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Of these 3 systems which would you pick (1 Viewer)

jtpryan

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jim
I want a system to replace my old one. I have a budget of less then $500. I must buy at Best Buy as I have gift cards there. I will be hooking this up to a 50" LG LCD via VGA and optical to my (older) receiver. I want HDMI for when I upgrade the receiver. I want to be able to watch HULU on it, which I currently cannot. I have a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate, so the OS does not matter.


Given all of that, which of these 3 would you recommend. Thank you in advance.


http://tinyurl.com/38wdwpy



-Jim
 

mattCR

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The stats have to be way wrong.. it lists the AMD as having a Intel chipset and graphics..The Core2Quad is cheap because it's Vista, not Windows7. The Videocard in it - a G100 - does NOT NOT NOT have HDMI output, the motherboard does via a G45, I believe. This means that you'll have to remove the video card in order to get HDMI, something the reviews also point out. And using the G45 for HDMI is a bit like pulling teeth, but that's another story.


So, of the two left, you have one unit with an incredibly wrong description so I have no idea what it really is.. I think that unit has to be wrong, there is no way a dualcore AMD setup such as that is $500, and since it lists chipset, etc. wrong, I think that just has to be a website error.
 

jtpryan

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Thank you for your input. I think in retrospect I will stay away from the ASUS boxes. While they tend to make good components, these prebuilt systems have basically no support for drivers, etc.


I am now leaning toward this gateway:


http://tinyurl.com/39qq7du


I little bit more money, but I like the form factor as I could put it on it's side with my audio components. I am not that familiar with the Intel graphics, I need to research that.


Any thoughts?


Jim
 

skus93

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Considering you've already got a copy of Windows 7, I'd say it's a no brainer to stay away from pre-builts.


Check out Newegg.com or even your local Frys, and look into building your own system. That way you'll get the aesthetics you want by choosing your own case, and be able to build a system to fit your budget.


If you've never built a PC before, just do some research online, it's literally no more difficult than building something from Ikea, plus you almost always get a better bang for your buck with building your own.
 

jtpryan

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I agree and I have built quite a few. This is more of a matter of budget right now. I have the Best Buy "bucks" at my disposal but not the cash. Believe me, I would prefer, given the money, to build one in a nice HTPC case and use the components I pick. That being said, have you ever had any experience with the "Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X4500HD" that is in the Gateway? -Jim
 

skus93

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Ah I didn't see the bit about the Best Buy gift cards at first.


Generally speaking, integrated graphics aren't going to be sufficient with playback of HD video. They are getting much better than they used to be, but you will probably notice them stutter with applications like Hulu Desktop, Media Center, or Boxee.

If it were me, I'd go with this. It's not quite clear what graphics card is included with it, but it says that it has some sort of Radeon card with 256MB of memory. That might be enough for what you're using the PC for, but in the even that it is underpowered, the motherboard has a PCI-X slot, so you can easily upgrade the graphics card later on.

For only $50, you could use this, which has VGA/DVI/HDMI, and is also fanless, which would be perfect for your usage.


I know it's pushing that $500 budget, but the desktop has a quad core processor, as well as 6GB of RAM. Which is all a dramatic jump from the system that you linked to at first, all for around $100-120 more.
 

mattCR

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If you're looking at using best buy gift cards and want a cheap HTPC just go find an Acer Revo running hte ION chipset.
 

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