Bought kids a dell now, ME, buy dell or build?

Buy premade.

Don't build unless you get some enjoyment out of it.

If you buy premade, consider a mac. Support and design FTW. Even if you just use it to run windows. But OS X is bad ass if you're willing to make a change.
 


Agreed with most of the above for getting a Mac. And if you don't want to shell out the money for a purebred Apple, then go to Lifehacker, use the stats that TylerL just put down, and make yourself a nice Hackintosh.

It's a long process to get it up and running and takes a lot of command line scripting and Terminal manipulation, but in the end it is oh so very worth it. You can't go wrong with OSX, and it's even better with matching dualscreens, Mac on one and Windows on the other.
 
Only really good part about Mac is there are a lot less viruses written for it. Their support is decent but it should be considering you are paying 3 to 4 times the price of comparable system from Dell.

Personally I always build, mostly because I like to have more room to upgrade than is available with the typical out of the box Dell or HP. The other nice thing about building is you don't have to spend hours deleting the bloatware that computer manufacturers like to put on new computers.
 
I would recommend building your own.

I just bought parts for a new system and they are very similar to what TylerL mentioned.

Intel i7 2.66, ASRock mobo, EVGA GTX 275.

CAN'T WAIT TO GET IT, 5 SEC BOOT OMG WUT

Macs are way overpriced imo
 
For a Win 7 box, you want to build your own.

The reason Dell's systems are as cheap as they are for a prebuilt solution is that they skimp on hardware wherever they possibly can and are not very DIY modification or upgrade friendly.
 
i built computers, then i went mac 3 years ago. I love OS X.

If I was going to buy a computer now, I would buy a pre-built win 7 box. 6 reasons:

1) windows 7 is great. Its faster, easier, and cleaner than vista is. It can run on much weaker hardware (netbooks, nettops), and much better on good hardware.

2) PCs have gotten so ridiculously cheap compared to macs, they are now at least 50% less expensive than macs. Go price out current desktops/laptops. You can get better stuff in a pc for half of whats in a mac. As much as I love OS X, most people probably don't get the same benefits out of it that I do, since they don't need unix commands. I just helped my girlfriend buy a laptop and at the end of the day, as much as I wanted her to have a mac, there was just no way to justify the extra cost.

3) if you get the right vendor you will have a single point of support, instead of one for each part in your build

4) it used to be you had to build in order to a good priced box for gaming, thats not true any more. If you are really into building computers (that is you enjoy it) thats one thing, but if you are just doing it to get costs down, its not nearly as beneficial in that respect as it used to be.

5) Yes you can run windows on a mac but to do so legally means you are going to shell out an extra $100+ for the win license. Without windows, you can't run a lot of apps that seem to take forever to get ported to macs (like google chrome for example). Sometimes its nice to just be able to natively run the apps you want without dual booting, or virtualization and without extra licensing fees

6) the cost to vendors for those windows 7 volume licenses is much less than what you will pay, so if you are going to buy windows 7 for your build, you are already at a disadvantage.

Macs need to get cheaper, you can get good pc laptops for $500-$600 now, and good desktops for the same. An $1100 macbook or $2000 macbook pro doesn't have the value proposition it used to.
 
kingofsp said:
Unless you smoke!
Click to expand...

...the Apple store called and informed me that due to the computer having been used in a house where there was smoking, that has voided the warranty and they refuse to work on the machine, due to "health risks of second hand smoke"...
Click to expand...

...When I asked for an explanation, she said he's a smoker and it's contaminated with cigarette smoke which they consider a bio-hazard! I checked my Applecare warranty and it says nothing about not honoring warranties if the owner is a smoker. The Applecare representative said they defer to the technician and my son's computer cannot be fixed at any Apple Service Center due to being listed a bio-hazard...
Click to expand...

lolwat
 
TylerL said:
Here's a quick setup I put together on Newegg, lost the wishlist URL but I have the contents of it:
Not sure what your budget is but this will run everything you want just fine. Do you have a monitor? If so, what resolution is it? I personally need to go pretty expensive on the video card because I run 1920x1200, you don't need to if you're on something smaller.
Click to expand...

while thats a pretty good argument against getting a mac (because try pricing out a comparable mac pro), unless he is a serious gamer, thats some major overkill. Otherwise he does not need that graphics card, that power supply, or that much ram. Those 3 components were $700 of your $1400. He also doesn't need a $200 motherboard (jesus).
 
