Hi all! I am about to purchase a desktop. I play games, listen to music and work with photo's. I also use business apps once in awhile, such as MS Word/Excel. What is really important to me is SPEED, great sound (music) and the ability to multi-task without hanging up.
I have always bought HP (ex-employee) but am looking at a Dell. Any recommendations/warnings???

HP and Dell don't seem to play to the high-end market much. There's a reason they don't speak much about the brand names of their parts. There are tons of brands of gaming-type pc's out there. If money is no object, something like Alienware would be good to look into.

OTOH, if you want specific things, you can always build your own . . .

Alienware

KAOS pc's

ABS computers

I think a nice dell might be good for you but i am also a fan of building costums

Performance and bargain PCs do NOT correlate. Be sure and avoid 'Celeron' type processors and make sure you get a 'real' (not on-board) video card if you're serious about gaming. Don't accept less than 512 MB of speedy RAM and get more if you can afford it.

Narrow your choice down to one or two models/brands, and post the specifications of each here. The members can certainly advise you about whether they will fill your needs, and which you should buy.
Some extreme gaming models are very HOT and very expensive; many well-known companies can offer almost similar specs without the LOOK, and at a more reasonable price.
Regards,
John

u can also try Cyber Power Systems, Inc.

my friend had bought 1 from there and it got there in like i think it was 3 weeks (but if u can afford it, i'm not saying that u cant, u can get it at your doorstep overnight if u want) and i personally recommend that u build a custom, but thats my opinion. if u wanna go down the path of custom building go to Newegg they have some pretty good stuff for extremely reasonable prices!

well, theres my 2 cents. just follow your heart man, thats wat i do