I am replacing a seven year old desktop. Considering:

Acer Aspire AM5800-U5802A Core 2 Quad Q9400(2.66GHz) 8GB DDR3 750GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 230 Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit - Retail from Newegg $749

HP - Pavilion Desktop with AMD Phenom™ II X4 Quad-Core Processor
Model: p6230y $680

Both are within budget of about $900 with a monitor.

Primary use is mail, web, some games, some photo editing and music and pic storage.

The two are pretty similiar: 750 GB. 8G DDR3, 2.66GHz and all the usual optical drives, etc.

From what I have been able to find on reviews the Intel is the better machine. I like AMD but these two seem to be in a different class for only $70 more.

The HP comes with Win7 pre-installed. If I were to go with the Acer, is the upgrade from Vista "clean"?

I have a feeling that this is way more machine than I need for my uses but would rather pay a little more now than need a new machine in 2 years.

Is the LGA 775 on its way out and is the AM3 proven so to speak?

I thought about building a system after reading some of the posts here but I think these would be hard to beat at their prices.


Thanks ahead of time for any help.

Hi bilkyb,

Both would easily do the jobs you need it for. Windows 7 is no problem to upgrade having spoken to others. There are many other machines out there that are similar - can I ask why you narrowed to these? Shop around as you could find some better deals out there, I bought our work stations through Pricemeup.com and saved a few buck on advertised.

Sure you will find something!

I agree about the choices...if you are not a gamer or doing production work of some sort that can utilize 4 cores...I really don't see a desire for one, unless you just like having the ability to say that you've got one.

I won't get one until there are more apps written which take advantage of the potentials...by then I suspect that Intel and AMD will be up to the double-digits in marketing cores ...I don't think that's going to happen overnight.

Since you are considering two "name brand" systems...I would suggest going with the one that appears likely to provide the best support when things go wrong. If I could not repair my own system or troubleshoot issues...that would be the basis of any computer purchase I ever made.

Louis

I would go with the Acer. I bet that if you wait a month the Acer will ship with WIN7 also. HP usually ships with a lot of crap software included, most of which are trial copies. This gives you the job of uninstalling it all, although some stores will de-crapify it for you. I can't speak for whether Acer includes crap software too. You can look at a store model's main menu to see what's included.

From my past experience, HP has vastly superior all-around support compared to Acer; however, this experience is quickly pushing two-years old, so perhaps Acer support has improved. Also, from what I've heard-read, the majority of software now available is well-behind contemporary processor development--as hamluis already posted--so unless you specifically need one, a quad-core processor seems superfluous (although given the fact that you're replacing a seven-year-old PC, perhaps you'd benefit from having ". . . way more machine than I need for my uses but would rather pay a little more now than need a new machine in 2 years." Ahhh, one more thing: if you've patience, then I'd think that post-Christmas would offer the best deals, both online and in store. Good luck.

Someone told me a long time ago to always buy more computer than you think you will ever use. As time goes by you'll thank yourself as technology improves.

That's true...but the other side of the same coin is...that technology is changing so rapidly now (compared to 10 years ago) that any purchase made with an eye to longevity...is probably going to be undone somewhat by what the future will yield.

An example would be SATA drives, IMO. In a year, I suspect that solid-state drives will be down to mass-consumer level, with the respective purchase price bearing no resemblance to what they may be today.

USB 3.0 will obsolete USB 2.0...and so on.

I would advise those who are into the "latest/greatest" or upgrades along the way to that mythical "better system"...to realize that such changes are likely to accelerate, rather than slow down...based on a view that includes at least 10 years of taking notes.

I'm not a gamer, nor an enthusiast...but I see no point in marrying myself to "today" when there are a whole lot more "tomorrows" on the horizon .

Ask those gamers paying the big bucks for GPUs .

Louis