everybody has had a positive or negative experience with all of the vendors, hp, dell, etc. I'd go with whatever you could get the best deal with, I'm sure others will know more about the hardware. You should be able to do really good for 1000.

Pretty cool to be working with the horses, the *big* horses, he he

Go custom. If you buy pre-built you get FUBAR'ed in the end. I know that for sure with Microshaft anyways... What I suggest you do is get a samsung Sync master 17" LCD screen about 100 in some places. Nvidia Geforce 8600......yea. Thats all I have to suggest really.

For gaming instead of going with top of the line graphics card you may want to consider a SLI setup, basically it uses 2 video cards to preform the function of 1. It could prove to be cheaper in the long run. Personally I build my own, its cheaper and I know whats going into it, downside to it is no tech support.

Well if your wanting to build custom I can give you lots of ideas. If your wanting boxed I would recomend dell. I have a good relationship with them and found their support (mind you I deal with the corporate side) good. Graphics cards I am pretty much dedicated Nvidia. I am running 2 nvidia boards (onboard PCIe and an external PCIe to run 3 monitors now.)

sorry...but congrats on the job......i love driving a pair o percheron at shows for a friend.....sounds like a great job, dell i use at work desktop and run big cad software.....and outside of corporate and into customer they have always given good support!....darkhorse knows bout all this computery stuff dont ya matey!

If you happen to have enough time on your hands to build it yourself, buying the parts and assembling it is a lot cheaper than buying a finished pc, and will usually get you a better product too.

If you have a friend who can help you do it (or do it for you as a favor) that works great!

You can easily get a good one for ~$1000, especially if you build it yourself, but if you get a prebuilt machine you might be better off getting a "workstation" instead of a regular desktop. They cost a little more, if not the same, and usually come with more resilient hardware. As long as you don't need to run the latest games at the highest quality, you don't have to pay too much.

If you're used to building one yourself, go for that, if not you're more than fine buying a pre-built one and tossing in your own video card.


If it was me I would go with Dell. Long time fan, unexceptional, but reliable. I almost always suggest them to my clients, at least when looking for desktops. What I buy from them is the computer itself, plus included things like keyboard, etc. What I don't buy is the monitor, video card, any additional memory, extra hard drive, and extra software like MS Office. You have better selection and prices buying this stuff on Newegg. https://www.newegg.com Go with the standard 1 year warranty (in home repair) which comes free. Desktop parts are so cheap to replace that if anything breaks after that you're better off buying the part yourself. So without further ado...

System 1
Dell Dimension 531
AMD x2 4000+
1gb ram
250gb HD
DVD+/-RW drive
Keyboard/mouse
Vista Home Premium
$359

System 2
Dell Dimension 530
Intel Core Duo 2 E4500
1gb ram
320gb HD
DVD+/-RW drive
Keyboard/Mouse
Vista Home Premium
$459

You can upgrade most anything on these systems, including the CPU. The Intel you can even put in a quad-core, not sure about the AMD, but you can upgrade to a much faster chip on that one. One thing to note is that both these systems have slots for vga cards, but only to single slot cards, depending on if you game a lot this might affect you, but there are still excellent cards these days (like the 3850) that are single slot.

The add-ons:

Monitor:
Since you're an artist, go big! This is what I'm using currently and is a great deal:
Chimei 22" Widescreen $230
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ.....82E16824252008

Video card:
A great guide is Tom's Hardware's best card for the dollar which is updated every month!
http://www.tomshardware.com/2008/03.....ming_graphics/
I would pick in your case:
Sapphire ATI/AMD Radeon 3850 512MB $150
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ.....82E16814102715

Patriot 2x1gb Ram kit $35
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ.....82E16820220095


The Totals:

System 1:
$774

System 2:
$874


The extras:
Second Hard Drive ~$100

MS Office 2007 Home & Student $120
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ.....82E16832116135

How's that work for ya? If you want help drop me a pm and we can touch base on MSN. =) Good luck!

ohhh, I love that screen! I think I may get it, as for the PC I talked to my dad today and he agreed to help me build my own. :)
thanks for the info though!

Yeah, it's a great monitor, I love mine. =) Since you're building your own, make sure you get a dual core cpu (either Intel Core Duo 2 or Amd x2) and I'd go for 4gb of ram since it's so cheap these days. =) Just look for 5 star ratings on newegg whatever parts you choose! =)

I'm not much of a computer nerd, but I recently got a new ACER computer for preeetty cheap. I've since thrown some extra RAM and a new video card in it, not to mention completely removed Vista in favour of XP, but I like what I've got now!

I hope you find what you're looking for!