Considering this pc

HP Pavilion 9220

Windows 7 Premium 64

AMD Phenom II X4 910 quad core

1 TB hard drive

8gb DDR3

ATI Radeon HD 4350 512 mb stand alone graphics card


$800

Good? Bad? Keep looking?

 

How about ordering those parts yourself, and get it a couple hundred bucks cheaper. Everybody who can't do it themselves is bound to know somebody who can.

Really having trouble understanding why people buy these rigs.

 

In an of itself its not so bad. I have a few problems with it though:

First of all, its a laptop. It might be cool to take it around with you but there are some problems with it.

a- Because its a premade PC, It comes with a (as far as I'm concerned) built-in partition on the hard drive that you can't remove (or at least not without consequences). That is kind of bothering, because if in the future you get a virus or something like that and you feel like formatting the drive and starting over (which is something I do a lot and I would recommend everyone doing), then you're kinda screwed.

b- You're stuck with that PC forever. Say next year SC2 gets released, and you notice that you meet all the requirements for the game except for the RAM (of which you have, for example, 2 gigs and the game requires 4 to run perfectly). Well, you're screwed because you can't open the laptop and change its parts. You'd have to buy a new one, thus wasting a lot of money.

c- Because its premade, just like Aurora said, they're charging you 800 bucks for a 500-600 dollars PC.

So what I'd recommend you to do is basically buy all those components in any computer store individually and then hiring someone to put them together. There's alot of people that do It and probably won't charge you too much. Even If they do, you'd be saving money compared to the cost of the same Pc but premade.

If you want to know which components exactly you would need (there are some things missing on your list, like RAM, monitor, sound card (if applicable), Motherboard, computer case, etc) and which ones I'd recommend you to have, you can ask here. If not, well, don't xD

P.s: Aurora, people buy these rigs because for the most part they don't know (enough) about computers so obviously it's a lot easier to buy an 'all in one' package.
Can't blame them, but If I were them I'd ask the experts to avoid being stolen xD

 

laptops are not good for anything other than email, internet and word processing..
(A Gaming laptop is an oxymoron)

Save a little more like 1000 and build a desktop yourself, itll be epic.

Im pretty good at configuring gaming pc's, and you can't get too much for under 800 USD..

 

re

It is a desktop, and it does include a monitor. Im just considering it for now. Probably will be another month until I get another computer.

 

oops, when you said HP pavillion I automatically assumed laptop. Still, most of the things I said also apply to premade desktops xD

 

if its 2nd hand thats good but if not dont buy

 

Order the parts separately and build it yourself (or ask a friend). You'll save a few hundred.

 

And I don't know where you (Terraformer) live, but there are plenty of computerstores around here. If you don't happen to have some geek friend, then most of those specialized stores can build your computer for you, often for very little extra cost. It's definitely worth it to look around for a bit.

And before I forget again: HP comes with Windows pre-installed. At least as far as I know. Whenever there's a problem and you want a clean install, you have to let their service guys do it. (you often don't get a Windows cd with the computer) And guess what? They charge you for that stuff.

 

Short answer:

Too expensive.
Not worth it.

Long answer:
Ask for it if you want.

 

Unlike the others on here I am not of the opinion it would be cheaper to build it yourself here's why.

Here is a link to the machine you appear to be looking at (on Newegg): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...e=AMD_Phenom_II_X4_910-_-83-147-045-_-Product
Its $770

If you bought the cheapest CPU, RAM, GPU, and Hard Disk that fits the specifications you listed that's $520 which means you would have to come up with a Motherboard, case, power supply, optical drive, and operating system for $250 Win 7 is about $100 so while you may be able to to save some money you aren't going to save very much (my guess is you would be you would be lucky to save $50 I am leaning towards you being lucky to break even) and since your motherboard and power supply would be pieces of crap (which they will be anyway) you won't have much room to upgrade.

