Hey fellas,

I'm going off to college in about a month and though I already have a laptop (a Dell Inspiron 6000), I got it four years ago and even back then it was hardly considered an admirable machine. In the world of today it is truly obsolete, I can hardly play games from 2003 anymore on low settings and other than word processing tasks/playing music, the computer functions too slow now to do much else with it.

Anyway, I've decided to convert it into a completely work oriented machine with pretty much ONLY Microsoft Office, Google Chrome and maybe MSN/iTunes installed on it. I'll use it to get work done around campus and maybe take notes in class or something, but its days as a distraction are over. I'd like to buy myself a new desktop that can handle most new-ish games on the market (Dawn of War 2 being my example title) on medium-high settings. My goal is to get it for about 600 USD and though it's a loose budget, the closer I can get to that price tag, the happier I'll be. I basically just want an economically smart PC that can do what I want it to and that I can build off of in the future.

My computer-literate friend and I spent a few hours going over parts and whatnot and this is the setup we came up with. I have a mouse but pretty much everything else still needs to be bought... This setup is going to cost about 680USD which is fine but if you guys can see any gaping holes/places where I could get more performance for equally as much money or equal performance for less cash, please do let me know. I don't think I'm interested in getting into overclocking and whatnot because I really don't know enough about computers to mess around with stuff like that, I just want to make my games look pretty and run reasonably well.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...&sku=C283-1138
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...5&sku=L49-1952
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...4&sku=C13-2022
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...&sku=G452-0004
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...ku=TSD-320AAKS
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...203-8548%20OEM
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...&sku=A107-1117
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...=CP1-DUO-E8200
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...&sku=P450-4850
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...4&sku=L23-0030

Also, I'd like to get windows XP because I hear Vista is a resource hog... The cheapest place I can find it is here but it's a downloaded version. Obviously I can't download it to my new rig because it won't have an OS yet so can anyone explain to me how I'd install it? Or just tell me where I can get a cheap copy of XP... Student discounts help a lot .

-56% Sale for Buy Windows Xp Student, Discount Software, Autocad Buy

Thanks!

System looks good for your price range.

Might want a better keyboard/mouse.


As to the OS I 'd go with Windows 7.

It was half price last month but you still might find a deal on it.

XP is obsolete especially in graphics capability. Its DX 9 is now upgraded to DX 11 in Windows 7.

Thanks for the advice. I revamped the rig a bit so it's better parts for only slightly more money. I've accepted that I should get Windows 7 but I need an OS before October 22. What should I do until then?

Here's the machine I'm going to be ordering later today when I get home from work:

Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER Elite 330 RC-330-KKN1-GP Black SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Computer Cases
Newegg.com - ASUS VW224U Black 22" 2ms(GTG) Widescreen LCD Monitor w/ HDCP Support 300 cd/m2 1000:1 (ASCR 5000:1) Built in Speakers - LCD Monitors
Logitech 967529-0403 Labtec Standard Keyboard Plus - PS/2 Port, Black at TigerDirect.com
Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 Processor BX80570E8200 - 2.66GHz, 6MB Cache, 1333MHz FSB, Wolfdale, Dual-Core, Retail, Socket 775, Processor with Fan at TigerDirect.com
Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3L LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards
Newegg.com - Patriot Extreme Performance Gaming Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory Model PGS24G6400ELK - Desktop Memory
Newegg.com - XFX HD-485X-ZDFC Radeon HD 4850 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards
Western Digital WD3200AAKS Caviar Blue Hard Drive - 3.5", 320GB, 7200rpm, 16MB, SATA-300, OEM at TigerDirect.com
Apevia Java 500-Watt Power Supply - SATA-Ready, 120mm Fan (Black) at TigerDirect.com
Newegg.com - SAMSUNG Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner - CD / DVD Burners

I'm really pretty sore about missing the Windows 7 half price deal last month but there's nothing I can do about it now... As far as OS's go I really don't know where to look for deals on them. I hear you can downloade the Windows 7 RC... Could I download it on my crappy laptop, burn it onto a DVD and then install it on my new machine when I get it? Because then I'd have a functioning OS until Windows 7 came out and I wouldn't have to buy two. The thing is... Even preordering Windows 7 right now means spending 200 bucks so I'm really not sure what to do :/.

I imagine you will see more deals in October at the launch.

In the meantime yes you can still download/burn/run RC1.

Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC): Instructions for Free Download

Awesome, I think I'm going to do that. Just wanted to say, though, that I ended up changing a few things about the rig I ended up buying. I downgraded to 2gb of RAM which I'm currently a little skeptical about but I got a 512mb XFX4870 ATI Radeon HD and an Intel E8400 Core 2 Duo processor. It cost me a bit more but I think the exchange was worth it. I'm currently downloading the Windows 7 RC and I guess I'll run that for a while. I'm a little worried about not having 4gb of RAM with it, though. I ended up getting the following RAM because it was a combo deal with my processor and it ended up saving me about 30 bucks, but I'm not sure it was worth the risk.

Newegg.com - pqi POWER Series 2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory Model MAD42GUOE-X2 - Desktop Memory

Can someone please explain to me whether or not this will suffice? It says that cas latency is 5 which doesn't really mean much to me, I thought latency was supposed to be a series of numbers.. It's till 2GB of DDR2 but I'm a little worried.

[EDIT]

By the way, thank you so much, Jephree, you've been so helpful.