Build Your Own PC

I have built a couple from scratch the last 8 or 9 years. About a year ago, I priced all the parts out and I might have saved $100 bucks for what I wanted versus the deal I got from Dell.

Also, something I did for the kids and it only cost about $500 bucks is I took all the old stuff from the PC that my Dell replaced, pulled it out of the closet and went to a local Charlotte PC building company and bought a "bare bones" kit which was a high end PIII with 256 ram, 16 video and dvd player. Then all I had to do was load an old copy of win 98, plug in my old monitor, keyboard and mouse and all works well...

 

That's the way to do it, if you've got a case. Extra RAM makes up for an average processor. If you ever upgrade your existing processor with the latest, you've basically bought a new PC anyway.

 

You can build one for less than 600 buck easy....

Case with 8 bays (for expansion) - 60 bucks
Motherboard (Abit are the best) - 140 bucks
CPU - (AMD beats Intel at every benchmark) - 1.2 FSB266 - $55
RAM - 512 PC150 - $60
CDRW - 12x10x48 - $80
40 gig HD ATA - 100 7200rpm (this is all you really need) - $100
Video card - ATI Rage 64 meg - 75
Sound card - TurtleBeach Montego - 45 bucks
mouse - Intellimouse Explorer - 35
Keyboard - $20
Zip Drive - 20 bucks
Floppy - 15 bucks
Microsoft Sidewinder gamepad - 20 bucks
19" FD Trinitron - $299

These prices are on the high end of the spectrum so you can probably take away 100-150 bucks off those prices and you're looking at a bad ass computer for around $850.

You should put together your own computer though or have someone help you. It's a great learning experience and gives you hands on experience if something bad goes in your PC. I've put together dozens for friends and family. Good Luck!

 

BUY WINDOWS XP

Makes loading from scratch easy.

There's a good group down monroe close to matthews that helped me out.

I found that Sales tax is less than the ridiculous freight charged by so-called 'distributors'.

Also - I use tons of Ram. It's cheap, so why not. I'm running 512.

 

You can get what you mentioned for less than a grand... as I said, you may save $100 bucks building yourself. Also, why would you want a zip drive with a CD burner? Unless you move up to the gig which cost $99 per disk the CD will hold more than the zip...

 

Where's the best place to buy components considering price and reasonable S&H? Service isn't a great concern as long as it isn't broken when I get it.