Man, I have to say, I also use tiger direct, and usually just pick up an Emachines every year or two, never spend more than 350 bucks....... I guess I just look at it like a maintenance item.

You would be very surprised at what a nice non-gaming machine can be had for 350 bucks and under!

 

Dell often has a nice basic setup with LCD for $399 or so. Last week they a Pentium dual core, 1GB Ram, DVD burner, and 19"LCD for $429.

 

Have decided to take a trip up north next month and buy a computer. I will be going to San Antonio, Tx., so can anybody recommend a couple of places that I can check out for a computer and monitor purchase?
I pretty well know what I want for specs and am not that fussy about brand as long as I am confident that it will do what I want and be trouble free. If you can supply a phone number I can get it ordered before I leave to make sure that it is waiting for me.
I will be there for the first week of January.

 

http://www.frys-electronics-ads.com/...e-location.htm

 

Thanks, but can't find one in San Antonio, but have been to the one in Austin. If I have time, may take a run up there.

 

to be honest, what is the trouble with shipping to yourself ? don't us ignorant Americans allow that? Fry's would be a great place to buy from, or newegg, if the ship to Mexico.

 

You ignorant American's are all too willing to take my money and ship to me, so that is not a problem. The problem is the cost to ship, which is not too bad, but duty is around 30% and that kills the deal. I can get what I want here, but the price is considerably higher than the US.
I need to get away for a short while and as my wife loves to shop in the US, will combine a time away with my lady, let her enjoy her shopping while I go computer shopping, Home Depot and generally do the man thing. The drive is long (around 12 hours one way), but is part of getting away.
Miss my truck for a drive like this.
I am sure you American's do not object to me dropping a few thousand dollars into your economy. Again!

 

not at all, figured there would be something that killed the deal, I am not a big traveler, and have no clue.......... good luck and let us know what ya get.

 

To answer a couple of your previous questions...

Stick with Intel. Currently, they are light years ahead of AMD in performance. I, personally, don't think they hold up, either. I've built ONE AMD system in my days. It will be my last. It did not last a year before the processor stopped working. I'm on year 5 of my current Intel rig and I've had several others (including overclocked units) last 5 years or more.

As far as the operating system, get the most decked out version of Windows XP you can get. More than likely you'll still be cheaper than any Vista package. Vista is just not where it should be. It's slower, consumes tons of resources, and just not yet up to where XP is. If you have older software, it may not run on Vista as well.

You mentioned wanting killer sound... someone correct me if I'm wrong, but its my understanding that Vista does not support hardware sound acceleration. You can get a SoundBlaster Live (or whatever) card, but Vista won't use it. Or maybe it was that it just wouldn't use the EAX format. Maybe thats changed, but I do remember that was a big deal on some of the tech forums before Vista was released.