Is this system any good?

[Mark J]

3.06ghz
512MB 333MHz DDR
80gb 7200RPM Hard Drive
48x12x48 CD-RW and 16X DVD
GF4 TI 4200 8x AGP 128mb w/TV Out
56k Modem
Onboard Firewire
Windows XP Professional
$1399

_____


I saw it in a magazine advertisment (PC Upgrade May 2003), and it looked like a good deal to me. Is there something wrong with it? Could you build your own for less?

 

[Seloce]

You can do a lot better for that amount of money by building your own system. I spent $900 and I've got a machine that will probably kick the tar out of that.

 

[Mark J]

Really? Where did you get the parts for it?

 

[neb1211]

even 900 bucks for that computer seems high.

 

[darthparth]

yea my cousin's comp was an AMD Barton 3000+ (pimp slaps the P4 3.06ghz) w/ an nforce2 chipset mobo, 120GB HD, 16x DVD, 52x CD-RW, Gf4 ti4600, 1gig of DDR400 PC3200 speakers and subwoofer, case for like $840 (he already had the 19" monitor)

with $1300 you could build a dream machine instead of that thing

 

[imation]

and that already isnt a dream machine??? its surely gotta beat my 1800+xp athlon, 256ddr ram, ti4200 gf4 64mb ddr and 60gb computer...

 

[gemiller]

It's a dream for us imation! LoL, but as he said, if you build your own, youll save tons..

 

[Mark J]

I really quickly got the prices of parts and put together a system just to see how much it'd cost.

---

512MB PC 133 SDRAM (x2, total 1gb memory)

$49.99 each, $99.99

Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 6Y200P0 Hard Drive - 200GB 7200rpm EIDE Ultra ATA/133 8MB Buffer

$248.99

Intel® D875PBZ "Bonanza" boxed, Socket 478 for P4 (Hyper-Threading), 0/4GB Dual-Channel DDR400, 4xDIMMs, Intel 875P chipset, 800/533MHz FSB, 5xPCI, 1xAGP Pro 8X/4X, USB 2.0, SATA/ATA133 Multi-RAID, Gigabit LAN, ATX with 2.8 GHz/512K/800FSB processor

$569.98

Middle Tower ATX 4x51/4" 7x31/2" bays (6 hidden), Partial Blue Color front bezel, 350W UL PS, ATX, 17.8" x 7.2" x 16.6", Slide-opening side covers, Pentium 4 Ready

$49.99

ATI ALL-IN-WONDER RADEON 9700 PRO, RADEON 9700 PRO Visual Processing Unit (VPU) AGP8X, 128MB DDR, w/TV Tuner, S/PDIF, THEATER™ 200 Video decoder and stereo audio processor

$398.99

Sound Card: Not sure, putting $50 or so aside for it

Speakers: Not sure, putting around $30 aside for it

Keyboard/Mouse: Not sure, putting around $50 aside for it.

DVD/CD Drives: Not sure, putting around $50 aside for it

Total: Around $1540

And I'd still need Windows XP.

--

Does that seem a reasonable price for what I'd get? Or could I find parts cheaper?

 

[gemiller]

Well, that's a good bit of wasted cash into the harddrive, why not buy two 120's you could get two of them and still be cheaper than that.. And do you really need a 400 dollar video card?

 

[darthparth]

um, Pentium 4 uses RDRAM if im not mistaken. As for my personal opinion stick with an AMD since its easier to Overclock and much cheaper (ie. more bang for the buck). You system is not bad, but still very expensive. If you live in the US, newegg.com is your best bet. I wouldnt have 1 hard drive (data can get messed up), but like 2 hard drives (ie 2 80 gigs {mine were $160 combined RAID 1 striped}). Otherwise if you want the same performance without the pentium brand name stick with an AMD for like $400 - $500 cheaper. My system is slightly better than that (with my new nforce2 motherboard and overclocked 2400+) and costs around $700 (w/o monitor). Shop around for good deals at online stores like newegg.com... yea and like he said, $400 for a video card is insane.