ready to buy new computers! suggestions?

[ProdigalSon]

OK, it is that joyous time of year when tax returns pump extra dollars into my budget, so I am looking to buy new computers, two of them. One for son, other for me, and youngest son inheriting this old AMD Duron 945. My budget is hopfuly around $800 for son's and $1000 for mine, if it can handle source, ok, but 1.6 is my passion. Being a single parent without a lot of free timeand having spent way too much time not following the hardware and being overseas for shipping, I am leaning toward a prebuilt. Suggestions?

[Shinogana]

For a budget PC, you can either go to a retail store and see what they have, or you can try one of the larger online computer makers. Hp.com and Dell.com are the ones that I hear the best things about for that price range. You may still want to see what is available at a retail store after looking online for comparison. You can also buy refurbished computers from those larger companies. Depending on the older sons age, that might be an option for him.

P.S. Online prices start around $300.

[Mr-Me-II]

My best storebought experience is the HP Pavillion a1129n. The comp has great specs for its price, and the motherboard is the best I've seen in a storebought machine.

It was 1200 when bought at Best Buy, but is probably in the 500 pricerange now, if you can find one...
Features...

SATA 200gb
PCIe 16x
4x 168 pin DDR (4gb max. 512 PC3200standard)
Socket 939 AMD64 3400+ (Board will take the newest FX- series processors)
ATi Xpress X200 chipset (nice!)
DVD burner / card reader / about a million USB ports
1.44 FLOPPY!!!! (selling point!)

The 512 ram and onboard video would be the only thing slowing this machine down in Source, but the one I have used ran Source at maybe 50fps avarage in Med settings. Keep in mind the video card took 128 megs from my Ram, so that was with about 384 megs of ram! Not bad aye?

[MasterFlash]

I don't see any great deals right now. If you're patient and look around a bit, usually something comes up. Here are some sites I check out when I'm looking for deals.

http://dealsvengali.com/
http://www.bensbargains.net/
http://www.techbargains.com/
http://www.couponvilla.com/
http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/
http://forums.anandtech.com/categori...amp;entercat=y

[PaSte]

[link=http://www.ibuypower.com]www.ibuypower.com[/link] looked like it had some good deals last i checked.

[fallen1]

bah, if Hitman can build a computer (with a little help) then ANYONE can build a computer!