best "bang for the buck" pre-built desktop PC for use with SW2004

Looking for the best out there under $800. Any particular systems to
look at? Don't need super smoking speed, just something reliable and
relatively fast.

Thanks.

J oa

 

Good Luck!

 

Joa,

You ain't gonna find "ANYTHING" pre-built, and SW capable at that price.

You may be able to cobble something together with no-name junk from Fry's
(fried) Electronics, but that's about it. An acceptable video card will cost
you $250.00 to $300.00 all by itself.

Regards


Mark

 

I went on Pricewatch and found these items. I'm sure you could
find someone to build it for you, or just do it yourself...

350W Case IntroPC
$32.00
AthlonXP 2200 CPU AMD $51.00
512MB PC2100 RAM Generic $54.00
Quadro4 550XGL Video Card PNY $106.95
40GB Hard Drive Western Digital $54.00
CD-ROM 48X Internal Samsung $11.00
Motherboard ASUS A7V 333 $42.00
Keyboard Generic
$7.00
Mouse HP
$2.00
Monitor 19" Daewoo
$149.00


Total---> $508.95

This setup should do very well actually. You would want to
increase the RAM as much as possible and find a good CPU fan.

Mike Wilson

 

You forgot one major line item--

XP-pro, OEM liscense, $130

 

I knew I forgot something. I thnik we're still under budget. Maybe
add a sound card and speakers? I suppose Microsoft Office would
need to be purchased as well to do design tables. That may throw
us over $800.00.

Mike

 

On my budget system, the copy of Office gets moved over from the old PC.
I'm still running my five year old copy of Office 2000, and see no reason to
upgrade.

 

I uploaded my Excel matrix to my website in case anyone wants
to plug their own numbers in...

http://www.mikejwilson.com/misc/cheap-arse_computer.zip

If I missed something, or if anyone sees a better deal, let me know
and I'll add it.

So far the grand total is $777 bucks.

Mike

 

: On my budget system, the copy of Office gets moved over from the old PC.
: I'm still running my five year old copy of Office 2000, and see no reason to
: upgrade.
:

Put any extra money into two things ~
More memory ~ since the dawn of digital history, money in memory has always
paid off. With memory intensive apps like SW, there is no such thing as 'extra'
memory.

Graphics upgrade ~ 3/4 of any money 'left over' should be put into GPU
upgrade. Bang for the buck, this is tops. Nothing else so dramatically effects
program perfomance, or degrades or crashes the same, like an underpowered,
inadequate graphics card. A couple hundred $ on this is money well spent.

Other hardware/sofware/system considerations are secondary.

David Janes
:
:
: : > > "Michael" wrote...
: > > You forgot one major line item--
: > > XP-pro, OEM liscense, $130
: >
: > I knew I forgot something. I thnik we're still under budget. Maybe
: > add a sound card and speakers? I suppose Microsoft Office would
: > need to be purchased as well to do design tables. That may throw
: > us over $800.00.
: >
: > Mike
: >
: >
:
:

 

This is good stuff and I've actually kind of been wanting to build a
PC for a while now. Is this everything I need?

Can anybody make any comments on how to improve (without significantly
affecting price) or substitute? Any of these components you would
stay away from?

Thanks Mike!

J oa

*****************************************

 

I like http://www.newegg.com/
Check out the new prices on the 36 & 73 GB 10,000 rpm Western Digital Hard
Drives, they rock.
Best Regards,
Devon T. Sowell
www.3-ddesignsolutions.com

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