Found a Dell XPS 8500 for 400 dollars at a Pawn shop- worth it?

[jimwize]

Hello,

I've recently happened upon a quite powerful machine for only 400 dollars at a local pawn shop. It is a Dell XPS 8500, with an i5 quad core 3.10 ghz, 8 gb memory, 1 tb hdd and a 7570 video card (I'd replace it with a 7770 if I buy it). Would this machine be well worth the price if I would like a gaming pc but don't have a whole lot of money?

My current PC has an Athlon II x2 250 3ghz cpu, with 4 gb ram and a hd 6570 video card inside of it, and while it runs videogames like Battlefield 3 and Skyrim, it does so at choppy framerates, and I'm looking for a computer that will last me a while before having to upgrade.

Will I have better luck building my own, AMD based computer, or buying this one while its still there? Will it be capable of running next gen games smoothly with a new video card? Thank you for any help!

Also, I'm not sure if this is the right place. Please steer me to the correct category if I'm off!

 

[hang-the-9]

Used that shoud be a lot closer to $250. A new system in that speed range is about $500. I would not get it unless it was under $300.

 

[Turb0Yoda]

base models of that computer seem to start at 500. Does it come with monitor, keyboard, etc? If so, ask to test it out and see if it works properly. It's up to you to get it. It seems like a very good computer. Can't say much about next-gen games. Current-gen games will work good.