I would like to start playing PC games and I also need something that can make movies with Adobe. Right now I have 3.0 Ghz Dell 8400 with 1GB of ram. When I render a 45 minute video, I have to leave the computer on all night and hope it renders my clip correctly. It is very annoying. The other problem I am having with my Dell is that if I plug more than 3 chords in the USB slots, one of the USB slots I am currently using will turn off. So I have 7 USB slots but I can only use 3 at a time. So I really would love to build my PC but I have never done it before. What skill set do you need to put a PC together? I can read instructions so I am hoping that most of it is plug in together, load windows up and then play. I was frustrated with my Dell experience but they are offering a 4GB of Ram, Q6600 (Is quad core much better than dual?), 500GB HDD, and some 512mb video card for $800 and that price is very tempting. Second part of the question. I want to blow up by laptop. I have the 3 year warranty through Best Buy and the screen gets pretty bad flickering so I have to take it in for repairs every 9 months. My warranty is almost up so I want to blow up my laptop in order to get a new one. I want it so that they can't tell if I messed with it at all. The BEst Buy near me is dumb enough to give you a store credit for the FULL amount of what you paid for. So if I can ruin it and get another one, then I can get a 4GB Ram, Dual core, 320 GB HDD gaming laptop with my new store credit. SO I hope the PC geniuses can help me out.
OK, well, i dunno how if i can help you scrap your laptop, lol, but i can help you a little bit with the building with the knowledge i know. First off, Newegg.com will be of a lot of help, as im sure you'll find out from being on this forum. You should try and look up those parts and see how much it would cost to do it yourself as compared to the price Dell is offering...you might not know the EXACT parts, so naturally, it'll only be a close estimate. Those parts (or similar) you listed are easy to find on there, so take a look =). Once you need to start getting some specific help concerning parts, i'm sure people will be glad to help, but i think you should take a look yourself so you know whether or not you feel you're even going to spend time on building one...see if your time is worth the saving of money. Quad Core is overkill at this point as far as games are concerned...SOME games don't even utilize dual-core very well yet. As far as movie apps (adobe), i don't know how much of a difference it will make or not, i'll leave that for someone else. 4GB of Ram isn't as overkill as quad core, but it wont make much difference right now either, only a slight benefit from 2 GB. As far as the video card, i can't help you too much on that; you'll want to provide more information on the card though, and some1 can help you more with that. Overall i'd say the comp is a bit over-the-top right now, but it might benefit you later on...however, the parts will be much cheaper then. I'd wait to see how much quad core will be utilized, but thats just my opinion. The extra Ram wont hurt, but its not needed either.
I build my own PCs and build them for my fellow gamers. I find that you can customize it to suit your needs. I don't find it a difficult task either. My last build was an Intel E8400, EVGA 780I SLI MB, RAID 0 setup, 2G of RAM, and an 8800GTS video card. It runs 2142 and BF2 with all settings on high and never drops below 95FPS. I passed on the quad cores because in the gaming world there is really not much gains, maybe in the future but not right now. I think for 800 dollars you could build your own system with better components. Good luck...
for the laptop youi might try running orthos stress test and then wrapping it in a blanket and putting it next to a space heater or a fire or something. the laptop will fry. For the computer, i would recommend building it yourself. you may be able to get a dell for $800 but for a little more than that you can have a better quality computer that is overclockable.
If you ever play games you will need a graphics card, and the Dell offer probably won't have one for that price. As for Quad cores, they probably help far more with Adobe than they would with gaming anyway, I wouldn't hesitate, now they're cheap.
if you really wanted to bust your laptop, i would follow krj15489s rules. just run it intensely and wrap it up in a towel or something.
