My computer crashed about a year ago, that was with xp got a new dell with vista and so far trouble free!!! Works great!

 

Sonds like a fantastic deal, and NO VISTA!

 

Go for it, this will make for a great machine. It sounds like just what we build.

 

I am a PC tech who runs my own pc repair business and always recommend Dell to my customers as I can, but do not build machines because of the lack of profit and while the deal you are looking at is not bad, I would also check out Dell before you buy this one. You can piece a similar system together for a similar price with XP Home or Pro and a 1 year warranty . Not sure what sort of warranty the Ibuyer unit comes with but I'd think about the aftersale support also. Not that Dells telephone support is amazing but I can tell you Dell tends to be generous when it comes to warranty work though you do have to deal with the telephone troubleshooting process which can be tedious but thats fairly common with consumer tech support with most of brands. But you will have a longstanding company behind your product.

Adam

 

I was looking at some Dell computers and they all offered the choice of either XP or Vista (your choice).

Sometimes colleges offer good student prices on computers. Also some times they specify apple too?

 

Im by no means a Windows Vista supporter, but the 8600gt is a DX 10 card. If your kid games a lot you may want to opt for Vista as all dx 10 games require Vista. I'm running a 8600GT XXX edition on XP and it runs pretty much every game that is out now, except for the DX10 ones. Killer machine though!

 

Designed for DX10 games will still run on XP, I think Flight Sim X is a possible example.

 

Yes, there are DX10 games that run on XP...Cysis is one example, Bioshock another



Goose

 

Okay, this got me to reading up about DX10, Vista, and XP. So if a DX10 game runs on XP, its running in DX9 mode and you don't get the better DX10 visuals, correct?

 

Have you looked at Dell? They have some pretty nice Laptops at pretty reasonable prices. I just bought a Vostro 1000 and its a VERY solid unit. I went with Dell because of the customer service and warranty options.

Groovielou