computers

[anrfknm]

i'm on the verge of buying a new computer. i found two that suite my needs and would like to know if anyone out there in the nether world is familiar with eather model or the manufacturer's reputations for quality.

sony vaio rb52
gateway gt5040

[CANADIAN KAWI]

wait until july for the new core2 duo chips to come out they will be priced similar to the core duo with a huge increase in performance. check out the link below.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...1976424,00.asp

[rbentnail]

I'd settle for any 'puter that doesn't hate me.......

[kc6wfs]

Sony makes great computers.
Also check out Dell..

I have 3 Dell's and a Dell laptop.
Never had any problem with them.

Dave

[2WheelFun]

Originally Posted by anrfknm

i'm on the verge of buying a new computer. i found two that suite my needs and would like to know if anyone out there in the nether world is familiar with eather model or the manufacturer's reputations for quality.

sony vaio rb52
gateway gt5040

Try doing a search on both computers using www.google.com and add the word review at the end to see if there are any issues with either one.

[anrfknm]

Originally Posted by whistle clean

Try doing a search on both computers using www.google.com and add the word review at the end to see if there are any issues with either one.

i did that and a couple of other search ideas and came up empty. so i thought i'd ask if anyone else knew anything.

[2WheelFun]

Originally Posted by anrfknm

i did that and a couple of other search ideas and came up empty. so i thought i'd ask if anyone else knew anything.

I know very little. LOL

Today...most of the mainstream brands are pretty decent. Once in awhile you'll find an issue with one thing or another but that's not the norm. I build my own PC's so can only offer an opinion on them and our work computers we buy from Dell and Toshiba. We've had good luck with the Dell desktops and the Toshiba laptops we buy.

[CANADIAN KAWI]

cnet or zdnet should have reviews for these computers

[Xgenn]

What are you looking to do on the PC

Games

Internet surfing / Downloading

Anything Graphical like Photoshop users/ Making Movies / Art


If you are planning on doing just pain ol internet surfing and you need just the basics Emachine has some great low cost PC's

If you are going to plan on doing photoshop games or anything where graphics mean alot to you you should be inline for a graphics card at the same time. Gforce 7300 is about all u should need for everyday use and has great graphics and tech support

If you really want to spend the money remember this You are mostly paying for the name , Sony has some great PC's but are a bt pricey NEVER BUY ALIENWARE 3000 smackers for a upgraded sony is not the way to go. Mac is ok but dont plan on many upgrades. Apples are great computer a bit pricey for my taste but i love em had 2 and wish i still had 1.

processors
AMD and Pentium are basicly the same dont get sad when a lower based PC had a AmD processor they are grat and sometimes out perform the Pentiums

Build it is always the best way

You can piece togeather a great computer from $500-$1000

Just remember basic needs for a factory built pc

Ram
Graphics card
Extra Memory
Is it useable for your needs always ask alot of questions before buying , there are great Pcs out there for the basic usage and under $500

Good luck

Xgenn

P.S.

This is My tower i spent around 2000 so far in extras but all in all by building my own PC i got what i wanted speed realiability memory and looks great makes friends jealous



Yes i know nadda about wire management lol.....

[CANADIAN KAWI]

http://reviews.cnet.com/Sony_VAIO_RB...44-2.html?tag=
nav

http://reviews-zdnet.com.com/Gateway...4781&tag=uolst

[CANADIAN KAWI]

or you can buy a MAC and not worry about upgrading it every 3 months and buying alot of 3rd party software. i have 3 PCs right now a custom built gaming rig a gaming notebook and an old compaq notebook but i plan on buying a mac for my photo and video editing use

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL...werfbV6/2.?p=0

[Upi]

Dell and Gateway tend to have the best customer service IMO, which is pretty much what you pay for these days since hardware costs are very similar across vendors.

Also check out OpenOffice and Clamwin Antivirus prior to buying Microsoft Office and any bundled antivirus programs. Both of these programs are open source and FREE (as in beer) and can save you a bundle of money when used on home computers. For work or enterprise computers Microsoft Office is still king because of the necessity to share documents, and OpenOffice's cross compatibility is good but not 100%. But like I was saying, for home use these programs are stellar and free.

If you need a good e-mail client also check out Mozilla Thunderbird, it is less susceptible to viruses than Outlook Express.

GL

[Frankt07]

i am on my second gateway. first lasted 2 yrs before the slowness dorve me insane. this one is about the same age now. they both ghave given me little problems. and they both take very well to porn

[ervins]

Any computer will work unless you are a power user. I have some pretty high specs on my gaming PC and that was custom build I did...Say NO to DELL. They are inferior machines component wise with good tech support. Sorry, I make it a point to crusade against them. Get AMD for bang for your buck. Almost most hardcore gamers and power users will tell you DELL rips you off for the littlest things. Sony is not bad and Gatway is ok as well. If you were close to me, I would go PC shopping with you.

[anrfknm]

thanks for the input, opinions, information and help. i ended up getting the sony vaio rb52 and so far i like it, but i do need to go to a faster isp. up here where i live (it's not the edge of the world, but from the mountain you can see the edge) we have few choices. that and the fact that i'm cheap makes it a task. i'll see what's available now vs a few years ago. thank guys and guyzets.

[kc6wfs]

Cool Art.

Good choice.
Even if ya got more ram for the old one ya probably would not be happy with it.

Heck with where you live if a tad over the edge, and looking up!!

I'd love to bring my telescope over sometime on a new moon and check out the view!


Dave

[anrfknm]

bring it up to mt. pinos where many astronomers go.

[CTRider]

Originally Posted by Xgenn

Anything Graphical like Photoshop users/ Making Movies / Art

....

