Hope you get a win 7 machine. Sometimes you just have to upgrade.

I think you will be amazed at the processing power and memory on the new machines.

Good luck and if you have any questions visit the DU group "Computer Help and Support".
Friendly folks over there and very helpful.

You rarely hear that in the OS X world.

Because in the real world, the Windows 8 desktop operates exactly like the XP and Windows 7 desktop. Nobody cares.

Normal people aren't OS evangelists.

Windows free for almost 16 years now.

Do not buy cheap outdated crap for twice the price. DO not live in a walled garden where apple's 1984 commercial was really talking about themselves. EVIL EVVVVILLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!



Sorry... ahem... get what ever you like!

Once you go there your computers will never be obsolete.

I've been Microsoft-free since Windows 98SE. When I first logged onto DU it was a 386 machine running a heavily hacked version of 98SE. (But I did own some sort of "license" and probably abused it more than Microsoft would have approved of.)

All my computers, my laptops and my desktops, were once someone else's trash.

Furthermore I have every computer I've ever owned or used emulated -- just one or two clicks away from my desktop, including all the files and programs I decided to keep.

PDP-11, Atari 800, Apple II, MS-DOS, Mac SE, Widows 3.1, Z-80 stuff, hell, even 1802 stuff (my first home-brew), no problem.

I've no patience with any software that won't run on whatever machines I happen to be using.

Unsophisticated users download all sorts of crap, on purpose or inadvertently, that slows down or breaks their machines. Viruses are just the beginning...

The most fucked up machines I see run Windows.

Give a non-tech user a linux machine running google chrome as the browser and LibreOffice as the major "productivity" suite and they are not likely to screw it up.

Leave the games for the consoles.

I won't touch anything Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, or Android unless someone is paying me.

It doesn't have to be running a Microsoft (or Apple) operating system.

My last Windows machine was 98SE.

Microsoft (and even Apple) are in a pickle.



If I was Microsoft I'd Open Source the operating system (here you go WINE!) and refocus on other aspects of the software business.

My first computer! lol

Wrote a few high school papers on that one (prior to getting an Apple II). Also played a ton of Star Raiders.

I used the PaperClip word processor and even hacked it up a bit to make it do what I wanted it to do.

I also built a 3.5 inch disk drive and a scanner for the machine, upgraded the memory, and it was my primary internet terminal, back when the internet was text only. I sold some software too.

Orson Scott Card was also writing on an Atari 800 back then. I met him at some convention. He was probably just as much an asshole then as he is now but he couldn't yet afford to come out of his asshole closet.

It makes me sad sometimes that all these brilliant machines were being developed here in the U.S.A. and abroad, but the crippled IBM/Intel/Microsoft architecture won...



Lizard people from outer space intent on destroying human creativity and technological innovation couldn't have invented a worse machine than the IBM/Microsoft "personal computer."

The Amiga I still have in my garage was a masterpiece compared to dull IBM and clone machines of the same vintage. I've kept a couple of those too. The Amiga could talk and play music and display pretty pictures. The IBM? Welcome to dullsville.

I'm glad that dark age of computing is almost past.

The ARM architecture, an intellectual descendant of the 6502, dominates personal computing today. It's in your smart phone, it's in your tablet.

The x86 architecture was a catastrophe, now patched over, within the silicon and within the software.

I would have hurled my x86 computers out the window and become a hermit years ago if not for the development of Linux and other Open Source software. Proprietary software is stifling.

I bought an A500 off ebay several years ago.. still works.. maybe I should break out the floppies in your honor!

unless you've worked with a Win-8 machine and know what to expect.

I'm no novice for PCs, but Win7 beat my butt for figuring out how to be Admin on everything. I'm used to XP allowing me access to pretty much every part of the OS, but Win7 changed that. Plus, moving things to new folders when you've been used to accessing certain ones.

