Hey I guys, I'm shopping around for a new desktop. I have been looking at these three... Here I want to spend around a grand, give or take. Can I do better than these? What about building one similar? I am looking for tv tuner, blu-ray, around 8GB of ram, and a 750-1000GB hdd... What are my options?
Then you don't really want any of those PCs, as for $1000 you can get a much better machine for gaming. If you must buy one of those, the middle one is by far the better gaming PC. It has by far the fastest graphics card (by a factor of 3) and also a faster CPU.
I'm interested in building one, although I am new to all that. What would you recommend? My budget is around $1000 to $1500. What would you do with that?
A hell of a lot more than HP did with those systems... Q9550 CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115041 EP45-UD3R: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128359 4GB Corsair XMS2: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145215 1TB WD HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284 Sapphire HD4890: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102830 NZXT Tempest: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146047 Optiarc BR Drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118013 Corsair 650W PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005 Vista HP 64-bit: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116677 Comes to about $1100 before rebates.
I strongly disrecommend using a PSU that weak to run an i7, they draw a LOT of power. There are also cheaper motherboards out there than the EVGA since you're not using high end graphics. You're also paying absurdly much for a weak graphics card (they're only worth $120 tops). The nine hundred case is also poorly designed and outdated, and the CPU cooler could be a lot better for the price. The memory and hard drive are the only real good choices. The Samsung DVD burner wouldn't be my first choice but other than liteon, is the only S-ATA DVD burner on newegg, and I'd take a Samsung over Liteon. Better CPU cooler: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835608007 Better PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005 Cheaper mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128375 Much Better GPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150394 Alternative cases: Either http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146047 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129058 This works out $20 cheaper with the NZXT case, the same with the Antec. However, it includes $35 of mail-in rebates.
