.. no time for new toys just yet!

Depends on what you wanna do. If he is gonna be gaming and downloading music, videos and such I think a 500 gb would do the trick for a long term fix and him not have to worry about it. I have a 250 gb that tends to get full and I have to delete stuff, so to me it would be worth it. Plus, 500 gb are great price right now.

SHYZZA: I assume you bought the DELL PC?

It's time to look at this chart and figure out how many frames per second you want to get right now:

THG's VGA charts

I'm thinking an 8800 GT or an 8800 GTX with at least 320MB of on-board RAM.

Dang. I'm beginning to wonder if those 8800 cards will physically fit in the case due to their size. Worse case (heh), we have to bust out a hacksaw and cut out a brace on the inside of the case.

We need to get some prices on these cards to do a comparison to figure out if you need to spend $250 or $200 on a video card.

Taken from http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=vga_2

I'm thinking an XFX 8800 GT with 512MB of RAM will be sweet: link

Oc and I like XFX. I think D15 does to...because of the lifetime warranty. They are also well respected in the hardware community.

Is there a certain threshold of frames per second he should stay above? Is more simply better? Is there an upper threshold after which he won't be able to tell a difference?

It looks like 60 fps is the threshold to be color coded blue.

The more fps he gets now, the more he'll get later on a newer video game. You always want more fps. 238 frames per second in CoD4 now might seem like overkill. But he'll be getting 60 fps on a game a couple of years from now with that same card.

If he gets a card that does 60 fps now, then he might only be able to get 30 fps a year or two from now.

It's awful to play at anything under 30 fps. I don't like playing under 45 fps.

The video card is where gamers spend their money. It's the most important part to a gaming system. This is the place to spend money on a quality card that's going to offer great performance for the next two-three years.

One thing to note: DirectX 11 is scheduled to be released in 2009. This means that he won't be able to play DirectX 11-only games in 2009. There were only a handful of DirectX 10-only games this and last year, so it's nothing to worry about.

The XFX 8800 GT, looks good to me. I don't really plan on buying alot of PC games. Excluding Crisis and a select few others, all the PC games I would want are also out on the 360. Unless that starts changing I'll probably just stick to mostly the 360 unless there's a good reason not too.

Games don't make people violent. Lag does..

Oh and yes Rap I did buy the dell.

Games don't make people violent. Lag does..

This is probably the GPU for you at a really good price:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150252

XFX PVT88PYDF4 GeForce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card for $180 - $10 coupon PVT88ST - $30 Rebate = $140 + $8 shipping. It also comes with Company of Heroes game for free if it's still in stock at Newegg.

I don't know if your motherboard supports PCIe 2.0 x16, however this is what Wikipedia said: PCIe 2.0 is backward and forward compatible with PCIe v1.x. Graphic cards and motherboards designed for v2.0 will be able to work with v1.1 and v1.0, and vice versa. In some rare cases it is possible that a PCI-E 2.0 card will not work correctly on a PCI-E 1.0a slot. This is only limited to certain video cards.

So, Jeff said you've got a PCIe x16 slot of some kind. This means the card will run.

$148 after rebate is a heck of a deal for the performance.

If I didn't have my 8800GTX, I would consider buying two of these and putting them in SLI mode. I'm halfway considering getting this card to drive a 3rd monitor.

The Tom's Hardware Guide charts show that this card performs very well. Only the 8800GTX consistently outperforms this card. Surprisingly, in SLI mode, this card outperforms almost every SLI config on the market.

I think it's a safe purchase.

The $30 rebate is only good if you purchase the card in the month of April.

Anyone else got any opinions on this card?

I read glowing reviews of the 8800GT in a recent issue of Games For Windows. They pretty much said the same thing you did: the 8800GTX is better, but the substantially lower price of the 8800GT makes it a no-brainer; the price difference is greater than the performance difference.

Alright I bought it.

I really appreciate all the help from everyone!!

Games don't make people violent. Lag does..

Cool. Let us know when you get it up and running.

Follow the instructions in the 8800 GT box. It may want you to install the latest drives BEFORE you connect your GPU to your MOBO.

What kind of mouse do you have?