This topic pops up every other week. The general consensus is as follows:

  1. Get a Mac
  2. stfu fanboy build it yourself so you can masturbate to high FPS on Crysis
  3. I'm a noob faggot and can't build a PC so I say buy premade Dell FTW
  4. Mac Mac Mac
  5. Dullspace
  6. circa
  7. ???
  8. Profit!
Pick your poison...
 
papajohn56 said:
get a mac, why would you buy a Dell when they have the worst support in the industry, and are on the decline?
Click to expand...

Support from Dell is excellent in Australia especially if you own an XPS, Ive had 2 motherboards die on me and they came out the next day on both occasions.

Not sure how it is in the USA but Dell treats XPS customers like gold here.
 
For a desktop, definitely build it yourself. I've been looking for a new computer to replace my 4.5 year old Dell desktop (running perfectly since I got it, I might add). Dell's current lineup is pretty expensive compared to what you can piece together yourself, and even the new iMacs (and especially the older Mac Pro) are even worse.

Dell's next business day support that I had for my old Dell laptop was so much better than what I have to deal with for my Macbook, and the cost of the extended AppleCare warranty is pretty much the same as an extended warranty for a Dell. To get a new wrist-rest for my Macbook (due to a Mac design flaw that caused it to crack), I need to bring it in to the Apple store (the only one within a 2.5 hour drive, so it gets swamped) and wait up to a week for it to be fixed.

When I needed my Dell wrist-rest replaced, they overnighted me the piece, and I could have easily replaced it myself without voiding the warranty, but since something else needed replacing, I had a tech at my house the next day fixing it. I've also had a great experience with Dell's LCD monitor support & warranty over the past few years, as well as their accidental damage protection warranty - Never had an issue with their support in years. Go for online chat support, and you won't have to deal with accents, either :)

dably said:
Only really good part about Mac is there are a lot less viruses written for it.
Click to expand...
I had to deal with some pretty nasty Mac/Unix/Linux viruses back in a former life doing computer tech work - Those can get by easily when users don't have any anti-virus programs on a Mac. My 86 year old grandmother hasn't gotten a virus yet on her PC, and all I did was install Norton, and tell her to keep it updated whenever it asks.
 
conv3rsion said:
while thats a pretty good argument against getting a mac (because try pricing out a comparable mac pro), unless he is a serious gamer, thats some major overkill. Otherwise he does not need that graphics card, that power supply, or that much ram. Those 3 components were $700 of your $1400. He also doesn't need a $200 motherboard (jesus).
Click to expand...

Heh, I just pasted something from another forum I posted a few weeks ago, I just consider it a reasonable price for what it is. He could shave off $750 of that depending on what "slight" gaming means. Personally I like some power in my rig because Photoshop is open 24/7, 20 tabs in Firefox at the least, Winamp, and 10 other programs.
 
TylerL said:
Here's a quick setup I put together on Newegg, lost the wishlist URL but I have the contents of it:



Not sure what your budget is but this will run everything you want just fine. Do you have a monitor? If so, what resolution is it? I personally need to go pretty expensive on the video card because I run 1920x1200, you don't need to if you're on something smaller.
Click to expand...

he knows what hes talking about.

if you piss away the ridiculous amount of money it costs for a mac, then you deserve to not have that money in your pocket in the first place. windows 7 was already performing better than xp in its beta stages and is now even more solid with its release updates.

but then again if you want to pay over half a grand more to be "stylish" then get a mac
 
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