[dieKatze88]

Originally Posted by June.H

I haven't done any real computer shopping for years (like, 1998), so I'm looking into either building or buying a new computer for general purposes of audio, video, browsing/office work, multi-tasking with a lot of various apps, and gaming. I'm already aware of most of the ups and downs, but what I'm looking for:

-Price next to quality; this thing is going to last me for years
-Intel, preferably Core i7 (unless someone can convince me otherwise, but not AMD)
-Looking into a nice GeForce card that doesn't suck (8800GT came to mind), do I need this SLI stuff?
-My price range is under $1000.
-I really can't migrate much from my old computers, esp. since my HDD's are all PATA, the only 7200RPM drives are Maxtor pieces of crap that continually fail and the RAM (PC2100) is far too old to reuse.

I know it's hard, but I've tried building a few computers online and have hit pretty darn close near that price range.

Any suggestions/help or ideal configurations? Thanks!!

well for that price range, it might be better to go Core 2 Duo. I have a first generation Core 2 chip and I have absolutely no problems abusing the multitasking domain. A later Core 2 Duo or Core 2 Quad series would probably far out preform anything you want to do, and leave more cash available for ram.

You don't need this SLI stuff. However, the budget minded consumer may consider the Radeon HD 4800 series, as some of the budget cards in that line actually do a good job.

Just remember to buy a name brand power supply. Cheaping out on a power supply results only in pain/failure/suckage/theterroristswinning.