went out to bestbuy and picked up this pc for $599. give me your honest thoughts if you think i should keep it. main use will be for general use, photo editing, and of course games.
i did a search about the video card and found this site which said it sucks severely. if you do recommend me keep this pc, what would you recommend as a good graphics card to buy under $200 and a PSU under $100?
16X DVD(+/-)R/RW 12X RAM (+/-)R DL LightScribe SATA drive
* Must use Double-Layer media discs in order to take advantage of the DL technology
* Must use LightScribe-enabled media discs and supporting software in order to take advantage of the LightScribe technology
Function Maximum speed
DVD-RAM Up to 12X
DVD-R DL Write Once Up to 8X
DVD+R DL Write Once Up to 8X
DVD+R Write Once Up to 16X
DVD+RW Rewritable Up to 8X
DVD-R Write Once Up to 16X
DVD-RW Rewritable Up to 6X
DVD ROM Read Up to 16X
CD-R Write Once Up to 40X
CD-RW Rewritable Up to 32X
CD-ROM Read Up to 40X
Modem
PCIe internal modem
Video Graphics
Integrated on motherboard (see motherboard and chipset)
Sound/Audio
High Definition 8-channel audio
* Supports the following cards:
o Compact Flash I
o Compact Flash II
o IBM Microdrive
o Secure Digital (SD)
o mini-SD
o MultiMediaCard (MMC)
o Reduced size MultiMediaCard (RS-MMC)
o MultiMediaCard Plus (MMC plus)
o MultiMediaCard Mobile (MMC mobile)
o Memory Stick
o Memory Stick Pro
o Memory Stick Duo
o Memory Stick Pro Duo
o SmartMedia
o xD Picture Card (xD = extreme digital)
External I/O ports
I/O ports on the front panel
Port type Quantity
15-in-1 (4 slot) One
1394 One
USB Two
Headphone One
Microphone One
I/O ports on the back panel
Port type Quantity
PS/2 (keyboard, mouse) Two
VGA One
USB Four
1394a One
LAN One
S/PDIF out (coaxial) One
Audio (side speaker out, rear speaker out, center speaker out, line-in, line-out, microphone) One Each
Expansion slots
Slot type Quantity
PCI One (One available)
PCI Express x16 One (One available)
PCI Express x1 Two (One available)
Drive bays
Bay type Quantity
5.25" Two (One available)
3.5" Three (Two available)
Keyboard and mouse
I have a phenom 9750 and it works great at video editing, so your phenom should serve you well. Most of the video editing programs I use don't even use all 4 cores at 100 percent, some of my video editor will use 1 core at 30 percent and some will use 4 cores at 40 percent each, but it will finish a lot quicker than a dual core.
Incidently I only have 1gb of ram on my xp system and it starts quick and don't notice any slowdown, I also have a onboard video card but do have a available pci-e slot and will be upgrading eventually but not really needed for video editing. All onboard video cards are basic quality, none will play the latest video games, but your motherboard does have the pci-e slot to upgrade to the latest video cards.
I have a 400 watt ("works" brand $40.00) power supply, I use these power supplys on all my computers and they are very reliable for the price. I have 4 hard drives installed in this computer and have had no power issues. In your case I would recommend you get at least a 400 watt power supply or higher but only if you will be upgrading your video card (the video card you want to buy will state what size power supply you will need). Otherwise the power supply you have right now is matched to the current configuration you have.
Many people recommend the intel quadcore over the phenom but since I've been using my phenom it runs extremely well and have been very happy with it. For playing video games the video card will be more important than what brand cpu you have.
thank you for your response. ive done a little research and it seems like the radeon 4850 is a nice upgrade for $150-200. i see theres so many different brands of 4850 on newegg. is one better than the other?
