What Brand of Desktop is best these days?

  • Will Summers (8/13/2010)


    That's a good size for a SSD drive, but those speeds are a little slow for that price. I would opt for a little smaller, since it's a boot-drive only. I picked one one up that had 275/275 and was 60gb for about 160ish.

    That's truly an amazing speed and a decent sized drive. Since I don't download much or have many graphics, 60 GB may be all that's needed anyway, at least for a while - until the SSD prices drop and I can upgrade it then.

    The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. - Stephen Hawking

  • http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227528

    It's actually only $150 after rebate and the speeds are 285/275. This is the same one I ordered from the same place. I have Win 7 Ultimate and it runs VERY smooth. And I was mistaken, it's only 50gb. Still plenty of space for a boot drive.


    Live to Throw
    Throw to Live
    Will Summers

  • Will Summers (8/13/2010)


    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227528

    It's actually only $150 after rebate and the speeds are 285/275. This is the same one I ordered from the same place. I have Win 7 Ultimate and it runs VERY smooth. And I was mistaken, it's only 50gb. Still plenty of space for a boot drive.

    That's good, and I'll also want to consider hybrid drives. But they're brand new - might be on the bleeding edge there, I'm not sure. But a 40 GB SSD with about a 500 GB HDD would be wonderful. I suppose that, in effect, that's the basic setup you have except they're not combined.

    The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. - Stephen Hawking

  • Building your own allows you to customize it as you can afford/need it. You can also eliminate things (software) that manufacturers add on that you really don't need.

    If you decide to buy one, I would definitely not go with Gateway. I saw a review where they were the lowest in customer satisfaction. I have a Gateway laptop and we paid for the 'come to the home' repairs. Twice we have had issues with the laptop (once was the CD/DVD drive) and both times when we finally got to talk to someone they required we send it in - "that's not an issue we can repair in the home - if you don't send it in we can't fix the issue". I've heard from other Gateway (laptop and desktop) that paying for the 'in home repair' is a waste as there seems to be nothing that is able to be repaired in home by Gateway.

    -SQLBill

  • I bought my last one from a place in MO. I searched around and found a place that some friend had used, and ordered one through them.

    http://www.ecollegepc.com/

    They worked with me to build me a machine that was only slightly more expensive than me going through NewEgg, and I didn't have to do a bunch of research to figure out what would work together. I got a quad core, 2 500GB drives, 8GB RAM, 1GB video, for about $700 with a nice case, delivered to my door.

  • Steve Jones - Editor (8/16/2010)


    I bought my last one from a place in MO. I searched around and found a place that some friend had used, and ordered one through them.

    http://www.ecollegepc.com/

    They worked with me to build me a machine that was only slightly more expensive than me going through NewEgg, and I didn't have to do a bunch of research to figure out what would work together. I got a quad core, 2 500GB drives, 8GB RAM, 1GB video, for about $700 with a nice case, delivered to my door.

    That's fantastic Steve - they also offer SSD! This is more of what I was looking for. I will definitely keep them in mind. Instant gratification too! 😎

    The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. - Stephen Hawking

  • Good luck. They were great to work with, reasonable, made changes for me, offered advice, and helped me pick a great system that works for me. I emailed a bunch, and even called once, and everything worked great when it arrived. This is still my primary machine.

  • Using a SSD is a really smart idea! Thanks for that!!:satisfied:

  • The desktop I had built 3 years ago is still fast for today, and should be good for another 3 years. It cost me GBP 1500 initially, with another 300 spent about 18 months ago for an extra 8GB memory. I'll probably add a further 8GB as I do a lot with Hyper-V guests.

    It is based on a SuperMicro X7DAL-E motherboard and has two Xeon 5148 processors giving 9.2GHz of computing power. The MB can take up to 24GB but I currently have 12GB installed. It also has 1TB disk and a DVD and fits in a standard Midi Tower box.

    Once I decided what components I wanted and target prices, I phoned a few local PC suppliers for a quote to supply all the bits. One gave me a quote just about at the low end of all my target prices and offered to assemble it for free, so they got the job.

    If I had to replace it today I would look at both SuperMicro and Texan for 2-socket AT format motherboards, and probably put in 2 x 4-core CPUs and 16GB memory, plus normal disk, case, etc. Last time I priced this it would be about GBP 2000, but should give a machine that meets your needs for maybe 6 years.

    Original author: https://github.com/SQL-FineBuild/Common/wiki/ 1-click install and best practice configuration of SQL Server 2019, 2017 2016, 2014, 2012, 2008 R2, 2008 and 2005.

    When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor they call me a communist - Archbishop Hélder Câmara

  • Dual Xeons and 12Gb of RAM? This must be some new definition of the term "desktop machine" I was not previously aware of. 🙂

  • It was good running 64-bit Vista on a 12GB machine. It ran about as fast as 32-bit XP on a 2GB box... Iv'e now moved everything except the domain controller to Hyper-V guests and have a guest dedicated to Outlook and FireFox running on Win7 with 2GB memory. I'm looking forward to W2008 R2 SP1 getting released, as this will allow me to be more flexible with memory.

    BTW, my TechNet subscription keeps all this legal. If you want to learn more about the server OS than is possible at work (e.g. set up and break clustering, etc), then TechNet is very good value for money.

    Original author: https://github.com/SQL-FineBuild/Common/wiki/ 1-click install and best practice configuration of SQL Server 2019, 2017 2016, 2014, 2012, 2008 R2, 2008 and 2005.

    When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor they call me a communist - Archbishop Hélder Câmara

  • My plan was to run W2K8 and HyperV on mine (I think it goes to 12 or 16GB of RAM), but then I found that the USB in a guest stuff didn't work. So I stuck with Win 7 on the desktop since I needed some USB stuff.

    I might migrate over at some point and look at HyperV as my host, or VMWare. However Win 7 screams pretty well on this machine, and I love it. x64 runs much smoother than x86 for me.

  • If you have Hyper-V, then you cannot access USB devices via Virtual Machine Connection. However, if you connect to your guest via Remote Desktop then USB devices are accessible.

    This should change with W2008R2 SP1, when all the facilities of Remote Desktop get into Virtual Machine Connection.

    Original author: https://github.com/SQL-FineBuild/Common/wiki/ 1-click install and best practice configuration of SQL Server 2019, 2017 2016, 2014, 2012, 2008 R2, 2008 and 2005.

    When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor they call me a communist - Archbishop Hélder Câmara

  • looking to buy a new PC as well

    I've thought of an iMac but still thinking about it. downsides are flaky OS X support for Flash and gaming. the upside is very good support. just take it to an apple store where people speak english

    looked at Dell and HP. don't really want to give any money to HP after my last laptop with them. May just buy a Dell XPS early next year when Intel's new Sandy Bridge architecture comes out

  • alen teplitsky (8/18/2010)


    looking to buy a new PC as well

    I've thought of an iMac but still thinking about it. downsides are flaky OS X support for Flash and gaming. the upside is very good support. just take it to an apple store where people speak english

    looked at Dell and HP. don't really want to give any money to HP after my last laptop with them. May just buy a Dell XPS early next year when Intel's new Sandy Bridge architecture comes out

    3 WORDS - BUILD YOUR OWN.


    Live to Throw
    Throw to Live
    Will Summers

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