I am looking at setting up a computer corner so I can finally stop having my lap burned everyday. I already have a nice 22" monitor so I am mainly interested in the desktop unit. I will probably use CS4 and LR2/3 for my 5DmkII files. Do you guys have any recommendations? Will I be able to get something decent and expandable for that price? I wouldn't like to go over $500-600 zone.

Sure you can. You may be limited in performance (all relative though, as anything new will be fast).

Building your own or buying pre-made? AMD has a quad core cpu that sells for $99 and it is easy to build a fast platform around it. For $250 you could get a quad, 4gb ram, and motherboard with video.

Dell has a PC you can get for around $540 with a dual core/4gb ram. Not sure if it has a PCI slot to expand your video card. The onboard Intel graphics are very bad at 3D acceleration, but good enough to work within photoshop.

Check bargain websites like Bensbargains.net, Slickdeals and Fatwallet. Usually those sites will highlight specials or coupons on desktops. 2 years ago I got a PC with a $400 off coupon just from browsing the deal websites. In the $500 range you should have no trouble finding a decent PC even if you cannot find a coupon.

Try microcenter.com, they have lots of refurbs that sell in your price range. I recently got a Compaq Presario CQ60 laptop for $279 from them. Full performance, not lots of features.

<Chas>

last year through Dell, I got a tower only.
4gigs ram
HD 3450 video
2.66 quad core
500 gig HD
DVD burner.

Perfect for what I do.

bought a dell quad core refurb about a year ago. works great. i added a 1gb video card and upped the memory from 4 to 8gb and running win7 64 now. great bang for the buck. all total, probably about $600.

ubid.com has some nice refurbs

D you have any qualms with building your own system? Plenty of deals to be had on components if you are happy with putting them together yourself!

I have taken apart my laptop a couple of times in order to put some new paste between the processor and the heat sink. I don't know how easy it would be to put together something together myself but I could definitely try. The only thing is I wouldn't like to spend $500 on parts and the computer not running. Do you guys have any recommendations for sites with instructions about putting together a PC? It would be a nice project for the upcoming cold winter in Boston.

I added up the parts in a new computer that I purchased last week ... they totaled $2,155 ... my price from the manufacturer $2,035. I'm pretty sure that the refurb units are going for less than their parts cost. I'm not saying that you can't build a computer yourself on the cheap ... you can ... but, if you are not careful parts will add up.

dimitris77 wrote:
I have taken apart my laptop a couple of times in order to put some new paste between the processor and the heat sink. I don't know how easy it would be to put together something together myself but I could definitely try. The only thing is I wouldn't like to spend $500 on parts and the computer not running. Do you guys have any recommendations for sites with instructions about putting together a PC? It would be a nice project for the upcoming cold winter in Boston.

Definitely easier than putting a laptop back together. I have been building my own pc for years... but when I had to replace a cracked LCD on my wife's laptop, I almost did not get it put back together.

It is really a simple task these days. Way back when you had to move jumpers around and figure out IRQ's on all your devices. Now it is all just plug and play. Basically you first decide your budget, then you look at AMD versus Intel. Then you buy the components to match. The only hard part is figuring out what type of RAM you need to buy.

My motherboard died last week so I went ahead and bought an i5 cpu and motherboard. After plugging in the cpu, ram, power, and connectors like lights, fans and drives, I turned it on, put a cd in the drive and within 40 minutes the OS was loaded.

My favorite forum is forums.anandtech.com, lots of helpful advice. But if you just google you can probably find some good tutorials with pictures. The forums are handy for getting advice on components.

UCSB wrote:
I added up the parts in a new computer that I purchased last week ... they totaled $2,155 ... my price from the manufacturer $2,035. I'm pretty sure that the refurb units are going for less than their parts cost. I'm not saying that you can't build a computer yourself on the cheap ... you can ... but, if you are not careful parts will add up.

You just cannot compete with OEM's like Dell and the like... they have the buying power to get very good bulk pricing. They also pay a heck of a lot less for Windows than someone buying it from an online source. It would be hard to beat a prebuilt machine price wise...but in many cases you come away with a system that is more upgradeable, sometimes faster components, and you also come away with then being able to not have to pay someone $50 to upgrade your ram or cpu..

just do a google search for "how to put together a PC" and the blog post with the most views/diggs/comments/trackbacks/etc is probably the best one.

Make sure you include the cost of Windows ($120-$220 depending on the version). If you are a student with a valid .edu email address, I believe you can get it for $29.

These days OEM PCs are so cheap and easy to customize. My time is valuable to me and I would rather not spend hours in research, waiting for multiple items to ship to me and then spend another few hours putting it together just to save a few dollars. YVMV

Thanks a lot for the info. I am a part-time MBA student so I guess I could try to sneak in some student discounts on software.