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General discussion

New opinion for new buy

Mar 21, 2005 11:44AM PST

I was just @ best buy looking to upgrade my system from gateway that has an amd athlon. It is a dino and slow for today's stuff. I saw that HP A844N system. Is this a good buy? We enjoy doing general surfing, watching movies, playing on-line games (pogo.com) and digital camera stuff. Would this be good for us? We also have a kindergartener that has lab at school and uses the puter here at home.

Discussion is locked

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64-Bit Wave
Mar 21, 2005 11:55AM PST

If you want a computer, the kid can grow up with, i do not suggest getting a computer at the current time.
Roger

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New puter
Mar 21, 2005 12:01PM PST

We don't just want it for her but also for us. Would it be a good idea? Main reason being we just put in a dvd burner/rom and the video and sound is not keeping up. The guys @ best buy said that by the time we upgrade some stuff it will cost the same as a new system and we figured why not start looking around. Do you think this is a good buy?

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64bit wave?
Mar 21, 2005 12:30PM PST

It'll take a while for that 64bit wave to get here.

Right now, 32 bit machines are much cheaper. You don't really need an expensive computer to do the things you're doing. How much does a decent HP desktop cost? Around $900? Buy the cheapest Dell for $300. You can buy 2 more every time it seems out of date. ^_^

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Best Buy
Mar 21, 2005 1:01PM PST

Well, I looked at it at Best Buy.com and it has the Intel 630 with EM64T already. I think this is a pretty good buy except it doesn't come with monitor and the integrated graphics is not so good, but i doubt you'll need such graphics-intensive stuff. It should come with the Intel 915G chipset and PCI-Express. I'm not so sure because it doesn't give you enough information. So offers room for upgrades. However, you can always take dagger906's idea to buy a "cheap dell and get a couple more."

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Opinion on new buy...
Mar 21, 2005 3:39PM PST

Well, it is a Pent4, 630, 3.0GHz, HT w/800MHz FSB, Socket 775, and as damasta indicates, does have the 64-bit technology (EM64T).

This is a new HP PC introduced Feb 15, 2005 and has all the bell & whistles, with 1GB RAM, 250GB Hard Drive, etc, but IMO HP should have used a different chipset than the 915GV, which means the PC does not have an AGP slot or PCI-Express x16 slot for a video card. They are also using their standard motherboard apparently made special for HP by Asus PTGD1-LA (Goldfish2-GL8E) which I cannot find listed on the Asus site.

The PC does have the integrated (on-board)Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 (GMA900) which should be able to handle the little gaming you do, but will not play some higher end modern games, and your PC will not be able to upgrade the graphics in the future.

Notice that particular HP model is listed online for $1000 without a monitor. If you desire to stay with Pent4 and the 630 series with 64-bit I would suggest the Dell 8400. The Dell 8xxx series is their top of the line besides their XPS gamer model,and includes one of the new PCI-Express x16 Video Cards. Click http://tinyurl.com/6h7p4 and select the same features as the HP model and with a 160GB hard drive, 17" monitor, and PCI-Express x16 video card, should come out to $974 with free shipping. Upgrading to 250MB hard drive from 160HG would cost an additional $80.

BTW Dell changes their free stuff and juggles their prices around almost every week

Course' your young child can take over your old PC. Wink

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New Compter
Mar 25, 2005 8:17PM PST

Thank you for all your help gang. We did get the Best Buy system. We upgraded the monitor to the new Sony 19" viewable flat screen. We also did the cordless keyboard and mouse from Logitech. It also came with the all in one printer. Out the door it was total 1800.00. By the time we finish with the rebates it will be $1200.00. I value this site because it is nice to get advice from folks that know a few things.

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comments i'd still like to make
Mar 26, 2005 2:59PM PST

alright, please read this as if it were two seperate posts by two seperate people, and i'll make sure to seperate (cuz one side is good and one side is probably gonna make you wanna kick yourself)


The Good Side:
Intel's new "Extreme" graphics 3 are about the same performance as a GeForce FX 5600nU from what i've heard, which means it's able to play games at a lowered settings level, it'd be nice to see how that system does in 3DMark03 (which can be found at www.futuremark.com, and is free)

The Bad Side:
Best Buy lied to you, to get you to buy the system...sorry m8
your new DVD burner's problem was probably RAM related anyways, but i'm guessing they just took you hook line and sinker on gfx, and would've sold you an X800XT or something to get you to spend more money in store...no DVD playing system that i've ever seen needs hardly anything in the way of gfx (Intel Extreme 2 on an 835M with a Pentium III 1.13 can run a DVD with no issues)
it was probably lack of RAM or a sound card issue, but would've cost you less than $200 to upgrade anything you'd have needed to upgrade...again, sorry m8...