I've been desperately needing something a lot newer for my computer needs but it became an absolute necessity when I started the CAD courses in September. I needed to be able to run the student versions of the software. My 12 year old Toshiba Satellite just wasn't up to the task. As I began to shop around it became apparent that a brand new system, desk top or laptop, was going to be more $$ than I could afford so I started looking at alternative ideas.
While in the CADD Lab one day, I took note of what the school uses for a PC. It actually wasn't a PC, it was a HP work station. The Z400 model. I did a bit of checking around and saw that brand new they were around $5K !! :shock:
I decided to see what could be found on the used market. I stumbled across a place that re-furbishes lease turn in's. ( Who knew that computers could be leased??) He happened to have a few Z400's that had the specs I needed, so a quick haggle back and forth and it was on it's way to me for $435.
I went to a new computer store in the area called Micro Center. Tons of goodies to build your own 'puters as well as brand new ones. I did a bit of shopping and used their demo computer to check reviews on CNET to figure out what was worth spending the $$ on. In the end, I picked up a new HP Pavilion 22xi monitor, a wi-fi card for the tower and a HP wireless key board/mouse combo. All told, about $180. So I'm just a bit over $600 into a system that absolutely works well and will be able to run any software I throw at it. It came with windows 7 pro w/ the backup discs, a 1TB hard drive, a decent AMD graphics driver and 8GB of RAM. There's 2 empty slots on the board so there's plenty of room for expansion.
I'm pretty excited, I've never had anything like this before. I don't even care that the workstation was used, if you saw the case you would think it was brand new. The quad 4 Xeon processor is pretty quick, I've played a few HD videos while running back ground apps and it doesn't miss a beat.
Maybe my experience will turn someone else on to an affordable way to get more computer power that you will probably ever need!
While in the CADD Lab one day, I took note of what the school uses for a PC. It actually wasn't a PC, it was a HP work station. The Z400 model. I did a bit of checking around and saw that brand new they were around $5K !! :shock:
I decided to see what could be found on the used market. I stumbled across a place that re-furbishes lease turn in's. ( Who knew that computers could be leased??) He happened to have a few Z400's that had the specs I needed, so a quick haggle back and forth and it was on it's way to me for $435.
I went to a new computer store in the area called Micro Center. Tons of goodies to build your own 'puters as well as brand new ones. I did a bit of shopping and used their demo computer to check reviews on CNET to figure out what was worth spending the $$ on. In the end, I picked up a new HP Pavilion 22xi monitor, a wi-fi card for the tower and a HP wireless key board/mouse combo. All told, about $180. So I'm just a bit over $600 into a system that absolutely works well and will be able to run any software I throw at it. It came with windows 7 pro w/ the backup discs, a 1TB hard drive, a decent AMD graphics driver and 8GB of RAM. There's 2 empty slots on the board so there's plenty of room for expansion.
I'm pretty excited, I've never had anything like this before. I don't even care that the workstation was used, if you saw the case you would think it was brand new. The quad 4 Xeon processor is pretty quick, I've played a few HD videos while running back ground apps and it doesn't miss a beat.
Maybe my experience will turn someone else on to an affordable way to get more computer power that you will probably ever need!
