I'm looking in to buying a "barebones" system or buying a factory built system for under $700. Any suggestions?

I found a dell on costco's website that is 599. But the reviews weren't all that great. I don't need a monitor right now...

heres the link to the dell system i found at costco
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.as ... c=&topnav=

might give that one a try, that's a lot of speed/power for the price, and they have a 90 day return policy. Can't go wrong with that.

let me know whats up.

i would recommend barebones. that way you can future proof your system.

you would want to build your computer to be quiet as possible

http://www.quietpcusa.com/ (sound proofing)

http://www.pricewatch.com/public/ (parts.. motherboards, memory etc..)

http://directron.com/

im assuming its strictly for music recording/production

so a video card wont be a factor. because it can be another cause of internal noise especially the high end ones.

with that said the most expensive part of your computer is gonna be the cpu chip. your either gonna want AMD or Intel, though its depends on your reference.

this is just a reference to what i did when i built mine.

buying order.

get the best you can fit in your budget

1. case - you have an option for a full tower , mid, or mini
http://directron.com/cases---case-fans.html

2. power supply - http://www.quietpcusa.com/Quiet-Power-Supply-C1.aspx

3. harddrive - capacity is up to you, though i would recommend 2, one for programs and one for projects and samples.

4. case fan - http://www.quietpcusa.com/Quiet-Computer-Fans-C6.aspx

5. videocard - its totally up to you what you want to get.
http://www.pricewatch.com/video_cards/

6. blu ray/dvd/cd rw burner is good now these days especially for backing up large files. if so you might want a video card with hdmi outs

6. motherboard, memory & cpu ( i would prefer to get these last cause the best ones get cheaper every month)

7. other accesories http://www.quietpcusa.com/Acoustic-Materials-C4.aspx

by looking at this list with out the necessities, im guessing its gonna cause you around 650 at the most if the price is right

oh one more thing, if you buy a computer from a brand name company you cant upgrade the motherboard and CPU because its specifically made for that computer case.

buying a brand name computer

pros - got warranty / text support

cons - you cant really expand on it.

barebones

pros - make how you want it. you can start off with the cheap stuff and put the expensive part later.

cons - no warranty / support , however if something breaks you can easily replace it, and all these parts have warranties.

......i know im a nerd lol

yeah ^^ i don't fink i've ever spent more than $700, but the machines have always been built by "a computer guy".

i used to talk to the dudes who did tech at the offices i worked in. they would almost always be down with building something from scratch, or would know someone who would.

maybe ask around, see if you can find someone like that. its good because you can get a lot of variety in the parts, and you can ensure that there's no bottlenecks on the processing you most need (as opposed to setting shiznit up for gaming, or whatever).

Around 700$ should definitely be enough to buy a powerful system, even good enough to run some heavy sound editing programs.

Still, if you're patience and possible to save for a Mac, I'd go for those. (Don't got a Mac yet, but damn they are impressive .. not total resource hogs like Vista. :S )