Although it sounds like you'll probably figure it all out without much help

and I hope it turns out to be a great home machine!

Can't imagine using it with only a mouse, but it works OK with the touch screen. I pretty much ignore the metro app stuff.

I never liked touchpads, and touch screen is better than touchpad when I can't use a real mouse. Haven't tried a stylus, but that might make the touch screen almost as useful as a mouse.

I want a new computer. My Walmart e-machines and hp desktops just cannot keep up with me. I need to either build something kickass that I can also play games on or I need to know where to get and what to get.

Alright you computer geeks, please speak up. Give me everything you got. I'm serious about this. My livelihood depends on it.

They have kits with all the parts picked out, or computers ready to go, or u could find everything to build ur self. Best thing the reviews are very educational , great place to research.
I can build a gaming machine for about a grand, u can spend as much or as little as u like.

Good luck

Oh and u can still buy win7

I built a computer for the first time in December. It's an easy and worthwhile endeavor imo.

On Reddit, check out /r/buildapc and /r/buildapcsales. Buildapc has a sidebar with a lot of information that will get you started with choosing parts, budget concerns, and assembly. The subreddit also has a lot of nice and helpful people that will assist you if you have a question or problem.

I included /r/buildapcsales because it may help you save some $$ on parts.

On Carey Holzman's channel, you can watch him build a PC step by step:
http://www.youtube.com/user/CareyHolzman?feature=watch

take one of their builds, or roll your own.

Effectively custom built, with a warranty.

Games? get a Core I5-4670k w Nvidia GT760. 16gb Ram. good sized SSD for system drive. Zoom Zoom

Recommended.

decent buy for the buck.

Pair it up with an SSD and ram and go to town.

Can deliver some pretty decent frame rates for most games.

get your desktop to behave closer to what you are used to.

I really hate W8.

[link:http://www.classicshell.net/|

.. recently switched to I5/I7.. was getting harder to find AMD boards where I am, and the cost differential beween AMD Board/CPU and INTEL Board/CPU was negligible.. and the Intel seem to do more with less PSU

I got my gaming rig here and was happy with the price and thrilled with the performance.

http://www.microexpress.net/

As others have said, Linux can be very secure and has a great price. But, if your old machine was p4 era, your electric will will see an improvement switching over to a new machine.

It would run Win 7 or a current Linux distro nicely.

That older AMD proc probably uses more watts than is needed though. It is a toss up imo, replace with more efficient setup or continue to use the old. You say that you will continue to use AMD, so you may not see much power savings. I used to be a big AMD fan, from the late 90s (K6 era) until quite recently. Newer Intel Core2Duos and any "i" series CPUs are SO much more efficient than anything AMD. Price point is not as big as it was in the 90s, everything (even Intel) is fairly cheap these days.

That's usually what people miss -- not the computer itself, but the data that resided on its hard drive. Once that data migrates, one can begin to view the computer hardware itself as a shell for that data, a tool with certain relative capabilities but no intrinsic sentimental value, to which one becomes less and less attached over time.

Storage costs being what they are and doing what they do over time, within a few days of setting up your new system you can probably pull the entire contents of the old computer's disk(s), minus the old OS, onto your new HD without any trouble. In a couple years, if you're feeling the urge, repeat this process.

ETA: once you have new hardware don't store things on the old drive anymore if you can avoid it; you may have been lucky so far, but MTBF will eventually bite you in the ass.

Remember DU does have a computer support type place.
Worse comes to worse there is always DU mail.

Enjoy.

laptop with at least 3gb and Win7 and usb 3.0 ports for no more that $300. Laptops are now appliances and all the parts are made in the same alley in some place that has never been on TV.

Expect no more than 3yrs. You will be able to use it at home with the docking station and on the road as a laptop.

A universal docking station run from 50 to 120. Caution the usb's have to be the same version, everything is moving to usb 3.0 (400 times faster than usb 2.0 and is backward compatible.)