Need a new desktop

[Gameplayer]

I think it is finally time to replace the old Gateway/E-Machine after 14 years. I'm looking for a computer that will be used for school, surfing and World of Warcraft. I'm trying to keep it around the $750 range. Need some advice on what I need to look for when it comes to a dedicated graphics card that will work well with WoW. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[heretic]

I would suggest building your own if you can. For 750 you can build a pretty decent machine that will run more than wow. Check out newegg.com for great deals on hardware.

If you would rather buy I would suggest asus or maybe an alienware if they have one for that price.

[davidwiz]

I would stay away from Dell. They just got sued by a bunch of corporations, including a very large law firm, for selling buggy machines and not fixing them (there is even a few emails showing that Dell knew of the problem and not to fix it).

[Dave Gundry]

I like building my own. Here's a current and great resource for what parts to buy: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/systems-hardware-configurations,11192.html

Here's my recommended build for their $400 (w/o OS - add $110 for Win7 Home OEM) AMD Office-based PC: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/294013-31-bestconfigs-based-office#t2177298 (scroll down to user post by "daveg"). I use the exact same motherboard (and same/similar CPU) in 3 office machines and 2 home theater PC's. Makes me regret spending so much on my i5 based system that I play some games on (Crysis). Add a decent video card to that build and you'll have plenty of power for WoW for a few hundred bucks under budget. My best card is an HD5770, which works very well with 32-bit Windows 7, but on 64 the drivers are a bit buggy. I'd seriously look back at Nvidia for a good card for a 64 bit system (I went completely back to 32 - don't see any need for 64, it's just too buggy to warrant the extra RAM you'll never need). It's really hard to buy a crappy video card - just stick to the bigger name manufacturers, check out the reviews on NewEgg and go from there.

Edited September 1, 2010 by Dave Gundry

[jecobmartin]

Ok I read all reply and I really like all but I suggest you to buy intel I7 processor pc and install Nvidia graphics card. and in operating system I suggest you to use windows 7 64bit give you amazing performance.

Edited September 15, 2010 by jecobmartin

[Graham Smith]

Microsoft is now pushing out the 64bit version of Windows on new consumer computers, even ones that cannot possibly benefit from it.

IF you do go with the 64bit, make absolutely sure that your hardware comes with ALL the necessary drivers and that your software will work with it. Frankly, unless you have the right hardware and are running software that can take advantage of it, the is no real advantage to the 64 bit version.

[norbs007]

+1 with Graham

Pick quality components and build your own.

[wgnoyes]

Apple anyone?

[Graham Smith]

Apple anyone?

Absolutely - if that will work for you.

Here's a tip, pick the software you want to use first then pick the operating system and computer that will run it. If everything you want to run will work on an Apple (without having to resort to dual boot or virtual machines, etc) then I would have no hesitation to suggest a Mac.

[raz-0]

Apple anyone?

For $750? That's the mac mini without a monitor. At higher resolutions, the graphics card in the mac mini is only good for about 23fps. Very bad bang for the buck. 

Also, I'm very leery of the thermal management of all the monolithic aluminum chassis Macs. the 13" macbook is ok under normal use. The15" and 17" can (and do) have issues. Jury is still out on the new mac mini. I got one for my wife because it was the cheapest way to acquire a mac she needed to deal with some of her customers. We also just got a butt load of the aluminum chassis imacs in our labs. We'll see how they hold up. I suspect that the ones running OSX will have issues due to relying on the factory fan speed management. Apple is historically bad with thermal management outside their tower case format workstations.

So not only is it overpriced,  I wouldn't be comfortable spending someone else's budget on it with some of the issues I have seen. 

As for the OP, if you want to build your own, you can PM me if you want help choosing components. 

Just like the previous poster who mentioned dell problems, I would not buy a desktop from dell right now.  We aren't suing them, but they have more or less been ejected from our machine room and labs and told not to bother calling us without adding long term no-charge service contracts they intend to fulfill to their bids. The previous link is about their bad motherboard caps, which we tolerated because they replaced the mobos. But they refused to admit about their capacitor problems in their PSUs more recently. They seem to have stopped caring if the cheapest bid for components actually provides something to spec. 

[wgnoyes]

Interesting about dell, and an experience I have not shared. I just put in 2 optiplex 360s and a T310 poweredge server last november and they're chugging right along. I had one hard drive go out on a in-warranty latitude (notice these are all from the small business store, instead of being consumer-level dimensions and inspirons!), called dell at 4 in the afternoon, and the replacement hard drive was on our doorstep next morning! My test lab 1600SC poweredge server is several years old and runs fine.

But even the dimensions and inspirons run well by my experience. We retired a XPS410 desktop a year or so ago that had been running for 10 years. I've got an inspiron 8000 almost as old that will still boot and run, and my inspiron E1505 is 4 years old and is my current laptop. My desktop is a old dimension xps gen2 (big blue mf of a case) and there's nothing wrong with it.

[wgnoyes]

I would stay away from Dell. They just got sued by a bunch of corporations, including a very large law firm, for selling buggy machines and not fixing them (there is even a few emails showing that Dell knew of the problem and not to fix it).

The suit dates from 2007 and relates to optiplex machines built in 2003-2005. Hardly what you could call current hardware issues.