Been a long time since I bought a PC

[G5Unit]

My dad runs his own buisness and his 4 and a half year old dell, which still suprisingly runs great, could poop out any second.

I am pretty up to date on PC's yet I want to make sure I get everything right, the budget would be about 1000 dollars give or take a few hundred.

No screen, or speakers, just the box. Should he get a Dell? We have just had pretty good expierience with Dell in the past(for a PC company) and I think their online customizing for a PC is great.

I'd really like to get some info!

 

[mduser63]

Personally I would never buy a Dell, but you seem to have good luck with them, so why not go with them again? If I were going to get another PC, I'd build it myself...

 

[G5Unit]

Personally I would never buy a Dell, but you seem to have good luck with them, so why not go with them again? If I were going to get another PC, I'd build it myself...

Yeh but he doesn't want to even though it will save him a few hundred dollars. He want's to order it today. WHat am I suppose to look for?

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

Well this is a Mac site so we all push Macs but with that said I think one of the best deals on the market at the moment hardware wise are the AMD powered Dell E521. Its a lot of machine for the price. It came with a 7300 le which blows away any integrated crap graphics but I wanted even more. Wife got me a Gigabyte silent 7600GS for it for Xmas. Plus you can pop in a tv tuner card for as little as $20. And its pretty quiet. I did a little review here a few months back in the Industry section.

 

[mad jew]

I've had good experience with Dell. The downside of building a PC yourself is the lack of warranty and support. I'd never have a self-built machine in my business for that reason alone.

 

[G5Unit]

Which AMD processor should I get if he's running a buisness(small). Better yet, is there a website i can go on to tell me all of this?

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

For business the base unit should be more then fine, AMD64 x2 3800. fact is all the new CPU's are plenty fast for anything these days. Go to the Dell site and dont be in a hurry because unlike those other guys ( Apple) Dell will build it with what he or you want in it. Consumer is KING!

 

[Sesshi]

You might be better off with something like an Optiplex 745 with a 1.8 - 2.1Ghz Core 2 Duo. There's an Athlon Optiplex as well. Make sure you call for a quote as things may be a lot lower than the web. Don't bother going for the Norton or McAfee antivirus offerings - buy Kaspersky.

In either case I'd recommend the Optiplex series as they come with a standard 3-year onsite warranty and a lack of 'domestic frills' on the install.

 

[4JNA]

sell and support a lot of dell computers. with your budget, you will be fine, and you will get a decent computer. the entry level 'dude, it's a dell' crap is the problem. you don't get good (or usable) computers for $299.

get a decent mid-range system from the small business site, add a second hard drive to run in raid 1 if you want to have a solid/safe business system, and then back up to a small external drive that can be locked up in a fire proof safe, or taken off site.

best of luck.