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Need a new tower...suggestions?

7K views 29 replies 19 participants last post by  basmntdweller 
#1 ·
Hey there guys, my older pc just fried the motherboard's RAM busses. :x

Its time to upgrade.

All I need is the tower. I see you can get some decent stuff on amazon for under $300. I had been running XP but want to get windows 7 or if you think 8 is better...whatever. I have realflight 3.5 and want to just keep it.

It's primarily used for basic gaming, music and photo storage. what should I look for and what should I stay away from??

Thanks.
 
#3 ·
I keep buying Dells. Usually just want new after 3-4 years. Rarely any issues. I'm due now but waiting until new union contract is settled before I make any new purchases. Not a fan of Win 8 though.

Matt
 
#4 ·
A couple years ago I bought a basic Gateway win 8 tower from walfart for under 300 bucks. It has a 1 Terra bite hard drive, 8 gig ram, don't remember the vid card but whatever it is it is a 4 gig card if I remember rightly. Very basic, no Office or any of that. It works fine, I can run Real Flight 5.5 and 3.5 at full steam. With the win 8.1 upgrade it did a few months ago I can just run in desktop mode and it's a lot like win 7. All I use it for is Real Flight, doing taxes, interneting, some photo shop type stuff. I use my phone 98 percent of the time but it's nice to look at a real monitor once in awhile. My old xp tower was super slow and it just wasn't cutting it. It started life back in the mid 2000s, it was glacial in how it worked. Real flight 3.5 barely worked, I had to use photo fields and dial a lot of the stuff back. The new tower is awesome, even if it is a crappy Gateway.
 
#5 ·
You can get most any new tower at Wallymart or Bestbuy, just add the most memory you can cram-in, win 8 is ok,you can download a free program to put back the startmenu or download 8.1 upgrade, not difficult!!!! Hope this helps.
 
#6 ·
Try Newegg . Your not getting anything descent for under $300 . I have never had anything fry in a computer . Of course when it comes to a PC I have never went cheap and built 3 out of the last 4 I have owned . Its nice that we can get a good computer going and not be outdated in one year . I've had this one for 7 years and only have upgraded the video card and got an SSD .

If your just doing mild gaming you can get away with using the integrated graphics built in the CPU . My dad did this for a while and was able to run RealFlight 4.5 on the graphics the I-3 cpu has . I got him to spend $60 and get a nice Nvidia card on sale . Realflight runs on max settings now . Bajajrider was running skyrim on integrated graphics on a laptop . $500-600 should get you something descent . 300 will get you a web browser and bill paying machine and probably fry on you again . Heres what I got and stuffed it with some good stuff . I'll never get rid of this Tower . Its fully modular . No one make one any better .

I also recommend refurbished to get more bang for your buck . I bought a $1500 gaming laptop from Gateway Auctions years ago on fleabay for $800 . Never had any issues with it . If you get a refurbished desktop you could probably get Win 7 . Just to let everyone know if you own a desktop and have win7 you can get the complete program disk from Microsoft for about $30 . You own the program . You just don't get the disk from some places like Dell and Gateway .
 

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#7 ·
I bought a Gateway a while back. The hard drive crashed after about 8 months. They replaced it for free. The replacement died just after the tower's one year warranty expired. Gateway wouldn't do anything about it. I contacted the drive's manufacturer. They said it had a three year warranty and replaced it for free. Not too long after that something on the motherboard crapped out. I had to replace the motherboard. I didn't waste my time contacting Gateway. I just bought a replacement and installed it myself. That computer is about 7 years old. It still works, but I'm about ready to replace it.
 
#8 ·
Thanks for the info. The one that just fried i had built in 2008 and has no problems until now. 6-7 years in this day and age is pretty good for a pc. I spent about $1000 on it back then. It has the integrated vid card, which never impressed me as realflight 3.5 has to be dialed way down to run.

My computer is not needed for much more than as you say "web browser and bill paying machine." My daughters like to play sims on it still. I play music and watch flying and youtube vids (which you now can interface yer phone as a controller on a ps3) and some flight sims, i guess i don't need much.

I just wanted to know if there is "bad" stuff to stay away from.

So window 8.1 is the latest OS?
 
#9 ·
Bob Scheppele said:
I bought a Gateway a while back. The hard drive crashed after about 8 months. They replaced it for free. The replacement died just after the tower's one year warranty expired. Gateway wouldn't do anything about it. I contacted the drive's manufacturer. They said it had a three year warranty and replaced it for free. Not too long after that something on the motherboard crapped out. I had to replace the motherboard. I didn't waste my time contacting Gateway. I just bought a replacement and installed it myself. That computer is about 7 years old. It still works, but I'm about ready to replace it.
Your better off with a different MB . Your not stuck using their drivers and can upgrade easier .

Lift , getting a barebones system is another good idea . Usually get case , powersupply , motherboard , ram and cpu . Get a descent one and it will be very upgradeable .

