Building a system

[Conspiracy_Victim 0]

So, I'm looking to upgrade my ancient system (almost 3 years old the horror!) and I'm going to spoil myself and go with a gaming rig and figured I'd get some opinions. I've wondered about the merits of dual processors vs. a single processor. Most companies seem to be pushing the dual processor as the next big thing, but I can usually get a single processor a step or two faster for the same price. Seeing as how I rarely run more than one high end process at a time, I figure the single processor is the way to go, but I'm willing to listen to other ideas.

 

Also re: processors, what's the difference between Athlon and Pentium? I'm leaning towards Pentium just on name recognition, but a couple of friends who seem to be well versed in computers prefer the Athlon processors.

 

Finally, I've got a $3k line of credit from Alienware and $1500 from Dell. I could build a really nice rig from Dell for about $1900-2000 vs. $2700 from Alienware. So, I'd have to shell out about $400-500 up front for the Dell system as opposed to putting it all on credit from Alienware. All payment options being equal, is Alienware worth the extra money, or is it just "flash" and not worth it?

 

I figure this system will keep me ahead of the curve for a while:

 

3.0-3.4 GHz

160 GB HD

2 gigs memory

Either a Radeon 1800 or a GeForce 7800 (256 megs)

Creative Labs 7.1 sound.

 

Again, any opinions/advice will be heard and appreciated.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Ah, that's not "building a system" that's just choosing options on what Alienware or Dell will get you.

 

Here's a better idea: If you don't want to or don't know how to (it's really not very complicated) build a PC, with that great credit you seem to have, I'd get a Mac unless you're a heavy gamer or just don't like the interface much.

 

If you want to build a PC, I guarantee you'll get a much better system for far cheaper and you'll have confidence in knowing what's in your system and how it was built.

[Conspiracy_Victim 0]

Yeah, I guess "building a system" is somewhat of a misnomer in this case. I didn't mean to indicate that I was going to be choosing components and putting them together myself (I'd probably end up needing a fire truck to put out the results) but more along the lines of choosing the specs of my system.

 

I'm pretty much just a gamer/internet/word processing computer user (in that order) so I'm not big on Macs.

[tominator89 0]

When building a system, the advice I always give is to focus the most into the motherboard. Simple things like adding an extra hard drive are much easier than upgrading an existing processor.

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

Alienware isn't bad, but they're expensive as hell. Don't get me wrong, they build good computers, but you can get a $4000 Alienware computer for about $2000 if you build it yourself.

[Conspiracy_Victim 0]

Alienware isn't bad, but they're expensive as hell. Don't get me wrong, they build good computers, but you can get a $4000 Alienware computer for about $2000 if you build it yourself.

 

Yeah I'm finding that out. I actually found a wholesaler here in town that seems to have damn good prices on components. If I can talk them into building the system and making some sort of financing arrangement I'll probably get it though them.

[Dr. Tyler; Captain America 0]

Really, if I were you, I'd just play around inside of your current computer and figure out how to do it yourself. It saves a lot of money, and self-builds are extremely upgradeable. But, if you trust the wholesaler, go for it. Check prices there against Newegg and Tigerdirect before you trust them, though.

[Conspiracy_Victim 0]

Yeah I've got an account with newegg but these local places are a bit cheaper and I don't have to ship them (they're both fairly near my house). All in all I'm probably just going to wait for a couple of months while I pay off a couple of other outstanding bills (damn you Best Buy credit card, damn you to hell!) and maybe get a small price drop.