I'm trying to figure out which computer to buy. I have my eye on an HP 1.8 GHz Pentium 4 which includes: 1GB DDR Ram (2Dimm) 120 GB 7200rpm Hard Drive 24x CD-RW 16x DVD 64 MB Dvidia GeForce2MX400 Front Serial,2USB,1394 Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Is this a good system? About $1500.00 Also, what's the difference between 1.8GHz and 2.0? Is it more important to upgrade to 2.0 or have more memory? Finally, what's the difference with the RD Ram and SD? I'm just an average user. Use microsoft office, play a few games, and heavy internet usuage. Any help would be appreciated.
That's a decent deal. But do you really need 120 GBs? Unless you are going to download 1000s upon 1000s of MP3s, I doubt you will need 120 GBs. What kind of monitor are you looking into getting? I would suggest chopping off some GBs and either consider buying a DVD-Rom (not sure what the $ is for them now) or a flat-panel monitor.
Sounds like a pretty nice system; the price is right, considering all you get... The question is: do you need something that powerful? If you primarily use your pc for using Office and surfing the web, you really don't need such a fast chip or a high-end 3D card. You could probably find what you need by getting a pc that was introduced a few months ago: these are now the best bang for the buck. A fast PIII or Athlon system would probably be just fine, and would save you several hundred dollars, as well. Remember, the latest model you buy today will be the one in the sweet spot in a few months... I wouldn't get caught up in the MHz game...unless you do a lot of graphics/multimedia work, drafting, or hard-core gaming, you probably wouldn't miss the extra cycles. Get as much memory as you can afford (it's cheap), a fast/large hard drive, a big monitor, and a nice keyboard/mouse. Your money would be better spent there, considering what you would use it for... Hope this helps!
I'd suggest not going with an HP computer. In fact, don't buy any of the computers you find at Best Buy, CompUSA, Microcenter, or any of those places. And especially, MORE THAN ANYTHING, do not, do not, do not buy a Compaq (Computers of minimal price and Quality). The price is okay. The gig of Ram on 2 Dimms is nice. I'd look into getting an Athlon XP 1800 or something from AMD instead. And if all you do is word-processing and stuff, you'd be doing just fine with a 1 Ghz AMD Athlon, which can be had for around 500 bucks.
Thanks for all the input. It did help. The reason I was looking at 120 GB 7200rpm hard drive is it was only going to cost me about $60 more than an 80. Too good of a deal to pass up you know. Anyway, my husband assured me that you guys would have the answer. I just hate it when he is right! Just one more question. I know this sounds odd, but is a cd-rom drive and a dvd drive the same thing basically. Or maybe I should say will I be able to run my software off on the dvd drive or do I need a separate cd-rom drive?
They have the same function, but are completely different formats. However, all DVD-ROM drives can play CD, CD-R, and CD-RW formats as well as DVD-ROM and DVD videos. A CD drive can only read CD formats, not DVD.
