tower for my GF help please

[ams30gts]

ive been looking around for a new tower for my girlfriend. her current system is old and needs a new one

any thoughts on this one?
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/B000O5D43G...t=101&pf_rd_p=288448501&pf_rd_i=507846

$500 after rebate with free shipping and no tax seems pretty good

not gonna be for gaming. just basically browsing/email and some photoshop and itunes

or if you guys know of any better deals around feel free to kick me down


this one is also a good deal. theres actually a misprint on it. its not a celeron processor

http://www.amazon.com/Presario-SR5050NX...056?ie=UTF8&s=pc&qid=1179795610&sr=1-1

 

[cprince]

I think it's a solid system.

 

[n7]

I suspect you could find much better deals if you go into a store & haggle over clearance/open box stuff TBH.

I don't know American prices too well though.

One thing i'll mention also is that HP/Compaq or eMachines are likely the worst prebuilts out there for being very non-upgrade friendly.
Very basic 300W PSUs (so no video card upgrade w/o PSU upgrade), terrible case layout (pretty much no spots for extra HDDs, etc.), & they come bundled w/ sh!tloads of crap installed.

Gateway & Acer generally have quite upgrade-friendly cases w/ space for HDDs, etc, slightly more powerful PSUs, & less crap software to uninstall.

Just my experience from selling them.

 

[jkresh]

it appears to be a reasonable deal but check the hotdeals forum for a deal on a dell. I don't know if they have anything better then that system right now but generally if you wait a few weeks they will (dell tends to have large coupons every few weeks). May end up being around the same price but coming with a 19 inch lcd or something like that.

 

[JimiP]

HP builds a solid PC however, like the poster said before me, they don't allow much room for upgrading. I would steer clear of the Celeron D Compaq. The Pavilion with the AthlonX2 is a much better deal. More CPU power for not much more.

If the bloat-ware gets on your nerves, (which almost every PC vendor has them installed) just go out and purchase WinXP Home OEM/WinVista Home Premium OEM and have a clean install.

 

[Comdrpopnfresh]

as long as you are comfortable slapping in a stick of ram. With both being either integrated graphics or some iteration of hypermemory the system won't really have a gig to itself- and it is vista premium so if you want to eat your cake you're gonna wanna put on aero. IDK if <1gig will be too slow. Definitely the first though- screw the pentium D.

 

[Comdrpopnfresh]

Originally posted by: JimiP
If the bloat-ware gets on your nerves, (which almost every PC vendor has them installed) just go out and purchase WinXP Home OEM/WinVista Home Premium OEM and have a clean install.

if it comes with it preinstalled just borrow someone's disk and use your key. to my knowledge that is no illegal- why should you not be entitled to re-install something you payed for?

 

[ams30gts]

this deal looks pretty good...but im not a fan of these small cases which make it real hard for later upgrades

DellSB - Dell Dimension C521 Desktop with
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+,
1GB DDR2,
160GB HD,
16x DVD+/-RW
and 19" Widescreen Samsung LCD Monitor

for $469 with FREE Shipping!

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/...?oc=bddecbc&cs=04&dgvcode=ss&c=US&l=EN

 

[golemite]

hmm looks like a solid deal.

 

[ams30gts]

if anyone is interested i ended up getting

Dimension E521

19 inch SP1908FP Silver Flat Panel Monitor w/TrueLife? (Glossy Screen)
AMD Athlon? 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+
Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 2DIMMs
160GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache?
48X CD-RW/ DVD Combo Drive

$459 shipped free