Do you play games or plan on doing so? Even if the answer is no, you can get a sweet system for $1400 canadian, let alone $1400 us. Depending on how much you want/need, and how much you can reuse (monitor?), you can really go crazy.
It's really hard to say specific stuff for what you would need, but if it's just typical surfing and office stuff, your computer is already fine, but hey, that's no fun right? Need to go faster.
Things to look for:
Ram, get lots, 512megs is pretty much a minimum, and it's pretty cheap and easy to upgrade later. Theres lots of different type of ram, but basically you want DDR ram, at probably pc2700, but maybe higher.
HD, 80gig hds are a pretty good bang for your buck, there's places in the states selling them for $35 usd after rebates, shipped to your door!
Video, this one is tricky, because if you don't play games, you don't really need much. I'll just leave that blank.. but stay away from the nvidia geforce cards that are MX editions, the ti cards are the way to go there. ATI is okay, especially if it's just office stuff.. it's a tossup there.
Don't chince out on the motherboard, make sure you get somethign okay. I've had good luck with MSI boards.
As for the pentium 4 vs amd xp+ chips.. well, it's a throwup there too. There are two sides, but if your just a regular user, the p4 is a nice solution if only because it runs cooler, so it's less to worry about.
Hmm.. I'm not sure what else to say. As a comparison, I hit a local stores website, and this system sells for just under $1200 canadian, without a monitor:
http://www.discoverycomputers.com/systemdetails.php?id=35
That said, if your not into computers and just want something with a warranty, just hit the dell website and take a look for a system that meets your needs and budget. If you have any questions, just drop me a private message.
- lp (2 was added b/c 2 letters names arent allowed)
