Is this a good deal?

[muckle]

So I am in the market for a new computer, focus on gaming. I have a friend for works for HP and I can get an employee discount. I am shooting for around the $1,000 mark and this is what I've come up with. It's good in some areas but NOT the video card nor the motherboard which i'm pretty sure doesn't have sli/crossfire.. anyway this is the build:

Operating system Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit edit

Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-860 quad-core processor [2.8GHz, 1MB L2 + 8MB shared L3 cache] edit

Memory FREE UPGRADE! 6GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM [3 DIMMs] from 4GB edit

Hard drive FREE UPGRADE! 750GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive from 500GB edit

Office software Microsoft Office Starter 2010 edit

Security software Norton Internet Security(TM) 2010 - 15 month edit

Graphics card 1.8GB NVIDIA Geforce GTX 260 [2 DVI, HDMI and VGA adapters] edit

Speakers No speakers edit

Primary optical drive LightScribe 16X max. DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive edit

Secondary optical drive 16x max. DVD ROM (player) edit

Networking Wireless-N LAN card edit

Front Productivity Ports 15-in-1 memory card reader, 1 USB, 1394, audio, video (for TV Tuner) edit

TV & entertainment experience TV tuner, ATSC-NTSC with PVR, remote edit

Sound Card Integrated sound edit

Keyboard and Mouse HP USB keyboard and optical mouse

_____________________________________________________________________-

$963.99

I leaning toward custom build at this point.

 

[xiangjiao]

$1000 can get you better. I would say go custom. Here is a starter set up that I will use once prices are to my liking:
- asus p7p55d-e pro + 4gb gskil (combo on new egg or switch to gigabyte to save a bit of moola)
- intel i5 570
- hd 5850 (or wait for 6000 series to come out in nov aprx to get price drop)
- corsair hx 750w psu + wd caviar black 1tb (combo on new egg)
- case of your liking ~$100
- optical drive of your liking ~$20

Grand total should en up about $1000

 

[xiangjiao]

i meant i5 760

 

[dndhatcher]

Upgrade from 4GB to 6GB? How do you do that without messing up dual channel memory and slowing it down?

HDD upgrade to 750GB?
The newer faster single 500GB platter drives are what you want, not some older slower 750GB drive. Sadly if they think its an upgrade then the 500GB drive is probably an older slow model also.

GTX 260, outdated DX10 card. You would want a 460 or ATI 5770.


Sounds to me like HP is trying to unload its older parts overstock on employees at not that great of a price, considering what you get.

 

[xiangjiao]

Upgrade from 4GB to 6GB? How do you do that without messing up dual channel memory and slowing it down?

HDD upgrade to 750GB?
The newer faster single 500GB platter drives are what you want, not some older slower 750GB drive. Sadly if they think its an upgrade then the 500GB drive is probably an older slow model also.

GTX 260, outdated DX10 card. You would want a 460 or ATI 5770.


Sounds to me like HP is trying to unload its older parts overstock on employees at not that great of a price, considering what you get.

lol, I didn't even catch that. free "upgrade" to 6gb ram on /w 1156 socket XD

 

[gordon_81]

i would go with a custom build

i7 930 ($199 at micro center)

gigabyte x58 ud3r motherboard

corsair dominator 6gb (3 x 2gb) RAM

antec earthwatt 650 watt psu or something like that

coolermaster haf 922 case or antec 900 or coolermaster 690II case

samsung spinpoint f3 500gb

sapphire 5850

 

[muckle]

This is actually a publicly available build. the HPE310 customized. That's what the discount was applied to. It's a shame. Girlfriends sister builds servers for them she's not a PC gamer in any sense... guess I'll have to tell her thanks anyway...

 

[muckle]

Best answer selected by muckle.