Hi all,
I've been perusing this forum for a few weeks now and finally got up the courage to register and publicly display my technological newbness.
Here's the deal: my old PIII Thinkpad is on its last legs. Over the last four years or so, I added more RAM to it, popped on an external hard drive, upgraded the CD-ROM drive to play DVDs, but times are changing too quickly and it's time to retire the ol' workhorse.
I'd like to use a new computer for three things primarily:
1) Basic Internet browsing, word processing, etc.
2) Audio recording. I don't know if anyone here is into that, but I have Digidesign's Mbox that I just bought, and my old laptop just doesn't have enough space to handle all the bundled software that came with it.
3) Gaming! I used to play computer games, then I got into console stuff, but I'm kind of itching to pick up Guild Wars and WoW, and I'm eagerly awaiting a few other games that are slated to come out by the end of the year.
So hopefully this is where you all come in. My budget has to be $1500 or less. I've never built a CPU before, and I do live about a half an hour from Monarch Computer, which I've heard good things about. What components should I be looking at to put together (either by myself, or perhaps with the help of the good folks at Monarch) in order to have a system that will play some good games, handle audio recording, and be expandable enough to where it's not completely obsolete in a few years? Is that even possible for $1500 or less?
Thanks in advance for your help!
I've been perusing this forum for a few weeks now and finally got up the courage to register and publicly display my technological newbness.
Here's the deal: my old PIII Thinkpad is on its last legs. Over the last four years or so, I added more RAM to it, popped on an external hard drive, upgraded the CD-ROM drive to play DVDs, but times are changing too quickly and it's time to retire the ol' workhorse.
I'd like to use a new computer for three things primarily:
1) Basic Internet browsing, word processing, etc.
2) Audio recording. I don't know if anyone here is into that, but I have Digidesign's Mbox that I just bought, and my old laptop just doesn't have enough space to handle all the bundled software that came with it.
3) Gaming! I used to play computer games, then I got into console stuff, but I'm kind of itching to pick up Guild Wars and WoW, and I'm eagerly awaiting a few other games that are slated to come out by the end of the year.
So hopefully this is where you all come in. My budget has to be $1500 or less. I've never built a CPU before, and I do live about a half an hour from Monarch Computer, which I've heard good things about. What components should I be looking at to put together (either by myself, or perhaps with the help of the good folks at Monarch) in order to have a system that will play some good games, handle audio recording, and be expandable enough to where it's not completely obsolete in a few years? Is that even possible for $1500 or less?
Thanks in advance for your help!