Tips for buying a computer?
 

Hi all,

I am planning on upgrading to a faster computer within the next month or so. If anyone is bored/kind enough to throw in some advice it would be greatly appreciated.

what I am looking for is:

2.9 ghz+ processor
6+ GB memory
500+GB hard drive

I am hoping I can find something like this under $300.

Is it cheaper to just buy parts and figure out how to put it all together? I am not very savvy on doing that kind of thing, but if I have to figure it out I will eventually.

The closest thing I have found is on techforless.com and eBay. Both sites will sometimes have something I am looking for close to my price range, but I have yet to find something that seems to be a perfect match in price and specs.

Any quick thoughts/comments?

Thanks! Happy hunting!

Newegg.com is probably the best place in the world to buy computer hardware. That said, your specs and price range seem rather difficult to resolve.

Question #1: What do you plan to do with it? A budget of 'under $300' is very limiting so it would be important to know what your plans to use it for primairly are.

I would suggest keep saving another 150 or so n build your own,

however they do have great deals on newegg if you cannot build your own that are not too much more for being prebuilds.

^^ This

Especially considering you didn't mention a graphics card...

I really really hate to be the bearer of bad news...but unless you buy cheap brand crap that comes with the "90% chance to break in a week" guarantee this is probably not going to be possible. And even then it's gonna be cutting it close =/. At the very least if you're buying EVERYTHING and starting from scratch. Now just for the CPU, RAM and HDD it's plausible...again, if you buy cheap.

As previously stated Newegg is where to go.

apple.com/store

Thank you for the replies.

I will check newegg right away.

I plan on using it mainly for digital photograph editing.

I am considering buying refurbished to get closer to my price range, but I have considered going another $150 or so to get something nicer.

I found a computer with these specs for $260 free shipping:

Athlon II CPU Dual Core 2.7 Ghz x 2

250 Gig Hard drive

8 gig (1x4) DDR3 PC 1066

DVDRW with Nero Installed

No keyboard or mouse included.

Software Installed:

Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit OS

It doesn't mention what kind of graphics card is in it.

How big of a difference will a good graphics card make for picture editing?

Thanks for the input.

If you're not working with video what you have listed will work...the more layers you work with the more memory-intensive it's going to be...but your memory will be more important overall.

If you plan on video...well, you better be saving a couple more grand.

I wanna see if someone can make a computer like this for under 300 dollars. Someone just do it.