and I'm on a budget of under $1000. I won't be playing any of the newest games or running any heavy multimedia apps, so a top of the line machine isn't really necessary. Gateway has a 2.1 gHz Celeron with a 40 gig hard drive for $799 and Dell has a 2.0 gHz Pentium with a 60 gig hard drive for about $860 to $900, depending on how I customize it. question 1) Which is better performance wise, the 2.1 gHz Celeron or the 2.0 gHz Pentium? My friend said that the Pentium is better than the Celeron even at the lower clock speed because of the higher cache. question 2) Which is more important, processor speed or hard drive capacity?
Most important factors are processor speed, memory speed and front end bus speed. Also, your video card is an important performance tool also. Pentium is definitely a cut above the Celeron. Thats usually why Pentium machines are more expensive. You should be able to get a good machine for under $1000. In fact, you can have one custom built to your specs for that price. You should email Rockets2K or myself and either of us can give you some custom built pricing.
PS - The only downfall to buying a name brand computer, like Dell, HP or what not, is that they are hard to upgrade. In fact, some of them arent upgradeable at all. Its kind of a raw deal seeing as how a computer you buy today will be almost obsolete by the end of the year.
A-train A celeron 2.0 is as a pentium 4 1.4. That is why the celeron is so much cheaper. A way to save money when buying a Dell is by going through Dell small business. For some reason it is $100 cheaper for the same computer and it usually includes free shipping. Shipping is a big deal since it they normally charge $100 for it. You can also go to ebates.com which sometimes has $100 off coupons. I am not familiar with Gateway computers so I can not comment. I have a Dell and it is the most stable machine I have ever owned. You can get a 2.53 pentium 4 with a 512 ram and a 60 gig hd and dvd and cdr-w for about $1000 with a 17 monitor through Dell small business.
Do you really upgrade your computers that quickly, codell? I bought two refurbished 1.6GHz P4 Dell Dimension 4400s about a year ago, and they both still work great for everything I do with them (which includes audio and video editing, along with more typical computer stuff). I don't know how upgradable these machines are beyond adding hard drive capacity (I added a second hard drive to my main computer - needed more space for all the p*rn... I mean, I needed more space for all my.... Oh, I can't think of a lie. The extra space is for p*rn. And I added firewire capture cards and USB 2.0 cards to them). But they were cheap enough that when they've outlived their usefulness, I'll just buy new ones. But I wouldn't be surprised if I were still using both these machines a year from now.
Here is the deal I just scored at www.hp.com: A HP Pavilion, Pentium 4 2.0 ghz, 512MB of RAM, 60 gig HD, CD/RW in one slot, DVD player in another slot, 56b modem, and a 17" monitor (non flat screen). With 2 day FEDEX delivery, the whole thing cost me $940. They delivered the monitor quickly but it took them a couple of weeks to deliver the PC since it was a custom order. I received the PC on Monday, and I'm very happy with it. Now if I could only get that copy of High Heat 2004 delivered....
mrpaige, I upgrade about once a year. The software I use for company is upgraded several times a year, and every time they do that, its dependent on more memory and processing speed. I didnt mean to give the impression that computers today will be worthless in 6 months, but rather, their technology will be considered "old" by then (i.e. right now, the top processor would probably be the Pentium 4 2.8 GHZ, but 6 mos from now, theyll probably have a 4.0-5.0 available). I just prefer custom built units because they are easier and cheaper to upgrade when you feel you its time to. PS - I agree with rockHEAD. If money was not a problem, I would never buy a Celeron or an Athlon.
Dell Dimension 4550 Pentium4 2.53Ghz Desktop for $569.05. you can go to www.techdeals.net and there is a link from there. This a pretty decent pc your price range. Just upgrade the ram.
AMD 2400! Much cheaper. You can even get a brand name bundle pack w/ rebates from Compaq. I'd build my own, though. Load it with memory and put in a massive HD and killer cards. The case and nameplate don't mean $#@!.
agree with pasox, I have AMD 2100, 80 gig and 512 memory and killer video and sound cards. pasox isn't there some sort of AMD 3000 type killer chip out now??? ps A-train save enough money to come to the Smeggy World Tour game on April 12th
upgradeability is usually a must. I haven't purchased a brand name PC in over a decade. and Celeron's are crap. No cache.
I see. Yeah, for many of us, we could be using a 466MHz machine still and not really have any problems. And others have to have something faster just to keep up with increased software demands, etc. from our profession, hobby, whatever. I have, in the past, build my own machines, but they always gave me more little problems (that add up over time) than the store-bought ones have. If I were more tech savvy, I'm sure I could put them together better (with more compatible parts) and end up with better overall systems, but for my uses, the store-bought works best even without a clear upgrade path. By the time I upgrade, the entire chipset has usually changed anyway, so even if I were using a more upgradable machine, I'd likely still need to start nearly everything over again (my machines previous to the 1.6GHz were a 366MHz Celeron for Internet surfing and a 433Mhz Celeron Dell for video editing.) So just buying an all new machine works for me. I've actually been toying with the idea of adding another machine to my stable for motion graphics. Because of the potential special needs of that machine, I might be looking at a custom jobber then.
I second that, Athalons kicks butt! No need for Intel chips. You don't need to waste your money on the name brand. In many ways (depending on the app you're running), Athalons out perform Intel Pentium systems. There's not really much of a difference in performance between the two.
There are no real "killer" AMD chips out there right now. They just released the Barton-core XP's which bang-for-the-buck are better than pretty much anything Intel has to offer. The next real big news from AMD will be when they release the Opteron and Athlon 64 chips. If anything the killer chip right now (if it ever comes down in price) is anything made by Intel using Hyperthreading. But they're too dang expensive.
I would recommend a name brand computer and not piece it together yourself because I don't think any of the posters here want you calling them if your sound card doesn't work or your machine blue screens. Piecing it together yourself doesn't save you too much money and by buying a dell or gateway, you get the assurance that some geeks in a lab tested all the components together so you don't get weird incompatibilities. I used to build machines for my family but I got tired of them calling me when something went wrong.