I advise building the computer yourself and getting higher quality parts but that is going to cost more than just buying the machine you have listed (which is a beast in the RAM and processor departments, and looks like it is going to suck in the GPU department). So I guess the question is how much do you want to spend?

 

LK, you don't get a copy of Windows with those computers. Just a pre-installed version. At least it was like that when a friend of mine bought one. So every time something goes wrong, you have to send it to one of their service centers. (Which costs money.)

Also, is it even possible to upgrade hp systems later on?

 

The win 7 may be pre-installed (without re-installation disks), but it is still on the machine and if you plan to build a computer yourself and want win 7 your going to have to pay for it. My point is you would be lucky to do better than break even if you try and build the PC teraformer is looking at. As far as upgrading goes you can upgrade the HP but it doesn't have much room for upgrades, but if you tried making the same computer for the same price you won't have much room to upgrade either (this is assuming you get prices near Newegg prices)*. The big difference is going to be the lack of crapware if you build it yourself, but this comes at the cost of time and the lack of a warranty for the overall machine (assuming you don't plan to upgrade it, which would likely void the warranty anyway).

Everything has trade-offs. Like I said I would advise building it yourself and spending a little bit more but that still comes back to the question of how much teraformer wants to spend?

*If you can find the parts for cheaper than Newegg prices you might do better in terms of savings.

 

How about those combo deals some people keep mentioning? I assume you go by buying all these parts separately, but isn't it cheaper to look around for those discounts?

Also, a bit for myself: would building my own for 1200 US Dollars (about 800 euros) be worth it? I have two guys who can help pick parts for me and build it, but more advice is always welcome. Quite a bit of money involved.

 

re

I live in the Kansas city area. There is a pc shop near me and I did talk to the guy who runs it. He said that it was a good price, and the only thing he could do is put in a better graphics card. But if i want a monitor it would cost more than $800. And that price does include a 20 inch monitor.

The computer can be upgraded. It can hold up to 16gb of memoryeek. It has an expansion bay. But if I want to put in a better graphics card the power supply would also have to be upgraded.

I also looked at one that was $100 less. But it had a smaller hard drive (750gb), less memory (4gb) and a 4500 accelerator. So I figured I would be better off going with the $800 one.

 

LordKerwyn: Hp's suck.

You wanna upgrade it? Ha, good luck with that?

Think it has a good power supply, Lololol.. hilarious.

No windows cd for reformating.

HP crap ware installed.

Doesn't even include monitor or speakers.

gpu is also craptastic.

For 800 USD I could configure a computer with, OS disk, better power supply, monitor and speakers. And better graphics card.

rule of thumb, if you have less than 700 to spend, buy it, itll suck, but you get what you pay for. (Or if your too lazy/dumb to build it)

More than 700 build it.

 

No offense Ste but considering you seem to have problems with basic reading comprehension I really wouldn't advise anyone listen to what you have to say.

As far as the to other posts I inadvertently ignored, Aurora yeah combo deals will of course help but your still going to have problems trying to get a decent case, powe rsupply, and motherboard and still be in the original price range. As for building for own, normally the break even price is somewhere between $750 and $1000 so unless you know some specialty manufacture that has really good deals if your going to spend $1200 your gonna want to build it yourself.

tera your right the computer can be upgraded but it is going to be difficult and costly to upgrade. Saying it can hold 16GB of RAM generally means it has 4 slots that can each run up to 4GB however if comes with 8GB it's most likely coming with 4 2GB sticks so would have to remove 2 or 4 of them to upgrade the RAM. You seem to know about needing to upgrade the power supply to upgrade the motherboard which is another example of the machines difficulty to upgrade. If your ok with that, the crapware and the lack of a re-installation cd then it's up to you if you want to buy or build.

 

You didn't push home the important points. So plz.

 

You felt it nessecary to call me out, I have no problem responding in kind especially since the thing you called me out on was something I had already mentioned that you seemed to have either missed or ignored. Also, the things smoe people believe to be important are different that what other people believe to be important.

 

Ah thats ok, I just hate HP's