Ummm I know this might be a little tough but I'm looking to buy or build a "decent" pc (no crysis on very high settings nonsense) But I'm currently using a n HP Vectra VL400 (PIII 1Ghz, 384megs of SD-RAM, 120W power supply, AGP 4X, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, 20 + 4 Gb Hard drives, 24x CD-rom drive, and win2k) <<< I know, it's a beast!!!! Anyhoo, In February (sp?) 2008, I'll have saved up $600 and I would like to know if there is any hope of building/buying a pc that won't explode when I play crysis at 640x480 on very low

I am starting from scratch. No OS, No spare parts. All I have Is a 19" 16:10 monitor and a 5.1 stereo system.

help...

Your IP address tells me you live in Buffalo, USA, so you should be able to order from http://www.newegg.com. Check the site out and find the parts and components you want on your system. Google will tell you if they are compatible. Order the parts and put it all together, and come to us if you've got any problems

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What OS do you prefer? most Windows ones start at 150-250 ish

Case: Newegg.com - COOLER MASTER Centurion 5 CAC-T05-WW Black/Silver Aluminum Bezel, SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

PSU: Newegg.com - XCLIO GOODPOWER 500W ATX 500W Power Supply 115/230 V UL, CUL, TUV, CB, VDE, FIMKO, DEMKO, NEMKO, SEMKO - Retail

MB: Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-M68SM-S2 AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 7025 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

CPU: Newegg.com - AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Brisbane 2.5GHz 2 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM2 65W Processor - Retail

RAM: Newegg.com - G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

VC: Newegg.com - XFX PVT84JUDD3 GeForce 8600GT XXX 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

HD: Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar SE WD1600AAJS 160GB 7200 RPM 8MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

Optical: Newegg.com - ASUS Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 14X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe - Retail

OS: Newegg.com - Microsoft Windows Vista 32-Bit Home Premium for System Builders Single Pack DVD - OEM

Price: $676.74

Is this a good build??? I can wait and maybe save up an extra $100. Any suggestions?

Looks good, alougth you could probably save money by ditching Vista for either XP [either a new copy or a retail copy that you already own and transfer from another computer, although there is nothing stopping you installing an existing OEM copy onto your new computer, it is illegal therefore we cannot talk about it] or Linux.

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meh... I won't save much because I need the full version. I'll go with vista and maybe dual-boot with ubuntu.

What type of performance will I be looking at with this setup?

(btw, ash, love ur avatar! poor guy must be using ME )

Well not a lot if you are going for Vista... is there anything in Vista that you need that you can't get on XP?

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Well, it will have more support than XP in the long run, but i suppose I can upgrade to vista later. Anyway, where can I find XP Pro full version for less than $90? Vista is $104 :?

It will run vista fine , the processor is great and the ram is a plenty , i think you will be very happy with that system

Yeah, as fine as Vista runs.

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Vista Runs fine .... i cant believe you bash it so much , when the pc you ran on it had a shitty intel media acc. and 1gb of ram ...

You could also try the Dell outlet they have both new and refurbished computers. I got my Optiplex GX620 SFF loaded with a 19" monitor (all-in-one stand) for under $600. And I am under warranty until 2009. We had some bad thnderstorms here over the summer which fried my power supply. The Dell tech. came to my house and fixed it for free and said others in the area had the problem. Just a thought.

LOL you sweared

Yeah, I was thinking it'll run vista alright. imo, vista is great once you configure it to your liking. even if it is a resource hog OS tweaking FTW!!!1 Thanx for your help guys! Maybe in Feb. There will be even better hardware for the price. Such a looooooooooooooooooooooong wait tho

Answer this... is there any feature in Vista that you need and isn't in XP?
If so, try Googling for "X Vista Feature for XP".
The skin can easily be applied to XP using software like the Vista Transformation Pack. Probably because Vista is XP with a new skin and a few new programs, plus some flashy effects that OSX has been doing for years.
But if you do want to go ahead wait a few more months so you can afford Vista [which isn't worth the money], it's up to you. We'll be here when you've got to fix the problems it brings!

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if you have the extra cash id opt for a 250Gb hdd with 16mb cache , it will perform better