OK, my 2 cents. I am on my 5th Dell, typing this on a 4 year old Dimension. I have not had problems with the computers at all. BUT, two weeks ago I bought a CD drive for my home Dell, one that I could write to. (it had a read only) I purposely paid a bit more from Dell to make sure it was compatible with all other components. It plugged right in, and I could read from it, but when I tried to load the software, it wouldn't load because I don't have Win XP(another story). So I contacted Dell and, to make a long story short, after talking to about 8 people who could not speak english very well, and writing emails to almost as many, I was told that in the entire frigging Dell company, they did not have software to make the drive work with Windows Millenium, and I would have to buy software from another vendo, AND they would not reimburse me for the cost. Let me add that I was never asked what operating system I had when I bought the drive.
They have lost a customer. Their support sucks.

 

Over the last few years, I've bought about 50 Dells and about 25 Gateways for our office. Both brands have been excellent- If I had to pick one, I would go for the Dell as we've have had almost zero problems with them (except for their notebooks, which have had numerous problems). As someone mentioned earlier, I too would avoid celeron processors.

 

don't forget that business support calls are routed to the US now for Dell. Home users don't get that privledge. Our office uses dells, too, and they work fine...but i would never buy one from home.

most of the time, they work fine, but when you have a problem that involves finicky, but functional hardware, you are SOL.

 

I think i'm gonna build my own pc. What do you guys recommend for an Intel pentium 4 motherboard?

 

wow thats an awesome site!!!!!

 

Can't stand Dell or Gateway
I prefer computers w/ Intel motherboards over proprietary computers

 

Okay I am going to have to recommend AMD mostly because I am a fan, but really because they already have 64bit architecture. That said....

If I cant persuade you I would say get it from a good company... Abit, Asus, MSI, Chaintech, Gigabyte.
Just find a model that is in your price range, and then google it plus the word review and see what review sites think.
Intel boards have introduced PCI-express, which is the "new thing" in add-on cards (video, sound, etc) Only problem right now is no card maker can implement the technology, so get it, but dont expect that much from it, just yet.

But really, jsut make sure you dont get a Celeron.

 

if you get a P4 DO NOT get a socket478 model. they have no upgrade path. Get the LGA775 version...those boards are going to cost plenty, though.

If it were me, I would get an Athlon64 with a Nvidia Nforce3 250Gb chipset, though. A64s have an onboard memory controller and have extremely low latency; the "Front Side Bus" is full speed. P4's have slightly higher bandwidth but horrid latency; they have the memory controller in the chipset. A64's have a 800Mhz or 1Ghz Hypertransport bus that can transfer both ways at the same time; P4's have a 200Mhz quad pumped (800Mhz) bus that transfers data one way at a time. Also, the P4 has a 31 stage pipeline, which is horrid if you study cpu architecture. A64s have 12. There are A64s with 512K and 1MB of cache; the P4 has 1MB now. The A64 really doesn't need lots of cache, by the way, due to its short pipeline...there is a SMALL diff between the 512K and 1MB versions...if you lowered the current P4 to 512K, it would lose A LOT of performance.

If you MUST get a P4, get the 915 or 925 chipset. Be advised that those boards use DDR2 which is EXPENSIVE (and very latent) and use PCI express for video, and those boards go for a premium, too. You'll be able to build a socket939 (dual channel memory) A64 system for less than you would a newer LGA775 P4 system.

PCI express won't hit the AMD platform till around November. I do think PCI express x16 and AGP are going to coexist for a while, so I wouldn't worry about an upgrade path with AGP.

Good motherboard brands...the ones mentioned by ninethreeeleven are top tier. Many like Epox, too.

On 64bit...Intel will have a "64bit" P4 soon. Be advised that the "64bit" is really more of a memory addressing scheme so it can do more than 4GB of RAM...most of the rest of the chip is still the same. The A64 has full 64bit registers through and through, so in 64bit software, the A64s lead should be even more than it is now!