alright.. i am finally in a financial situation where i can buy a solid desktop for myself. i have a few questions that any help would be appreciated.

1) I live in a house which already has a desktop that runs off cable modem in an office. Can I run another desktop in a seperate room by just getting another modem?

2) There is also a laptop in my house which is wireless and has a router. Can this in any way help me with my desktop? (such as running a desktop as wireless?)

3) what computer should I buy for all around use(school, etc.) as well as poker for a good price (under 1000).?

thank you in advance for any help.

Try Dell.

First off, definitely go wireless for your entire house, you can get a g network for under a hundred, and it is very sweet. as a computer geek, i am currently building a sick system from tiger direct and would be happy to throw some advice your way. If you have a grand to spend, and are mainly going to use this computer for poker, the major things are going to be video card requirements and hard drive access(for pt and gametime use) the other major thing will be monitor size. i can't remember the monitor that everyone seems to recommend, but i did look at it and like it. sample specs i would go with:

Serial ATA, faster than ultra ata, so will make access to the pt database that much better, you can get a huge refurbished drive for cheap

256MB video card, i personally like the ATI chipset and you can get one for around 60 bucks, wont be the best for 3d rendering, but will be solid for poker

a gig of ddr ram will have things running smoothly

64 bit AMD processor, around a 3300+ should do just fine

I also personally like ASUS motherboards, never had a problem with them at all.

pick up a dvd writer, they are dirt cheap and are great for backing all your data up, not to mention copying blockbuster DVDs.

i would go with an 802.11g network, you will get better distance than a b network and are able to be secured in a much better way(wpa vs wep)

if you want me to put something together with a link just let me know, and you can compare it to different dell models.

is a gig of ram really necessary??

probably not, but i am a firm believer in having tons of ram, i find that it is the more likely to be the bottleneck than anything else. i think it is worth the extra $50 to go ahead and go up to a gig from 512MB especially if you might be running PT, GT, multiple sites, and multiple tables on each.

yeah.. i do fine on 512, but you are right about the value issue... although, my friend scored some coupons for a free upgrade at best buy through some loophole 8)

so im gonna go get a gig next week.

I disagree aces - A computer which will be used for word documents & poker sites certainly doesn't need a 256mb video card nor does it need a 3300 processor.

Basically any pentium 4 or AMD will do just fine for you. If you plan on multi tabling a lot, RAM might be something you'll want to spend the money on over a high end video card. You'll also want a monitor preferably a 19" to run higher resolutions (1600x1200+) for your multi-tabling.

If you plan on eventually upgrading to dual monitors down the road then I would suggest looking into a higher end video card, but at this stage it's just not needed.

i agree with everything you said gov. if you can handle putting a system together though, you can build a much better system than dell can do for you at the same price. the system i am going to build is roughly:


AMD 64-3300+ $140
ASUS K8V SE Deluxe $120
2-512MB PC3200 $100
Sapphire Radeon 256MB $60
Hitachi 250GB SATA-refurb $90
Lite-on DVD+RW $43
$553 total

I have a great audio card, case, mouse, keyboard, power supply, surround speakers, etc already so dont need the accessories.

and possibly
NEC 20in LCD 1600X1200 $500

You'll only need 1 modem but to share that modem you'd need a router which'll basically split the `net between the two. You say you have one with the laptop so should just be a matter of plugging the wireless router into the modem and then accessing the router with a wireless network card in your desktop.

I'm building my friend a desktop for Poker and im below 4bills.(w/o monitor) AMD64 chipset is really really really not needed. And buying a refurbished 250gig sata hard drive? That sounds like a disaster waiting to happen...

Looks decent besides that.

definitely overkill for just a poker box. had good luck so far with refurb items, pretty solid college box to go along with average needs.

ok i really appreciate what everyone has had to say. i'm a computer tard so i don't know what half of it is or that i can build it. i do however need this comp for "all around use" not just poker. i'm thinking of something i can just buy complete. although the upgraded ram sounds good. I rarely multi table also so thats not a big issue.

i should also stress that i don't use poker tracker or game time as i like to keep my own notes, records, etc. (i know that this is archaic but i love to crunch my own numbers so to say.)

Is is "necessary" to have a car that goes faster then 80mph?

It's so chep now, I don't understand people who buy, like, 256. Whatever.