Good evening I have finally saved up enough money to get a new computer. I already have a good monitor so all I need is a good tower along with mouse and keyboard. I talked to Ryan awhile ago and he told me my it mite be time to upgrade from my 2007 gateway. So if Ryan is out there I would love some advice. I am looking at either a new HP or Dell.I am willing to take all opinions so feel free to fire away.thanksIan Snow

I am looking at either a new HP or Dell.

Why?It has been stated here numerous times that you get the best bung for the buck by purchasing a true gaming PC, whether you build it yourself or someone builds it to your specs is a different matter but limitimg yourself to Dell or HP you immediately put limits on your simulation.By the way, read this recent thread where Ryan offers some of his very recent PC recommendations (post #60):link

Check out the hardware forum and get some expert advice, but stay away from those DELL/HP ones. Get it custom built.

Hp and dells are fine. I have a HP desktop with a nvidea geforce 220 and I get good preformance no need to get custome made. I got every thing off of Amazon.com I have a HP Pavilion A4310F Desktop 4g of memeryAmd athlon 2 chipnvidea geforce 220

Totally up to you of course, but if you are comfortable swapping a video card, or installing a couple of sticks of memory, you are more than capable of building your own PC. When I built mine (first time builder), I compared it to a Dell for $5,500. My home built cost $1,800.I'll leave it up to Ryan to fill you in on what the latest and the greatest is.

Intel Core i5 2500K OCed @ 4.7+GHzCorsair H70 or A70 coolerAsus P67 or Z68 based motherboard (not the -M series though)8GB (2x4GB) of 1.5v DDR3-1600Nvidia GTX 560 Ti, 570, or 580Corsair 600T caseCorsair or Seasonic power supply, at least 750WStorage is up to you - I like Western Digital HDs and OCZ and Intel SSDsThat's the basics - you can build it for a little over $1000 ordering parts from Newegg.com.

Hp and dells are fine. I have a HP desktop with a nvidea geforce 220 and I get good preformance no need to get custome made. I got every thing off of Amazon.com I have a HP Pavilion A4310F Desktop 4g of memeryAmd athlon 2 chipnvidea geforce 220

No, unfortunatly, Dell and HP are not fine. You have a £350~$450 machine that I would guess you paid $700 for, and the insulting bit is that your only real upgrade option is to spend another $700 to get another $350~$450 machine.Lets a assume for the moment that you are incapable of opening a can of sardines without risk of grievious bodily harm and so do not want to risk building your own PC. That is fine, pay someone $50 to do it for you and you still get a one or two year warrenty. Pick a budget, it doesn't matter how much but for your 1st machine you should allow at least $750 for middle of the road, $900 for a sharp gameing system - so in the same as a league as a Dell or HP. The difference is that in two years time when your machine is just begining to feel dated, spending $250 will freshen it up. With Dell or HP, you will wait three years until it is obsolete then put it in the bin. In other words, once you have a reasonable and upgradeable kit, a budget of as little as $10 a month will keep it current. Compare that to the Dell/HP option of spending $750~$1000 every three years for something that is less then the best when you buy it and will age faster then a fake blonde.

thanks for all your adviceLooks like building it yourself is the moveone question though since I am not so computer smartwhat is a "Western Digital HDs and OCZ and Intel SSDs"thanksIan Snow

No, unfortunatly, Dell and HP are not fine. You have a £350~$450 machine that I would guess you paid $700 for, and the insulting bit is that your only real upgrade option is to spend another $700 to get another $350~$450 machine.Lets a assume for the moment that you are incapable of opening a can of sardines without risk of grievious bodily harm and so do not want to risk building your own PC. That is fine, pay someone $50 to do it for you and you still get a one or two year warrenty. Pick a budget, it doesn't matter how much but for your 1st machine you should allow at least $750 for middle of the road, $900 for a sharp gameing system - so in the same as a league as a Dell or HP. The difference is that in two years time when your machine is just begining to feel dated, spending $250 will freshen it up. With Dell or HP, you will wait three years until it is obsolete then put it in the bin. In other words, once you have a reasonable and upgradeable kit, a budget of as little as $10 a month will keep it current. Compare that to the Dell/HP option of spending $750~$1000 every three years for something that is less then the best when you buy it and will age faster then a fake blonde.