If you are going to plan on doing photoshop games or anything where graphics mean alot to you you should be inline for a graphics card at the same time. Gforce 7300 is about all u should need for everyday use and has great graphics and tech support

Easy, there, killer. Don't lump Photoshop tasks, video editing and gaming into the same category. Those have distinctly different system requirements. Granted, all of them will be great on a top of the line system, but they don't need the same boosts in all areas. For example:

- Gaming: While a fast processor and bada$$ video card will boost performance, anything over a gig of memory is wasted and you don't need a huge or fast hard drive.

- Photoshop: Memory requirements aren't high for this (512MB or more is fine), but a nice big hard drive would be nice. Photoshop files with a lot of layers take up a lot of space, but the drive doesn't have to be fast. Any processor currently out there is fast enough. The video card is nearly irrelevent. It's for 3D processing only, and Photoshop doesn't do 3D. If you're into Lightwave or Blender 3D, though, it becomes important. With Photoshop, the monitor is more important to consider, since most modern cards can display plenty of resolution. Your monitor just has to keep up.

- Video editing: Again, the video card is almost irrelevent. Video editing uses almost no video card resources since the only requirement is the ability to display proper frame rate and resolution (which is less than that of Photoshop). Where the video card matters is with the desire for using dual monitors (something that hampers gaming in most cases). Since a lot of larger editing programs cram a lot of windows on the screen, a second display helps spread them out. However, the amount of video memory doesn't matter. System memory (RAM) does, though. 1 gig is good - 2 is better - 3 is a waste unless you are editing HD video. You need a really big, really fast hard drive that is separate from your system drive for video storage. A fast processor will help push through rendering tasks faster. However, once the program is running, memory and drive space are way more important than processor speed.

So, my advice for a well rounded system that can do everything resonably well:

- Get at least a 2.5 Ghtz Pentium 4 or AMD equivalent or better.
- 1 GB of RAM will set you up for the next version of Windows bloatware and allow any task to perform well.
- If you don't plan to edit video, get the biggest drive you can afford. 160GB sounds like a lot of space until you start storing digital photos, visit I-Tunes, etc. If you think you might want to edit video, go smaller on the main drive and get a second drive as big as you can afford. Even if you don't think you'll work with video, this isn't a bad idea. If you store all your data files (photos, documents, etc) on the second drive, you can wipe the primary drive and start over if necesary without losing anything you haven't backed up yet.
- Make sure the system has plenty of USB ports and at least 1 firewire port.
- While there's not a lot out there supporting it yet, you can increase the lifespan of the system by making sure it has PCI Express support. This will allow you to add a newer generation 3D card later on if you desire or other future expansion cards using that technology.
- Get a DVD burner. This will allow you to backup to recordable DVDs or CDs, play movies and music, as well as burn DVD movie discs and music CDs. At this point, dual layer support is not much more price-wise, so you might as well go for it.

Some final advice:

Right now is a terrible time to buy a PC. Here's why:

- A new version of Windows is coming out, so you'll have to pay extra to upgrade later if you decide you want it.
- HD-DVD and Blue Ray drives are coming soon for computers. You may not care about playing HD movies (especially on your computer), but these formats each offer HUGE storage capacity. In fact, either format will allow you to back up your entire hard drive on one disc.
- All the new stuff gets released in August and September. You may not want the new stuff, but the old stock will plummet in price when it comes out.

[tminos]

- Gaming: While a fast processor and bada$$ video card will boost performance, anything over a gig of memory is wasted and you don't need a huge or fast hard drive.

That.. is pretty wrong. The processor itself often has a marginal impact on performance these days. Dual-core processors help out very little here as very, very few games are multi-threaded or designed for SMP processing (mmm, Beowhulf clustered Unreal Tournament..)

The video card and memory is where the majority of processing is done (assuming you have enough memory.) If you have little RAM, the game/operating system will be constantly swapping to & from the disk, which is slow as hell. Battlefield2 practically requires 2 gigs of RAM to run these days.

Also, if you have enough memory (say, 4 gigs) you can literally load the entire game into memory so it doesn't actually touch the harddrive.. costly, but gives you such a memory boost.

- Photoshop: Memory requirements aren't high for this (512MB or more is fine), but a nice big hard drive would be nice. Photoshop files with a lot of layers take up a lot of space, but the drive doesn't have to be fast. Any processor currently out there is fast enough. The video card is nearly irrelevent. It's for 3D processing only, and Photoshop doesn't do 3D. If you're into Lightwave or Blender 3D, though, it becomes important. With Photoshop, the monitor is more important to consider, since most modern cards can display plenty of resolution. Your monitor just has to keep up.

Err.. not quite, I'm sorry.

The memory and processor requirements for Photoshop are huge. The graphics design guy here where I work has a machine with 2 gigs of ram and, while rendering, his machine is using all of that. Drive space is a requirement as PSDs are large, but the big crunch is memory. Video cards are important for 3d work yes (which Photoshop doesn't handle) but I doubt you're considering that some cards have kickass 2d performance that Photoshop can offload some of the work too. Matrox has been making excellent cards for years, and the nVidia Quatros are excellent at CAD design and image editing -- they're not that great for Doom3, but the 2d performance is amazing.

- Video editing: Again, the video card is almost irrelevent. Video editing uses almost no video card resources since the only requirement is the ability to display proper frame rate and resolution (which is less than that of Photoshop).

Er.. what do you think plays or renders the video itself?

Software GLX or DX is slow.. several video editing apps rely heavily on the video card to offload processing too-that is what they are there for.

[anrfknm]

guys, let me show you how to use this slide rule.........