PC Buying Guide

Here's a guide just incase you need a new PC for Guild Wars cause you have a laptop that has like IGP intergrated graphics, and a 1 ghz processor or lower.

Here's the thing about Dell, Gateway, E-machines, HP, and Compaq.
They use low-quality OEM products. Hell, they even make their own motherboards.

Oh and look at this
http://www.driverheaven.net/showthread.php?t=69130

You know that Video Card that comes with the dell?
It's not "Build by ATI" or an actual "Official Nvidia" hardware.
It maybe ATI or Nvidia, but the card isn't exactly from a quality manufacturer.
Or at least it's not build with good quality... for a reason.
It's actually kinda built for Dell/Gateway blah blah PC stores for low cost.

The only legit and actual products that dell has in terms of hardware is probably the CPU.


And also, these PCs end up costing more than the parts to build by a couple hundred or so.

Sometimes, those PCs overheat, or have a lack of PSU power. I know that happened to me when I had my gateway like 3 years ago.

And god, their cases? Once you actually know more about PCs and how to build them, you'll be saying to yourself "Why the hell did I buy this Piece of Crap?" Heck, you might say it at the end of this guide if you have those pieces of crap.

Looking to buy that 2000 dollar PC? forget it, get it for like 1200 somewhere else.

There are actually stores out there that sell cheaper PCs and have GREAT quality products.

I'm sure there's a computer geek around, knowing what's good or not (though, some tend to be biased. Like buy this brand, not this brand, cause the other sucks, blah blah, without reason of why it's not a good brand. So pick someone not so... fanatic.)
Ask them on what PC parts to buy.

Then... go to the following
Alienware http://www.alienware.com (actually, i'd rather not. Too expensive. Although their higher end PCs are actually cheaper and better performing than Dell's High End PCs)

ABS http://www.buyabs.com
This store is basically a NewEgg PC building. Their parts come from NewEgg, and they build rather sturdy PCs. I have one actually. I was too lazy to build my own.

Monarch Computer http://www.monarchcomputer.com
Very realiable, but you gotta know what you want, exactly.
They also have a hundred choices.
Also one of the cheapest stores that you can get a PC from.
If you want all the choices of almost everything you could find, go here. They have like 50 video card listings just for ATI. They have like another 50 for Nvidia. The Processors? they have the 130nm, the 90nm, and the NEW venice version of the Athlon64 chips. They even have the new Intel dual cores and the Athlon64 Dual cores. They EVEN have that Nvidia Geforce 6800 Ultra 512MB (mentioned in my "Video Card List" Guide). Oh and Audigy 4 (not really worth it)
They got almost everything... except maybe coolermaster cases.

Velocity Micro http://www.velocitymicro.com/
Pretty realiable, but it's a little expensive. A bit on the costing side nearing to alienware. Still damn nice though.

Falcon Northwest http://www.falcon-nw.com/index.asp
If you want top-end PC, get it here. You want custom cases? Definitely get it here. This is basically the top of the line, in terms of looks, performance, and also in terms of taking the money out of your wallet. This store is incredibly expensive due to their cases. They also got some neat looking frag books (gaming laptops).

VooDoo PC http://www.voodoopc.com/
So, you build your own PC, but you put in like those loud arse fans, and god do they sound loud. Your roommate's being bothered by your loud computer? Want a quiet room so you can embrace the sound of your speakers to the utmost pin-drop? Well, go for voodoo PC. They build the quietest, and pretty amazing PCs. Their PCs are rather stylish too, like Falcon Northwest.

Another thing about Dell, Gateway, and all those crappy stores. Most of them only sell Intel, which is vastly (proven, and benchmarked) inferior to Athlon 64 processors in terms of gaming (Few things that intel does have upperhand on is multi-tasking and rendering, simply because of the hyperthreading). But even so, the 3500+ 939 Athlon 64 processor... which is marked at around 350 dollars, or less... outperforms Intel's 3.8ghz Extreme Edition marked at over a thousand dollars in gaming. So think about it when you are going to buy that extreme edition.

Note: These sites, are mostly for gaming PCs. If you want one of those cheap PCs or laptops for regular work, just go to dell and pick the CRAPPIEST and CHEAPEST PC/Laptop you could get, because it REALLY doesn't matter what you get if all you want is excel or word processing or some kind of work-related PC.

Post here for more site listings that are probably recommended as an alternative to Dell or sorts.

Screw that just build your own. I built 2.42Ghz A64 300+ Chaintech nf3 mo, 9600 Pro Sapphire, 1 gig RAM, 2 80 gig hd, 460w Enermax, homebuilt water cooling for about $1200-$1300.

You can't buy a water cooled Alienware for less than $4,000. I had to buy everything new. I used Macs before I built my current machine so I didn't salvage anything. But Once you build it's just a matter of buying a new motherboard, cpu, video bundle every 4 years. I build to last.

You bought that for that price?

My box:

Pent4 530HT 3.0 PCI-E
2x DDR 512 & 2x DDR 256 3200 Sticks - 1.5 Gig (Possible 4gigs)
200Gig SATA 7200 RPM drive. Part'd up to 80 - 40 - 40 - 40.
16x mutli format DVD +/- RW / DvD Rom - BenQ
2 x 3.5 xp slots
1x PCI, 1x PCI-Ex16 (mm... 4 gig upload / download speed), 1x PCI-ex1
Cache of 1mb L2
System Bus of 800mhz.
I/O Ports: 7xUSB 2.0, 3xIEEE1394, 1xVGA, 1xSerial, 1xParallel, 2xPS2
WinFast PX6600GT 128MB GDDR3 TDH PCI-Express 16x (retail) SLi Ready

Total: (Give or take a few bucks) $1100 CND.

Need to buy a new monitor... Using a Princeton 21" LCD.

Meh, you could build your own. I would too. Not all would though.