I've got a 5-button optical Microsoft Intellimouse that you can have.

Check out Steam. It's like XBLA but for PC games. A lot of them are free. There are tons of demos on there. And, you can buy major games for $10-15. No more going to the store to buy games.

Will do man.

All I have is whatever mouse is coming with the comp. I actually have a steam acount floating around. I created it when I played Half Life 2.

Games don't make people violent. Lag does..

I know this is woefully lame for true PC aficionados, but if you want to get into overclocking your CPU and GPU, as well as easily monitoring temp/processor load/and changing useful video options then I suggest nTune. It's a free program from Nvidia that works with their GPUs. You can get it here. It's got some automated options to overclock your CPU, do a stability test, and then repeat until it finds the optimal solution. Once again, it's not going to be the preferred way to overclock and monitor temp, but for a newb (like me) it was a great introduction. To be honest, my needs are so simple that it's a one-stop shop and I don't need anything else. I suggest you give it a try after your GPU is up and running.

Also don't be afraid to ask for help if you hit any snags during installation, or you would like help with the installation. However, if you follow the directions you should be fine.

Ive been thinking of finally building a PC and this thread has really helped me. I think I'm going to go with the $500 PC from Toms Hardware.
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Currently playing:
Team Fortress 2 (PC)
Audiosurf(PC)

When looking at a graphics card am I supposed to look at the core clock speed or Memory size? right now I'm looking at the 8800GS XXX and the 8600 series.
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Currently playing:
Team Fortress 2 (PC)
Audiosurf(PC)

Ok, as of yesterday I have the comp and Graphics card in hand. I'm going to try and put it in either later today or tommorow.

ps. thatnks for all the help again!!

Games don't make people violent. Lag does..

Congrats on the new rig. Hopefully everything will install good and run nicely.

Ok, well i've got everything installed and it seemes to work. But here's the thing. My brothers play this game Mythos, and every now and then the screen starts shacking or you can kinda see the screen refreshing. Then whenever then click to exit or log off the game it turns the screen black and you have to restart the comp. Do any of you have any idea why that would be happening??

You more than likely installed graphics drivers from a cd that came with your new 8800GT. The issues you're having could be resolved from updated drivers from nVidia's website (you can do a search for your card's model #, and they'll have support and downloads for it), or it could be a conflict with whatever drivers came preloaded for your on-board graphics (which you're no longer using). Cross your fingers it's the former, and not the latter. If the former is the case, it's as easy as re-installing the drivers by dwnlding them from nVidia's website. If the latter is the case, it can still be removed, but it's not as straight-forward and will take a little longer...

Either way, it can be resolved. Give the updated nVidia drivers a try, and let us know if that works. If not, we'll go down the list of possible causes and get it fixed!

I've had some graphical issues while playing Mythos myself. It might be due to the fact that the game is just in a beta stage, but you should update your drivers anyways.

I'm almost positive it's not that, because the few days before I installed the card it worked fine, and I play it on another comp and have never had any trouble like this.

SHYZZA: Can you confirm that you are running the latest drivers from the nVidia website?

Not yet, I'm gonna have to download them from the website when I get home.

Looks like new drivers just came out anyway:

http://blogs.nvidia.com/sli/2008/05/new-drivers-ava.html

Updating to latest drivers should be your first stop after a successful initial install.

Alright, I have installed the new drivers, and so far there haven't been any more problems. Thanks everyone.

What's your Vista experience index? If you haven't checked, right click on my computer and go to properties. You should see a little rectangular box with a number somewhere between 2-6. Let Vista rescan your hardware and tell you where you stand. This isn't a highly technical or accurate way of rating system performance, but it's a standard that every Vista user has access to. I'm guessing your lowest index is probably around 5.5.

Oh, I have XP. Is there a way to do this with XP??

No, and you'll never miss it in XP. It doesn't waste a lot of extra video memory and resources just to give you the "aero" experience that Vista does purely for eye-candy purposes. Your eye-candy will be the video games you play.

Agree. Vista isn't worth it. You'll get higher fps in XP than in Vista.

You can benchmark your system by reporting how many fps you get in 3d games with certain settings.