Buying two new computers and I need help.

[NE0]

Hey, I am looking to buy two new computers. I need a laptop for school and a powerful computer for home. I have a couple questions about both.

First, for my home computer I am looking in to a Dell XPS generation 5. I like that option for the dual core extreme edition. I am wondering about which hardrives to pick though. They have an option for a 250 gb X 250 gb dual Sata hardrive raid 0 and another option for a 3rd hardrive with the dual one. I could choose that or a 500 gb ata hardrive at 7200 rpm with a second ata hardrive at 7200 rpm. I am confused at which is better. Two ata hardrives with high rpm or one sata dual hardrive with lower rpm plus the 3rd drive. Does the option of the 3rd hardrive make up for the loss of rpm of the two ata drives? Also when is the best time to buy this dell xps for lower cost? Would you say the week after thankgiving?

For my laptop I am looking for a very mobile, light, long battery life, and fast computer. The centrino technology with pentium M looks good. I am trying to go dell on this computer also but I am open to other ideas. Do you think the week after thankgiving would be a good time to buy the laptop too or is there a good deal somewhere right now? Thanks for your time reading this.

 

[rdcmmnst]

good computer..but are you not comfortable building your own. It's alot cheaper. The laptop can it be bought used? You might just call up dell and ask for the good deals and maybe a couple of coupons.

 

[Dishdog]

for your home computer i wouldn't go Dell. everybody seems to have trouple upgrading them done the line. if you do go with dell i would get the 2 ATA drives. are you even going to need all that space. why get a third HDD and slower speeds if you are only going to use one of them?

 

[jac006]

Yeah, for you, when you're spending that much money on a desktop, the xps gen 5 isn't the best choice. They use custom mobos and well, no. I'd say monarch's fx-57 powerhouse is the better computer. Or alienware, if you really want to spend money. you can customize here:http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merc...&Store_Code=M&Product_Code=80390#config_start
and alienware.com for that matter... my fav. would be either falcon or voodoo actually. Voodoo would be a good make for labtops, but if you want an M, go with dell on the labtos. Or the really light, turion chip, hp/compaq. Haha... for hd's... well, just settle with hitachi's deskstar 500gb, get dual, and just either raid 0 or raid 1 them. Raid 1 for best perfermance, I think. Maybe now is the best time, because school's about to start and people will be buying computers like mad, so yeah, maybe today, this week. If you can wait, usually good sales come with holidays, so yeah, thanksgiving might also be a good sale. Look around… don't just go to dell. There might be a system that's just like dell but with better specs, better quality, etc. Peace.

 

[mammikoura]

For the home pc I'd suggest u build your own. It's not that hard and it's going to be alot cheaper, and u get to pick all of the parts yourself. I've never had a dell, but from what I hear they are not so good.

 

[mayorredbeard]

geeksquad im pretty sure if you bring them all the parts and yell, "BUILD YOU MONEY WH**ING SCUM!", they can put it together. From my experince geeksquad is pretty expensive, but I'd be suprised if they charged more then $100 to build it. I usually don't like them, well, because, there money wh***s that for the most part dont do anything, but even if u paid them to build it you'd still save a bundle.

 

[PZEROFGH]

just bring your parts to a local computer shop and they will probably build it for 50 bucks

 

[NE0]

Thanks for all the responses. The reason I was going with Dell was because of the good service and support I hear about. They are number one in that area. Most major movies have dell products in them also. If you saw the Italian Job that napster guy had a dell and so did the office guys in Batman Begins. Dell just seems to be the popular brand these days. As for building a computer, that might be hard for me. I don't know where to begin with that. I have no idea what parts I need. I would think the single parts would be expensive just like single parts you put in cars are expensive. Alienware always looks cool but they are very expensive and don't usually have those 34% off or 40% off deals you see at Dell or Hp. Any other thoughts?

 

[Gamingfreak]

ok u should seriously just build your own and if you are worried about that just order the parts and take them to a comp store and they will do it for u and dont think that dell is popular just because its in movies theyre in movies because they pay to be in them its called advertising and making your own comp is much cheaper than buying a dell, dells are overpriced and they only use intels if u build your own u can get an amd if u dont know anything about building computers and dont know what you're looking for tell us what u want to do with it and what your budget is and we can help u out no problem

 

[jac006]

Ok Ok... here's where you go off. JUST because dell is used in movies... doesn't mean they're good. Why? Because, like in the matrix 2, cadillac was in there. Cadillac PAID to have their cars in the movie, just like dell probably PAID to have their computers in the movies, so people like you, could say, ah, look at that comptuer, it must be good, therefore I must buy it. No. That is a common misconception. And just because they have "sales" doesn't mean there aren't better prices out there. newegg.com has great prices, along with monarch computers. Trust me. Dell uses custom mobos and the like and their components aren't always name brands. A company like abs, cyber power, voodoo, or falcon use name-brand highly-respected components. Building a computer is actually a lot easier than one thinks. All you do is put the cpu in its place, put the thermal paste on, put the heatsink on, put the ram in the correct slots, put the psu in the case, connect it to the mobo, connect the hd, connect the cd/dvd drives, and put in the vid. card/sound card/sata controller (if you want to). it should work. Just like that. If I missed anything, someone drop in and add it. thanks! hope this helps!