Built in graphics have gotten much better using dedicated memory . A good graphics card is only about $50 and can always be added later when you have funds .
 
#10 ·
the lift said:
Thanks for the info. The one that just fried i had built in 2008 and has no problems until now. 6-7 years in this day and age is pretty good for a pc. I spent about $1000 on it back then. It has the integrated vid card, which never impressed me as realflight 3.5 has to be dialed way down to run.

My computer is not needed for much more than as you say "web browser and bill paying machine." My daughters like to play sims on it still. I play music and watch flying and youtube vids (which you now can interface yer phone as a controller on a ps3) and some flight sims, i guess i don't need much.

I just wanted to know if there is "bad" stuff to stay away from.

So window 8.1 is the latest OS?
Just read lots of reviews from different sources . That's what I do . If something has 500 reviews and 450 are 5 stars that's a start . Then read the bad review on it . The good reviews are a start but the bad will generally tell you what kind of customer service the company has .

Stay away from OCZ
 
#14 ·
A.D.3D said:
Windows 10 will probablly be out in the next couple months, might be worth the wait :dk:
might be....might not be too....not sure i wanna be the guinea pig to find out its like vista. Do you know anything about it?
 
#17 ·
I probably know less than you do. Sounds like it is going to be a good gaming system, but I don't game so meh...

I personally just got a IPad Air 2 and it functions as my go to device for everything other than calls and texts. Still use my PC at work though.
 
#19 ·
Windows 7 or 8.1 -> it seems like most "business class" machine are still available with Windows 7. I've got no real complaints with 8.1

Processor - Athlon A10, Intel i3 or i5(i7 is overkill unless you're doing video rendering, IMHO)

RAM - 4GB minnimum, 8GB will last you awhile

HDD - 7200 RPM at a minimum regardless of size, or solid state if you don't have a bunch of data.

When it comes to bargain PCs, they have cut corners somewhere & built to a price point. you can spend $400 on a PC that will last three years, or spend $700-800(or more) and have something that will last 5 yrs plus.

Just my $.02
 
#20 ·
If you check out Techbargains.com now you can get this:
Dell Home has the Dell Inspiron Small 3000 Series Intel Core i5-4460 Quad-Core HASWELL Desktop Computer w/ FREE Dell Venue 7 Tablet for a low $499.99 Free Shipping. Tax in most states.
To get a FREE tablet:
1. CLICK HERE
2. Scroll down and click on "Free 7in Tablet with PC Purchases $499+"
3. Select New Venue 7 3000 Series (16GB) - Black
4. Add to cart
5. $99 discount on tablet automatically shows up in cart
Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz (up to 3.4GHz) Quad-Core HASWELL; 4GB RAM; 500GB HDD; DVD burner; 802.11n + gigabit + Bluetooth 4.0; Windows 7 Professional; USB 3.0; 1yr warranty

It should be pretty fast (but I would add 4GB more ram).
 
#21 ·
I finally got around to replacing my old xp tower it was a dell 8400 I bought back in 03, served me well..

Newegg refurb dell optiplex 760 tower...win 7 64 bit, 1 tb HDD, pentium core 2 duo 3 GHz processor. 4 GB ram

It came with a cheap video card. But I had my old one to put in if I wanted.

I was in the same boat as you needing to upgrade.
Great thing is I picked it up for around $200 shipped

I slapped my extra 1 tb hdd and my audigy sound card and im good to go

Very little work... . I bought from new egg but seller was micomp. I'm happy so far. It came with a 1 year warranty
 
#23 ·
thanks for all the help! I had never heard of newegg, this is great! :drink:

Now to try and sift through.....
 
#25 ·
+1 on getting lots of RAM. I didn't get enough on my machine and it definitely needs more.
 
#26 ·
caf2461 said:
If you check out Techbargains.com now you can get this:
Dell Home has the Dell Inspiron Small 3000 Series Intel Core i5-4460 Quad-Core HASWELL Desktop Computer w/ FREE Dell Venue 7 Tablet for a low $499.99 Free Shipping. Tax in most states.
To get a FREE tablet:
1. CLICK HERE
2. Scroll down and click on "Free 7in Tablet with PC Purchases $499+"
3. Select New Venue 7 3000 Series (16GB) - Black
4. Add to cart
5. $99 discount on tablet automatically shows up in cart
Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz (up to 3.4GHz) Quad-Core HASWELL; 4GB RAM; 500GB HDD; DVD burner; 802.11n + gigabit + Bluetooth 4.0; Windows 7 Professional; USB 3.0; 1yr warranty

It should be pretty fast (but I would add 4GB more ram).
I've been looking for a new computer. Mine is more than ten years old, but still running strong. But the software is out of date, mostly. Not good for much more than email.

I bought this Inspiron last night. And I got the 8GB of ram. :rockon:
 
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