Looks like you might be on the phone for a while. Good luck. After your finished with Dell call Axiom to upgrade to the m80's and EP600 since your in the spending mood. If your do it right your girlfriend will never find out.

I guess I must have lucked out like Rick up there. My wife doesn't usually ever say too terribly much but she will let me know if my spending habits are going in the wrong direction, which almost always is to my benefit in the long haul. To her it's a matter of 'need', "Just get the thing if you *need* it" ... to me it's a matter of convincing her what *I need*.

Like another 600.

My lovely bride didn't flinch when we talked about a new audio system budget. But I can tell you that if she's decorating the house for the holidays, there had better be Christmas Carols in the air.

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I believe there is a certain price point (maybe it's your mom just looking for Internet access and nothing else) where it does make sense to just buy the $299 off-the-shelf model.

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Yup. Granny doesn't need a supercomputer. DIYers could never compete with the Dells on the low end market as far as build cost. They probably take losses on the TV specials. And the TV special machines are still far more powerful than most users need. Heck the lowest-end Celeron in current release is more powerful than Granny could ever need. Plus then Granny can call Dell when there's a problem, which would be 3 times a day. Not you.

Yea, I just spec'd out a system with all the components I would want and it came over 5 THOUSAND DOLLARS! Just as Joe says, I could probably build a better box for half that.

The box I spec'd for NEW2 (Jay) was a dual-core 64-bit Intel @ 2.8Ghz, 1GB Corsair XMS Pro DDR2, 320GB SATAII HDD, Dual-layer 16x/16X DVD-RW/CDRW, Samsung 19" LCD, ATI All-in-Wonder X600 Pro 256MB (he doesn't game much so I spec'd a card with video in/tv out for fun), Aluminum Coolermaster Wavemaster Case (my favorite!), Antec True-Power 480Watt PSU, and Windows XP Media Center Edition. Plus some odds and ends. Cost was around $1600. Fast and solid. Maybe switch to an AMD platform and get a bleeding-edge vidcard and you would have a pretty nice gaming system. Heck this system would play most games with no complaints. I thought about upping the RAM to 2GB but 1GB for normal photo editing and such would work. Unfortunately NEW's GF put the Kibosh on building a computer as well.

Jay, this whole sad affair will result in several demerits on your Man Card and a full one month suspension in your testosterone subscription.

I know the "Sell The Wife" solution is always available. In this dire emergency I believe it can be invoked to encompass the girlfriend as well.

BTW, I'm guessing you watch Figure Skating with her on Sunday afternoons instead of football.

Please - eat more red meat and in large quantities!!!

I think Ray just told you to grow a pair, in a nice way of course

haha. nobody takes my football away from me!! im actually glad that i cancelled the order. i now know from lightingjoe that i can build one for alot cheaper.

lightingjoe, i will be in touch with you in a few months. i am going to build that system. just going to do it at a slower pace so i dont have to spend alot at one time. anyway, i will keep in touch with you my friend.

Frankly, I think she just saved you from spending way too much money on a computer. But that's just my admittedly tactless opinion.

Besides, building a computer is fun! Or at least researching building a computer is...