Buying a new gaming computer?

Question

I need a computer from 350-450$ with lots of memory used for gaming, music, movies etc. And then just the basic stuff. Possibly one from circuit city if you know any. My sister works there and can get a discount but she doesn't know much about computers. Thx

Answer 1

The Windows vista the official mag Australian issue 19  came up with a $500 give or take custom game machine . Theres no reason it will not run the latest games. But as vista and the games push even harder it worth looking at spending around the $750-$1000 to play the up and coming releases of games for the future.  

Answer 2

Good luck.  She would need to get a very large discount.  th

Answer 3

I mean you could get a decent computer that plays World of Warcraft for that kind of money :/

Answer 4

I'm afraid you'll never find a gaming computer for that price. heck, you can barely get a crappy pc for that price! look at between $500-$1,000 for a regular pc, and $1,000-$10,000 for a good gaming rig(the 10,000's a bit extreme, but they can get that high)

Answer 5

Just get something like this.  For that kind of money this is the best you can do.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/...

It isn't by far a gaming computer, but by now, after reading everyones comments you should know that.

Answer 6

there is no computer in the world priced at $350, and then not 1 that can handle vistas aero effect, or barely able to handle tetris for that matter. if your looking for a gaming rig, then u, my friend, are going to need to look for a budget starting at $1,500, MINIMUM.

Answer 7

Lots of memory is out of the question - you must go for 1GB, and a small hard disk. The cheapest GB for buck size now is 320GB.

Essentially, you must spend most of your money on the graphics card - maybe NVidia 8600 (I got one for equivalent of about 125 US dollars).

The graphics card will drive the game, and it's fairly rare that most games even with operating system loaded take up more than around 800MB.

Later on, first upgrade should be 2GB Ram, and then maybe a bigger hard disk and a better monitor.

Start with a second hand monitor - then you can simply spend ALL the money on the box. Don't buy a crappy monitor new, because that's the only part of your computer you'll never need to upgrade (and so don't need to lose money if you buy a good one - minimum 19 inches is good for games, but 22 inches is good if you can wait and save your money).

I bought a cheap one, and spent just a little bit, and made it good

total cost around 700 dollars US, Initial costs monitor (19 inch widescreen 270 dollars, and extra 2GB RAM and 500GB Hard disk later. Initial cost for the computer was 600 dollars US).

450 isn't enough, just make sure you have SATA slots on your mainboard, and space to upgrade later. I think first purchase one with no graphics card at all, just make sure you can add what you need.

Definitely try not to buy a monitor yet - find an old tube nobody wants and live with that for a while.