which system offers the best value?

[patpat]

I saw Dell Desktop 2400 for $500 on its site (includes 17 inch monitor). Is that a good deal?

Do you recommend buying PC's on Ebay? What is the best site to buy PC's from?

Thank you for any advice!

[Jayhawk]

Yes, it is basically a good deal as a general purpose machine for schoolwork, surfing, very LIGHT gaming. Dell quality is very good, free shipping is nice, the 17" monitor is more than fair, and the one year at home warranty + 1 more year limited is very good. Here's where it falls a little short:

The 128mb of SHARED memory is not enough. Shared means it's shared with the video chip which will require 32mb to play the simplest of games. That leaves 96mb for XP and everything else. XP requires a minimum of 128mb to run half-way decent, 256mb recommended. You should count on upgrading the memory.

The built-in Intel Extreme Graphics are not great. You can do it later (probably cheaper) but consider a good $35 - $50 64mb standalone nVidia-based video card. You should check with Dell to make sure the 2400 has an AGP slot for that purpose. Not only will this card give you MUCH better graphics for games, it will free up the shared memory.

The 40gig hard drive is under-sized and needs to be upgraded now or later. I would consider an 80gig a minimum by todays standards.

A better deal would be to have Dell bump the memory to 256 and the hard drive to 80. That brings the price to $629 minus a $50 rebate equals $579. Verify you can plug another video card in (does it have an AGP slot) and when the machine arrives buy a $50 video card. You'll have a nice machine for $629. If money's tight, add a second hard drive and the video card later but at least get Dell to bump the memory.

[BobV]

What Jathawk said.. really

[808smokey]

I saw Dell Desktop 2400 for $500 on its site (includes 17 inch monitor). Is that a good deal?

Do you recommend buying PC's on Ebay? What is the best site to buy PC's from?

Thank you for any advice!

Buy from me... I'm in the process of getting my site up. I can buy wholesale. I can build you a kickass computer for $500 bucks. I'm sorry to all you Dell/gateway /compaq/HP users but they junk. Those 2400 computer I can buy you brand new for $206.99 sell to you for $406.99 and still give you a $100 rebate if you'd like :P

Here's the Link You just have to spend 1 hour and put it together

Do yourself and your wallet a favor and find someone to build you one. Otherwise you'll be buying another one in a year. As for Ebay, Never bought from them Try www.pricewatch.com they have everything you'll need.

[shelbyGT]

www.abspc.com

[mujahid7ia]

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