Hi Guys! Well its finally happend. My itch for a upgrade is kicking in and i will be making the purchase SOON. What i have so far, which happens to be a value i dont think can be beat, is a Dell Dimension 8400. Dell offers several upgrades that i am all over, especially at the value. What i have come concluded from my 2months of shopping, i dont know that the dell can be beat. I dont like having to go through the issues of building my own system. to me its to much of a hassel. what i have so far is.Dimension 8400P4 Processor 550. 3.5ghz w/ HT 800FSBXP Home1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM 533MHZ17" Flat Panel 256MB PCI-E x16 NVidia GeForce 680080GB SATA 7200RPM16x DVD-ROM Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/dbl layer write capabilitySound Blaster

Well you get cheaper and better quality by doing it yourself but Dell is quite and nice sure. But expensive to upgrade if you go through Dell anyway.But as for prebuilt they are nice for that segment.As for upgradability for example if you want 512 mb of RAM they stick in 2x256 which they only do to save money. I have seen guys who ordered 1 gig of memory and got 4x256. If you want to upgrade later on what do you do with useless 256 modules?Also Dell have locked mainboards so you can

>As for upgradability for example if you want 512 mb of RAM they >stick in 2x256 which they only do to save money.Now isn't it necessary to have two modules to take full advatage of dual channel memory controllers? At least this is the case for AMD based mobos. I might be wrong I am not very familiar with Intel rigs.Alex

For that price, you'll be hard-pressed to build one yourself for the same price. (Except for the 3.5Ghz Processor, a 550 Pentium is actually 3.4Ghz, is Dell overclocking???)As mentioned earlier, you pretty much stuck with what you got when it comes to Dell MB's. You can add and remove other stuff but if your wanting to do anything significant, it has to go back to Dell.Alas, I would opt for either two of the 80GB HDD's or a minimum of 1 200GB as well as a CD burner and Windows XP Pro.JMHO but good luck and happy computing whichever way you decide to go.Scott

sry guys, i missed typed.. it is the 550 @ 3.4gig.I dont upgrade very much. i am on the same pc i have had for 3 years and all i have done is put a stick of 256.I am currently onP4 1.5512MB SDRAM PC13340GB HDNVidia TNT64 32mb AGP and i have a dvd-rom and a CD-RW.Even the step up to this dell, would be a whole new world for me. The problem with home built is that i have never done it befor. Im not shure if i would be ready to start having to solve compatibility issues in getting the components.Maybe i should concider it though? :)

Well i have a update...I have looked at dell more, and also contacted them..What i was told turned me away. That same computer would be around 55 or so a month.Numerous people have told me that the AMD is a better processor for gaming. I am now looking at cyber power. I can get a pc that is just as good, and more rugged for gaming, for less. I dont think i am going to get the 6800vid card. That is still a new card, and will come down in price around may of 05.What i am looking at now is just the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 256MB.Its the default card with this system. No its not the best, but yes, it is still a good card. Buying just the default card should allow me to save some money, and upgrade sometime next year if needed.Does anyone have a cyber power? would you mind telling me how good it is, and how the support that they offer is any good.Any one with the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 256MB, would you mind telling me how it runs in fs, and what kind of detail it gets on what FPS.From what i think, a medium to high res. on high to ultra high settings might get me around 30FPS or so. maybe higher.If you have this card, would you mind telling me what you run? :)Thanks for your help. :)

The 5700 FX is not a good card by any means. Then you can as well save your money and get a 5200 FX. The 5700 FX is neither fast and neither cheap. And 256 mb video cards especially with such slow ones the only thing they do is increase the cost of the cards by a lot. There is no performance to gain. It

Hi Chase; Well I've got a Cyberpower. The reason I bought it was it was cheaperthan if I'd bought the components and done my own build. I've been fairly happy with it however its not a Dell... or Gateway..or Emachine..or ...well you get the idea. AS to tech support Weeellll its about as good as you get with FS2004:-roll which is to say you need a dialect coach for east eu.. Indiansub continent ect. Everything on mine worked (once I got it connected):-lol The components are what they advertise. I had trouble with mine early onand they offered to RMA the whole unit. I didn't want to do that andworked thru all the probs with the help of folks like these on thissite. Actually just by reading about others problems ;) PM me if you like and I'll be glad to help any way I can.DN"Proffesional Tourist"

Just want to say thanks alot for every ones help and advice. I live in houston, and there happens to be a store located only in a few texas cities, called Altex. http://www.altex.com The franchise has had a the store about 7 min away, for about 6 years now. Yes, i have been there many times, and they normally have contracts to make a system for big corporations, and normally sell pc's for a company such as Texaco Oil for example. I went there today and looked around and found out that they also do custom Gaming Computers. Sadly, i never knew that untill today. But you can pic every thing you want, and they will get it all from the shelf just about, and build it for you. What i have seems awsome. I think that this would be better, with their warranty and service being so close and easy, its a no brainer for me just about.So far i have..GIGABYTE AMD Athlon 64 3200+512MB PC3200 (with my budget, its all im going to get, but will upgrade to 1024 when i get some more money )Seagate 80GB SATA HD 7200RPMThermaltake SLV Tower w/ 420W PS http://www.thermaltake.com/xaserCase/lanfire/vm2000a.htmAOPEN NVidia FX5700 AGP 8X 256MB16X DVD-R/RW MS XP HomePhillips 19" CRT True Flat.Total 1350 apprx.My favorite thing is the tower. The tower is superb. 420W PS, LCD Temp Reader. 4 fans around the whole system with exhaust. the 4 fans are also controllable. Easy to access to work on, and very spacious.The vid card, i will upgrade within a few months. Most likely befor FS10 is released in summer 05.I cant wait. Will have system within a few weeks.Really is a homebuilt pc. I picked out all the components, and they just put it together, and besides that, i get a 3 year warrant with all parts and labor at no charge. If something goes wrong in the system, everything is covered. except for the things i put in my self. They will repair everything the system came with.The CyberPower wasnt going to be great in the fact of customer service and repair. Its gonna work out better this way i think with the store 7 min away from home. :)