I need a new desktop computer - recommendations?

[Morrus]

Very bad analogy. It does not take anywhere near the time or skill to put a computer together versus a house or car.

Well, it was more a half-hearted joke than an analogy. But fair enough. What about people who buy meals from restaurants or cakes from bakeries? It's pretty easy to bake a loaf of bread!

 

[jeffh]

Ha! Not perfect, but much better.

I don't know about baking, but a lot of the time one *is* better off with home cooking than restaurant cooking. Of course, one gets tired of doing that *every day*. I don't know anyone who buys a computer every day!

 

[Wayside]

If you're open to building your own system but haven't done it before, Newegg's Customer Choice Awards are a great place to start:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustVoteProductWinner.aspx

They're a record of the most highly rated hardware each month, and, besides quality, provide a strong indicator of the parts with the best price-to-performance ratio.

You might also take a quick look through the video-editing benchmarks at sites like AnandTech and Tom's Hardware, since you have a specific use case in mind. And if you ask for help in their forums, you'll also get plenty of input, e.g. http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=34595700

If one needs to pinch pennies then you're not building a whole new machine anyway - you're just repairing/upgrading the old one. If it's a full replacement then the "premium" spent on a name is largely insignificant compared to the convenience of being able to just take one home from Best Buy or Walmart and starting to work with it rather than still waiting to assemble it.

Pinching pennies has nothing to do with it. If you and I start out with the same budget for a new system, but I build mine and you buy yours off the shelf, guess how much more powerful mine's going to be? A 25+% difference in performance is common. Throw overpriced Apple hardware into the mix and it'll skew even higher.

There's nothing wrong with buying off the shelf, of course, but let's be clear: you're trading about an hour of your time (if you've never done it before, otherwise 15-20 minutes) for an inferior product, costs being equal. And considering that an off-the-shelf system will have to be upgraded more frequently, the long-term reduction in time spent shopping should more than cover assembly.

 

[dogoftheunderworld]

If you're open to building your own system but haven't done it before, Newegg's Customer Choice Awards are a great place to start:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustVoteProductWinner.aspx

They're a record of the most highly rated hardware each month, and, besides quality, provide a strong indicator of the parts with the best price-to-performance ratio.

You might also take a quick look through the video-editing benchmarks at sites like AnandTech and Tom's Hardware, since you have a specific use case in mind. And if you ask for help in their forums, you'll also get plenty of input, e.g. http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=34595700

[snip] .

Thanks. I've started looking at NewEgg in case I decide to go down that path. Thanks for the additional links.

 

[dogoftheunderworld]

Well, I thoughjt I narrowed it down to a RAM issue, but it is still BSOD'ing.

Anyone know if there would be an issue with using a new motherboard/cpu with my old Win XP (32-bit)? (i.e. if I just move my harddrives to a new system).

Thanks again.

 

[DnD_Dad]

How much do you want to spend? Tell me and I'll make you a wishlist on either tigerdirect or newegg. I build computers for a living and I'm currently working on my CCNA.

 

[delericho]

You can get warranties on the parts too, so that objection doesn't apply.

Actually, it does in one specific case. And, perhaps ironically, it's the very case the OP is suffering from: where something is wrong with the machine, but he's not sure what component is to blame. In this case, if your warranty is for the parts, it's not going to help you until you can pin it down, but if your warranty is with Dell for the whole machine, then it's incumbent on them to find the problem and fix it.

In the past, I've done the "name buy" thing, the "build from parts" thing, and even the "buy parts and have someone put them together for you" thing. Each of which had merits and drawbacks.

(FWIW, my most recent PC purchase was a laptop bought in probably the least-optimal manner possible. Really, I should have known better than to even consider doing what I did. But then, it's lasted me for about six years now almost without issue, still does everything I actually need, and has only ever had a RAM upgrade. It's fair to say that I got really lucky on that one!)