Need some help

[Grizzly]

OK, it's time I finally put this 7 y/o pos computer out to pasture. Actually I'm gonna give it to my 16 y/o nephew who stays with us during the week while my brother deals with a divorce from his succubus demon of a soon to be ex-wife. He's gotten hooked on dc and gta3 since staying with my wife and me and I figure giving him this ancient box will keep his mind occupied with something besides that BS.

OK OK enough of the family crap. I want/need a new computer and am not sure what the hell to do. The one mentioned above came from monarchcomputers.com before they shut down and has been awesome considering the age. But i'm tired of the 2-5 fps in dc on low settings and not being able to play any of the newer games that look cool as hell. So, what do I do? Budget is $1,300.

1) Go to bestbuy and say gimme the best you got for $1,300.
2)Buy one off of newegg.com.
3)Buy the PARTS from newegg.com and hire some yocal in this podunk one horse town to put it together for me?
4)Wait for one of you freaks that knows more than god about puters to tell me " go to blahblah.com and customize one there, they're the cheapest way and have great quality stuff"

Anyway, I head back to work for 25 straight nights of 7 pm - 7am on sunday and plan on making something happen one way or the other when I get back.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[MOJORyder]

For $1,300 you can have one kick butt machine. Check this out.. 5-600 for a rocking machine, just have to do it youurself, but it's SUPER easy man

http://hothardware.com/cs/blogs/ta/arch ... g-rig.aspx

You really can't go wrong with Fry's.

[Specialist]

I don't know if you live close to a Frys Eletronics or if you even have them in your area.. I would check out their site, I think they ship also. http://www.frys.com

[RoLnRoCk]

newegg is good too, and tigerdirect. both cheap.

[Babies_Happen]

check out http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cor ... ,2112.html, this site has endless info and is pretty up to date, and the forum support is top notch. It will give you an idea of where to start if u want to build. there are a couple good, lower priced PC builders out there like http://www.ibuypower.com, http://www.cyberpowerpc.com, which will give you a good system at a good price. Shop around, best buy usually has good deals especially in the spring when new tech comes out they will try to push the older stuff out. 1300 will get you a good system that will play new games great. Ive owned 5 HPs and they have all been very good, just throwing it out there. if you go to best buy you will get vista, but custom built ones will give you an OS option if that is of concern to you. just my current thoughts, im sure ill have more soon.

[Specialist]

I would probably go with xp instead of vista if I had the chance. I find it more compatible with games than vista. Also, try to get something with atleast 2 gigs of ram.

[Soylent]

If you enjoy building you own pc then buy parts from NewEgg. Fry's is nice, I have used them many times, but they rarely beat NewEgg. If you are not into building your own as a hobby I would recommend buying one built for gamers. The most bang for you buck that I have found was with Extreme Gear www.buyxg.com or their sister company www.cyberpowerpc.com. They don't stuff them with turd parts. I have purchased three machines from them and am very happy with the value and performance.

[Nightster]

I would buy the parts and put it together yourself. Thats what I have done for my last 2 PC's and I really don't know what I'm doing but it's worked great for me. I think your best bet is to find someone that really knows what they are doing so that they can find really good parts for you and most importantly parts that are compatible with each other. Then if you don't feel comfortable putting it together yourself, first try typing "how to build a PC" in youtube and watch a few of those videos to see if you think you can do it.... if I can do it anyone can ha ha. (JK) If not talk around I'm sure there's some local guru that wouldn't mind making 50 bucks under the table to put it together. (especially if jobs are slim)

ohh btw I use www.newegg.com for the majority of my purchases and they do a really great job and best part is FREE SHIPPING

[Grizzly]

Hey guys, thanks for all ideas. I would love to mix and match my own system together but I think that would be a little out of my knowledge base. I'm sure I could figure it out eventually but to be quite honest, it's just not that interesting to me...lol. No offense to the IT guru's or anyone else but I prefer to unpack it, plug it in, load DC and get TEAM SWITCHED 40 TIMES A NIGHT!!! :-) I think I will either buy a pre-package deal from newegg.com or from the site Soylent mentioned. But again, thanks for all the info, it's nice to know that there are actually internet based life forms that are willing to help out instead of just flame some dumbass backwoods redneck for not knowing crap about computers.