Here's what I'm thinking of doing with $2000

[firelogs]

Dell Dimension 8300 Series
Pentium® 4 Processor with HT Technology 3GHz w/800MHz FSB
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
512MB (2x256) Dual Channel 400Mhz DDR SDRAM
Dell™ Wireless Keyboard and Optical Mouse
1703FP Dell Ultrasharp™ Digital Flat Panel Display
2001FP Dell Ultrasharp™ Digital Flat Panel Display
New 128MB DDR GeForce FX 5200 Graphics Card
120GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
Integrated Intel® PRO 10/100 Ethernet
56K PCI Telephony Modem
48x CD-RW Drive 48CDRW
Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 (D) Card
No Speakers
Palm Zire 21
Dell TrueMobile™ 1300 WLAN (802.11b/g) USB 2.0 DT Adapter

Two LCD monitors; No DVD writer; No speaker set. Price is $2060 including tax, and before $150 mail-in-rebate.

What do you all think? I figure RAM and optical drives will be cheaper after market, and plan to spend another $200 towards these after redeeming the rebate and selling the PDA. I figure extra 1GB of RAM and a DVD burner will be another $300 or so, but these can wait.

Obviously, bleeding edge performance is not my first priority. Good display quality, however, is. This is going to be a home PC, to organize/edit growing collection of digital music, family photos, and home video.

As for software, I have Win XP Pro.

Appreciate your input.

 

[baldurga]

512Mb on XP and working with photos/videos? Double the RAM, seriously. If costs too much, just downgrade the CPU, you won't notice the lower performance but WILL notice the additional 512Mb


Still looking for a <b>good online retailer</b> in Spain :frown:

 

[blackphoenix77]

Well..if you want to piss away your money, sounds like a plan . Would you be interested in building a computer? You would become much more knowledgable about you system and you would definently be getting a better computer and you would only spend a little more than $1000. Go to <A HREF="http://www.Newegg.com" target="_new">http://www.Newegg.com</A> and look up the CPU you want, and RAM, and motherboard and everything and add up the price. I bet it won't come up to $2000. So if you decide to build your computer you are kind of killing 3 birds with one stone. You are becoming more knowledgable about your computer, cheaper, and possibly more performance if you add a few things to the list.

<A HREF="http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?michael" target="_new"> You Want To Click Me, Go Ahead </A>

 

[Carnivore]

And, building a computer is stupid easy. I built three in one day, and that was my first day trying to build. I just looked a "How-To" up on the net and was in there. Trust me, if I can do it, a one armed, two figered, blind man could. He wouldn't have to be that smart either. On a side note- if the prices on those Dell flat panels are competitive, every review I have ever read has said that thier flat panels are top-notch. But I would strongly suggest that you build your own. If you however refuse to do that I think you will find much better prices and customer support if you go with an ABS (www.abscomputers.com), or Monarch (www.monarchcomputer.com) system.

 

[PukePile]

Or you could buy one from http://www.michaelscomputers.com lol

<A HREF="http://arc.aquamark3.com/arc/arc_view.php?run=612704152" target="_new">http://arc.aquamark3.com/arc/arc_view.php?run=612704152</A>

 

[justaguy]

I'd build too, if I were you. Dell and Gateway are good at getting a $400 computer to run forever, but if you're comparing what $2000 buys from them vs. $2000 worth of hardware and building yourself, that's a joke. You could easily build a bleeding edge system with great display quality for around $2000. No joke-look at pricewatch.com or newegg (I go there first b/c ~$3 price difference is outweighed by trust and great shipping). Posts about it being easy and learning more are dead on. Hardest part about it for me (when I started) was using fdisk on a new drive. If you're talking about adding optical drives and memory later, you can probably build your own. No one step is any harder than installing a CD burner. Just be patient and thorough and use common sense.

Athlon XP 1900 (11x200) 42C (Load w/AX-7 & 8cm Tornado) - MSI K7N2 Delta - Corsair Value PC3200 - Gainward GF3 @ 250/550 - 80Gb WD 8Mb Cache -

 

[firelogs]

Priced out all the hardware components at newegg.com, and even before the costs of shipping, a top-notch 17" LCD and another top-notch 20" LCD, it comes out to $1000 for comparable equipments to the Dell configuration cited. As previously stated, the quality of the display units are more important than additional 10-20% processing power. It seems that LCD panels comparable in reputation to the Dell models cited cost well over $1500 combined. So, where is the cost advantage to BYO?

 

[TheRod]

If you want GOOD video quality get an ATI or Matrox (if you don't play games) video cards. They both offer very good signal quality/output. The Matrox cards can manage multi-monitor setup really. GeForce FX52000 is one of the WORST GPU ever made.

Like other people stated, you will not get the price/performance is you buy a DELL PC, but if you don't mind, it's ok!

--
Would you buy a potato powered chipset?

 

[flamethrower205]

My concern is more of are you willing to deal with one lcd @ 1280x1024 and the other at 1600x1200 + size difference? It could get a bit weird..
Am I right in assuming that FX5200 has dual DVI outputs....don't even think about running the 2001FP in analog mode- the signal gets affected a considerable amount.

SEX is like math. Add the bed, subtract the clothes, divide the legs, and hope you dont multiply

 

[firelogs]

video card is replaceable easily enough. I didn't think Dell configurator offered too many video card choices for that configuration, but i will have to check. thanks for pointing that out.