need new PC help!

[dakotamidnight]

My PC died last night, and since it's my work PC I need it replaced ASAP. Working with my laptop now, but it's a PITB


I mostly only surf internet {I work for ChaCha}, check email, occasionally listen to CD's, and do excel & word tasks. I do often have 10+ tabs open in firefox.

would you go with this pc: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/eMachines+-+Desktop+with+Intel%26%23174%3B+Celeron%26%23174%3 B+Processor/9352381.p?id=1218089773835&skuId=9352381#tabbed-customerreviews [bestbuy.com] or this one: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Compaq+-+Presario+Desktop+with+AMD+Athlon%26%23153%3B+X2+D ual-Core+Processor/9175064.p?id=1218045567985&skuId=9175064 [bestbuy.com]

Money is tight, and I need something now. Any other cheap ideas are welcome. Was just going to fix my old pc but all estimates say $100+ for starters, and I only paid $150 for the desktop new.

[eibgrad]

Neither link working for me (both return "Sorry, the page you requested was not found.")

P.S. I had to remove the slickdeals referral manually, then it worked. Apparently the SD url parser is messing it up. Why BB can't provide a simple and direct link to a product escapes me.

I'll say this much, between those two choices, it's not much of a contest. Celerons are the bottom of the barrel, just crippled Pentiums, and single core ta-boot (1.6GHz, 512MB cache). For $40 more, you can at least step up to dual core (AMD 2.3GHz, 1MB cache). The Celeron will be pure torture these days. Plus the AMD has a little more memory, HD capacity, etc. There’s just no way I’d ever recommend anything less than dual core today, and if absolutely forced to consider single core, certainly not a Celeron. Worst bang for the buck imo.

Btw, notice too that the Celeron claims it’s upgradeable to Win7, but that’s not true. It’s running Vista Home Basic, which doesn’t qualify! The AMD however is running Vista Home Premium, which does. So even the OS options are worse w/ the Celeron.

[hbarnwheeler]

Between the two you linked, ebigrad is right on with recommending the dual-core. WHat's your budget? Are you committed to buying from a store, i.e. does ASAP mean you don't want to wait for a machine to be shipped from an online retailer? If you are committed to buying from a store, what stores are close by? How old was your old PC? Do you need the new one to support IDE drives so you can install the old drive and copy your data over?

[Chocobo]

Here's a good one [bestbuy.com]. $309 for a dual core with 3GB RAM and 250GB hard drive.

[hbarnwheeler]

Quote from Chocobo : Here's a good one [bestbuy.com]. $309 for a dual core with 3GB RAM and 250GB hard drive.

If you're going to buy from BB, be sure to take advanatge of the $20 off $100 Paypal promotion [bestbuy.com]