2nd hand system - any red flags?

[Gekko71]

Hi guys.

I'm currently buying a 2nd hand computer for my son who is turning 12.

This will be used for homework / word processing / web surfing and some gaming (WoW, TF2, LFD2)

The shop down the road from me specialises in 2nd hand refurbished systems and are offering me the following deal.

The system seems like an okay deal to me but there are better qualified people than me on the board to make that call.

System specs - $AU 360.00 ( $US 382.50) for tower alone gets you:





- Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 2.33ghz 4mb 1333mhz socket 775
- Intel DQ35JOE MB
- 4GB DDR2 RAm
- New 1TB HDD 7200 rpm (not sure of the brand sorry)
- PCI-E ATI Radeon Graphics with 128 dedicated ram (+ 800mb shared)
- Integrated Audio
- 1 x 10/100/1000 LAN
- Vista Business (so therefore FAT32 and we're maxxed out on RAM )
- 1 year parts and 30 months labour warranty



They're offering a New 22'' LCD screen (of unknown make) for another $110 .




What I would really love some opinions on is :

a. Is this reasonable value?
b. Is there a reasonable upgrade path for this system or am I buying a dead-end?
c. Any recommendations you may have for future performance upgrades if my son wants to do more gaming?




Thank you folks - greatly appreciate any advice you may have, as always.

[CDN_Merlin]

The only thing that stands out for me is the video card. You say it's 128 megs ram and 800 megs shared. That's not good for any type of gaming. Id' shop around at local electronic store and see what kinda of deals you can get for new computers. Even try Dell.

[Gekko71]

The only thing that stands out for me is the video card. You say it's 128 megs ram and 800 megs shared. That's not good for any type of gaming. Id' shop around at local electronic store and see what kinda of deals you can get for new computers. Even try Dell.

New computers in my neck of the woods all start around the $599 mark (and that's strictly with on-board graphics) and I was hoping to keep it as much under $500 as possible. The only new computers available at this price point in Perth are net-books. PCs in Australia are stupidly expensive given the strength of our dollar

I was considering getting another card for around the $60 to $90 mark - would a Raedon HD 5570 do the trick? The computer store is offering a GeForce GT 430 but I heard the 5570 is a better card and they start at $69.

[AceCombat]

agreed with merlin, if possible, disable the shared memory and get a higher rated Video Card for that PCI-E slot

[Krom]

Socket 775 doesn't have a lot of upgrade paths left, you could eventually get a used core 2 quad for it but that is about it. A 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo is getting to be fairly anemic these days, and since it is in an Intel branded board overclocking will be impossible.

Vista Business comes in 64 bit flavors too, find a disk and reinstall with the 64 bit version and it'll be able to use up to 32 GB of RAM if necessary. You probably just want to dump it and switch to Windows 7 Professional though.

The Radeon with 128 MB of RAM doesn't sound very promising, especially since there is no mention of what kind of Radeon it is. Usually there is a 4 digit number in the name that designates the type of card it is. Granted pretty much any Radeon is going to be faster than on board video so it isn't all that bad.

Honestly if you shopped for used parts on your own you could do a lot better for the same price, but there would be no warranties that way.

[Gekko71]

Thanks for the feedback gents - I kinda suspected that I was buying a dead end in regards to upgrades but I wasn't totally sure.

I'll keep looking around and see what pops up.

Thanks for the help (...insert your favourite thumbs-up icon here. )