Looking to buy a new PC... could use some advice?

[Bond]

So, it looks (actually sounds) as though my custom built PC all the way back from my days in middle school is about to explode, which means it's probably time to buy a new PC.

I'm looking for something in the $500-600 dollar range. Any suggestions as to if I should buy an HP or Dell (or another manufacturer)? Intel or AMD?

P.S. What is this dual vs. quad core business?

[Vampyr]

What is keeping you from building your own again? It will be cheaper and more than likely better.

However, between the two you mentioned, I would definitely go with a Dell. I have had horrible experiences with HP, and it seems like most people I talk to have as well.

On the other hand I've had several Dell's, and not had any issues with any of them, up until they were so old that it couldn't really be helped.

As for the number of cores - go with a dual core. A quad core is going to be more expensive, and it will actually hurt your performance. The reason is because each individual core of the quad core is slower than the dual core, and you are probably not going to be doing anything that is going to be able to make use of those extra cores. What this means is that you'll be running most of you programs on 1 or 2 cores anyway...so go with the one with fewer cores that each have a higher clock speed.

Also get at least 4 gigs of RAM.

If you are going to be playing games on it, get a video card with 512 MB of memory.

Disclaimer: I work for Dell.

[gekko]

Intel is really the only option right now, and go for an i5 or i7 chip. They come in various numbers of cores (2, 4, 6), but the technology is greatly improved over the old and dated Core 2 series.

As for the cores, if you're only paying $600 for a PC, I'd go dual core. Most of the software that really makes the quad worth the money costs more than your entire PC, and if have to ask the question, you probably don't need one.

If you plan on getting more than 3GB of RAM, make sure you're running 64-bit Windows.

[Bond]

So I found this HP HPE-150t series through my university. It seems to be a good deal for $419.99:

Operating system Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-650 dual-core processor [3.2GHz, 512KB L2 + 4MB shared L3 cache, DMI 2.5GT/s]
Memory 6GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM [3 DIMMs] from 4GB
Hard drive 640GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
Graphics card 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4350 [DVI, HDMI, VGA adapter]
Primary optical drive LightScribe 16X max. DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive
Sound Card Integrated 7.1 channel sound with front audio ports

Any thoughts or anything I should upgrade?

[ZebraRampage]

So I found this HP HPE-150t series through my university. It seems to be a good deal for $419.99:

Operating system Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-650 dual-core processor [3.2GHz, 512KB L2 + 4MB shared L3 cache, DMI 2.5GT/s]
Memory 6GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM [3 DIMMs] from 4GB
Hard drive 640GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
Graphics card 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4350 [DVI, HDMI, VGA adapter]
Primary optical drive LightScribe 16X max. DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive
Sound Card Integrated 7.1 channel sound with front audio ports

Any thoughts or anything I should upgrade?

That does sound like a good deal. The hard drive, RAM, and Processor are pretty damn good. The 7.1 sound card is really great for if you get the right speakers. They really make a difference. Compare that to other computers with the same specs, and then see which one is the best deal.

I made a mistake with my laptop in that I got a 320 GB hard drive that was 5400 rpm, when I meant to get it with 7200 rpm. I can't really upgrade that like I can upgrade the RAM.