Time for a new PC?

[drwex]

I'm looking at getting myself a new PC, primarily for gaming. The current one has undergone some heroic rescue efforts and it's still bombing out on me randomly. (*)

So the question is what do I want in a moderately priced gaming box? It's probably going to be a Microsoft OS, and preferably Windows XP.(**) My baseline for this right now is the Dell XPS 630 with a dual NVIDIA GeForce 9800 card. That comes with XP pre-installed - I'd rather not do my own downgrade if I don't have to. Price new from Dell is $1400.

The question is whether I can beat that without going out and building myself a white box, which I would really rather not do. I loathe messing with PC hardware and I don't mind paying for someone else to Just Make It Work.

Other things I looked at:
Dell's Optiplex line - too limited video options
Dell's Precision line - lots more expandability, but pricey. Even the low-end T3400 comes in around the same $1400.

PC Connection HP/Compaq line - doesn't let me customize the machine. The HP SmartBuy xw4600 looks pretty close in terms of specs but is weak on the graphics and only about $300 cheaper.

One option I've heard discussed, but can't seem to find reliable data on: buy a Mac and dual-boot it with my personal copy of XP installed in the other partition. That's intuitively appealing but I'd need a lot more data on current Macs and dual booting than I can find this morning.

(*) I'm pretty sure the problem is a bad video driver. The fact that my motherboard is so old I had to get a retro card for which ATI doesn't seem to make new drivers is part of the problem.
(**) I don't particularly want to start an XP-Vista debate. I just don't see what Vista buys me, and I do see a lot of problems. One of the advantages of getting a name-brand PC is that they come with licensed media to put Vista onto the box if I decide to do that later.

Comments

[inahandbasket]

As an addition to this, since it IS a gaming box I'd go Vista despite the fact that I loathe it.
Why? DirectX 10 don't run on XP. Only Vista.

For what it's worth, Win7 is really just a cosmetic rehash of Vista with some new shinies tacked on: it should certainly be a better user experience but it's the same thing under the hood.

[drwex]

Understood. If I run into something that requires DX10 then I'll consider downgrading to Vista. Again, see above where I get the legal Vista disks as part of this package.

That said, if you know of a better (cheaper?) Vista-only gaming box I'm willing to look at it. XP is a preference but not the only factor.

[inahandbasket]

Honestly my opinion is that you should first pick a price you're willing to pay, then see how to get the best bang for that buck. There are way too many other variables if you go the other way.

[drwex]

I had hoped to keep it under $1k. But I'm willing to flex to $1500 if it's necessary. Beyond that, I dunno.

[inahandbasket]

and that's for the computer w/out monitor/key/mouse, but otherwise all inclusive?

[drwex]

Yeah. I'm figuring some form of NVIDIA 512MB card (because I'm currently soured on ATI), 2G of RAM, and I'm pretty flexible on disk (it's insanely cheap) and CPU (most of what I do isn't that CPU-intensive - most of the dual-cores from last year are fine).

All the deals I looked at included basic mouse/kbd, and a couple had pretty sweet-looking LCDs but none of those packages were right in the important dimensions.