I only paid $350 for it and it was a $600 coumpter.

No, unfortunatly, Dell and HP are not fine. You have a £350~$450 machine that I would guess you paid $700 for, and the insulting bit is that your only real upgrade option is to spend another $700 to get another $350~$450 machine.Lets a assume for the moment that you are incapable of opening a can of sardines without risk of grievious bodily harm and so do not want to risk building your own PC. That is fine, pay someone $50 to do it for you and you still get a one or two year warrenty. Pick a budget, it doesn't matter how much but for your 1st machine you should allow at least $750 for middle of the road, $900 for a sharp gameing system - so in the same as a league as a Dell or HP. The difference is that in two years time when your machine is just begining to feel dated, spending $250 will freshen it up. With Dell or HP, you will wait three years until it is obsolete then put it in the bin. In other words, once you have a reasonable and upgradeable kit, a budget of as little as $10 a month will keep it current. Compare that to the Dell/HP option of spending $750~$1000 every three years for something that is less then the best when you buy it and will age faster then a fake blonde.

I know howe to build coumpters. my dad wrights code and is currnetly making $100 a hour. We look at coumpters that u replace them ever two years. So I will go to amazon.com find a good coumpter and good graphics card off of amazon.com and buy it. Dells and Hps are just fine. they are cheap and last a cuple of years. P.s I have a dell laptop bought from dell not customade and it also runs FSX just fine.

I know howe to build coumpters. my dad wrights code and is currnetly making $100 a hour. We look at coumpters that u replace them ever two years. So I will go to amazon.com find a good coumpter and good graphics card off of amazon.com and buy it. Dells and Hps are just fine. they are cheap and last a cuple of years. P.s I have a dell laptop bought from dell not customade and it also runs FSX just fine.

Think what you want, but if you do that, you are seriously missing out.

Think what you want, but if you do that, you are seriously missing out.

I am not missing out my coumpter runs FSX with high setting at good FPS. I do know how to build coumpters.

I know howe to build coumpters. my dad wrights code and is currnetly making $100 a hour. We look at coumpters that u replace them ever two years. So I will go to amazon.com find a good coumpter and good graphics card off of amazon.com and buy it. Dells and Hps are just fine. they are cheap and last a cuple of years. P.s I have a dell laptop bought from dell not customade and it also runs FSX just fine.

This is hilarious. First of all, its "write" and no one cares about your brag post about your father. Your computer sucks, simply put. You are throwing your money away doing this "upgrading" every 2 years.

This is hilarious. First of all, its "write" and no one cares about your brag post about your father. Your computer sucks, simply put. You are throwing your money away doing this "upgrading" every 2 years.

First of all its called summer break so my brain is off and I just got up. I am not trying to brag. MY coumpter is fast and how would you even know if it was slow which it is not. Have you broke in to my home turn on my coumpter and say this is slow and crappy. I doubt you have. I am not trowing away my money by buying a new one every two years. Tecnology improves so much so fast it is not worth to put a lot of money in a coumpter that will be out dateted in two years then you would say we spend $50 and upgrade it. There is only so much upgrading you can do before it is junk.

First of all its called summer break so my brain is off and I just got up. I am not trying to brag. MY coumpter is fast and how would you even know if it was slow which it is not. Have you broke in to my home turn on my coumpter and say this is slow and crappy. I doubt you have. I am not trowing away my money by buying a new one every two years. Tecnology improves so much so fast it is not worth to put a lot of money in a coumpter that will be out dateted in two years then you would say we spend $50 and upgrade it. There is only so much upgrading you can do before it is junck.

Save your energy, your not fooling anyone around here but yourself...