My big desktop machine in the Catican is dying. The hard drive takes forever to find things and the fan is hopelessly loud sometimes. There are other symptoms as well, so suffice it to say it's on its way to the Great Computer Room in the Sky. It's a dual monitor power machine that I use for Adobe Creative Suite creations and content production in general.
In the future I'll be running CS5 and the new version of Adobe Premiere requires a 64-bit operating system to run. I've been looking at a Dell Precision TI1500 quad core i7-860 with 4 GB RAM Windows 7 Ultimate 64 and a 1 TB hard drive. The cost ends up being about $1550. I was hoping to spend less. Any recommendations?
Update: Frys has a better machine (twice as much RAM) for much less. $1200.
7 comments:
If you look at Dell, be sure to choose the ones that are "on sale."
XPS 8100
Starting Price $1,757.99
Total Savings $409.00
Subtotal $1,348.99
Intel® Core™ i7-860 processor(8MB Cache, 2.80GHz)
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64Bit, English
2 Year Advanced Service Plan
12GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 4 DIMMs
20" Dell ST2010 HD Widescreen Monitor
ATI Radeon HD 5670 1GB GDDR5
1TB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache
16X DVD+/-RW Drive
A two year spill-warranty is nothing to sneeze at.
Foxie, that's a great machine! Thanks for pointing it out to me.
<3 dell's warranty, iffy on their non-sale prices. ^.^
Couldn't find a "don't need a monitor" option, though....
First, I know that your employer has in the past arranged special discounts with certain manufacturers. I'd check that first. Second we've been very happy with our Lenovo machine. Third, I'd check Consumer Reports and see who they recommend has the lowest prices. I recall computer reviews in a recent issue. If you don't have a subscription check it out at your local library. Lastly, there is little reason to buy a big name machine. See if there is a local independent shop. Most of them build custom machines for less than what the big names offer. Go for a medium level machine. Avoid bleeding edge technology, because you'll pay a premium for that.
If you do go local, make sure they're not morons. The local shops up here tend to be run by folks who think they're experts because their mom calls them for help with the interwebs. (they also can't offer "crud happens" warranties, and sometimes don't even hold the warranties they offer)
Honestly, if you want to go local, look into a kit PC for price comparison. (usually, you have to buy the OS separately, but the price can still be very reasonable)
KT,
Check out ibuypower.com. They have some pretty nifty machines at fairly resonable prices.
Thanks, everyone!
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