Suggestions for buying a system?

[ANON]

Hi,

I wasn't sure if this was the best forum on which to post, but here goes....

I'm trying to help my mother-in-law purchase a desktop PC.
Unfortunately, in my line of work, we use exclusively Macs (except for an Alpha Linux box and a Dell running Red Hat Linux), so I have no experience with purchasing PCs. I was wondering if anyone has any bad (or good) experiences with the various systems I'm considering.

Through my university, I can buy the following system:
IBM NetVista (tower case)
- 2.8 GHz P4
- 640 MB RAM
- 80 GB hard drive (7,200 RPM)
- DVD+RW drive
- combo drive in 2nd bay
- 19" CRT monitor
- not sure what the video card is but it can support dual displays (she already has an older CRT that she also wants to use)
- modem
- 10/100 Ethernet
- USB 2.0
- 3 year warranty
- $1,630 + tax (shipping included)

I surfed the web to look at alternate systems with similar configurations -- differences are noted below, and all of the systems below were configured with 512 MB RAM and a 120 GB (7,200 RPB) hard drive instead of an 80 Gig. I could probably upgrade the 80 Gig drive in the IBM NetVista above for not too much more money, or I could add my own drive into the empty bay later. I only checked the manufacturer's websites (i.e.- I haven't yet checked any resellers), and all prices include shipping (but not tax):

Gateway 700X: $2,208, with only a DVD-RW drive (NOT DVD+RW) -- no drive in the 2nd bay.

Dell Dimension 8250: $2,387 with only a DVD+RW drive -- no 2nd optical drive.

HP Pavilion: $1,488.99 with NO monitor, and DVD-ROM for 2nd optical drive (not a combo drive).

1. is the deal that I'm seeing for the IBM a good one?
2. does anyone have any comments regarding one manufacturer over the others.
3. if this affects your suggestions, the machine will be running XP Pro and used in a home office for web development (mostly Dreamweaver, Flash and Fireworks), surfing, and running MS Office.
4. finally, I'm certainly prepared to help my Mom with basic upgrades to her system (installing RAM, 2nd hard drive, 2nd optical drive, upgrading video card) so the expansion options are also an important consideration for her.

Thanks for your help.
Dan.

 

[flamethrower205]

is there anyway u can give us specific companies and models for each part- it's a little too general. BTW, that dvdrw is jacking up the price.

Hilbert space is a big place.

 

[ANON]

flamethrower,

Sorry I didn't post more detailed specs. This is partly because I wasn't looking for serious comparisons of head-to-head performance, but more of a general sense in the PC community of "Dells are great, but Gateways suck", or "HP hardware is great but their customer support sucks", etc.

My mother-in-law was convinced that she wanted to go with the "top of the line" processor simply because she's using something outdated at work and doesn't ever want to feel help back by her CPU. Does this mean I think she's ever likely to do anything that would seriously tax any system she gets? I doubt it, since she'll never be a gamer and from what I understand, the kind of FLASH animation she's likely to do doesn't require the "top of the line". It was hard enough for me to convince her to step down from a 3 GHz to a 2.8 GHz P4. So, my feeling is that any of these systems will be more than adequate for her needs and that any performance differences wouldn't be noticed by her.

Again, I'm looking more for general impressions/gut feelings than I am for specific reasons why one system is better than another (along the lines of "definitely stay away from this company, or I've always heard nothing but good things from that company"), and also an impression for whether the price I'm looking at is in the ballpark for a good deal.

Just FYI:
On the IBM, the RAM is probably DDR SDRAM (not sure because I got a brief description of the system over the phone -- no info avaiable online for our institutional pricing). The Gateway and Dell systems were configured with PC1066 RDRAM, and the HP with DDR SDRAM (don't know how fast).
The graphics card on the IBM is probably a Radeon 7000, the Dell was configured with a GeForce4 Ti-4200G, the Gateway with a Radeon 9700 TX, and the HP with a GeForce4 MX420. Again, she won't need killer graphics capabilities, as long as the card can drive two CRTs.
Don't know anything about the hard drive and/or optical drive manufacturers.

Thanks!
Dan.
PS - yeah, I know that the DVD+RW doesn't help the price, but she says she'll need to burn DVDs to had to clients to preview the finished products. If it was up to me, I'd just get an aftermarket DVDRW and put it in myself, but since she lives in the next state over and I wouldn't have time to go down to install it any time soon, it's not an option for her.

PPS - sorry for the lengthy post.

 

[flamethrower205]

Mmmm, price wise from what you have given me in specs I'm not terribly thrilled, I suppose it's specifically b/c the graphics card is pretty bad in any of the cases (except for the r9000). I personally haven't had experience w/ IBM pc's, so I can't tell you about them (though I have worked been in their labs and been allowed to play w/ new tech- I suppose I like em as a company). Gateway not much experience either, but I'll tell u that dell techs are the dumbest people. They'll mess up ur comp worse. HP again not much experience though I'd definetly rate em as a bad company from my experiences w/ their tech support and my printers. IMO< the IBM deal is the best though (but the vid card is pretty bad).

Hilbert space is a big place.

 

[flamethrower205]

also, have u by any chance considered an AMD system? You can config one pretty nicely for pretty cheap from <A HREF="http://www.buyabs.com" target="_new">http://www.buyabs.com</A>. AMD is equally stable as P4 and the two perform the same (amd's pr rating vs p4's actual speed).

Hilbert space is a big place.

 

[dhlucke]

$2500???? Screw that.

In all honesty, expansion options and upgrading will ALWAYS be limited when you buy a system like this. Dell for example uses proprietary parts. I'm not sure about the others.

Another thing that is odd is the 640MB of memory. That means they're using a 128MB stick, which they practically don't sell anymore. Odds are it's on old PC2100 or slower module and that's not good. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that they're stuffing the box with junk.

I have had a dell and if you really want to go OEM I guess I could plug them, but you'd be getting ripped off. In all honesty it's probably a better idea to just buy the parts and either build it yourself or pay the $60-$100 for a local shop to do it. There's really not much that I can tell you that is that great about these OEMS. They all tend to stuff the box with one or two good components, and then the rest are bare minimum parts.

I've had decent experience with IBM as well. HP I would avoid at all costs. I would avoid Compaq at all costs, and I'm not sure about Gateway.

Also, DVD burners still haven't really worked out a standard so I'm not sure it's worth buying one. Odds are it's inflating your price anyways.

In summary, the money that you spend is outrageous and I don't recommend it. UNLESS you really need the software I would avoid the OEM places.

Check out the prices of parts at http://www.newegg.com/ to get a feel for how inflated your quoted prices are.

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[dhlucke]

Now that I think about it, the IBM system had some kind of weird, non-atx, powersupply and motherboard. So I guess they are proprietary as well.

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