I need a new computer.

[Admiral Yi]

Thanks for the advice and all, but I think I'll just go with the Dell w/ i5 CPU.

No Burger, I would not be up for assembling my own.

[Eddie Teach]

Anyone got any input on this one?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229330

[viper37]

Peter, the video card is not good enough for gaming.  In that order, you should get a 7870, 7850, 6870 or 6850 depending on the price.

Power supply should be replaced with a 700w from a good brand as soon as you get this computer though.  I don't trust generic ps anymore.

[Admiral Yi]

Finally got the new PC up and running.

Lo and behold, there's no built in CD drive.

How much of a pain is it to install one?

Also, looked at the store and I can get a "half height" driver for 29.99 and a vanilla for 49.99.  WTF is with this half height business?

[DGuller]

Depends on how tight the working space is in your PC.  It should be very easy to install a CD drive, but with space constraints it can be a surprising PITA.

[Admiral Yi]

Guess I don't have much choice either way.

Any thoughts on the half height issue?

Also, comp. came with a very stripped down MS Office suite, no Outlook.  I looked at the MS site and it looks like you can't really buy Outlook stand-alone.

So should I buy the suite, or are there competitors out there i should consider?

[DGuller]

By the way, how often do you think you'll be using a DVD drive?  In the last few years, I find that I've only used it a couple of times, when I needed to use my Windows disk.  Is external drive an option?

[Admiral Yi]

I still have a couple game discs.

[viper37]

Guess I don't have much choice either way.

Any thoughts on the half height issue?

Also, comp. came with a very stripped down MS Office suite, no Outlook.  I looked at the MS site and it looks like you can't really buy Outlook stand-alone.

So should I buy the suite, or are there competitors out there i should consider?

Check www.libreoffice.org for the Office Suite.
For Outlook replacement, it depends: what is it you need from Outlook?  Collaboration with work space? Calendar?  Mail capabalities?

If it's only for mail, check out Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/
Fo something else, I don't really know, but Google should give you some results

[Grey Fox]

Windows Live Mail does a decent job as a mail client.

[Barrister]

You can get MS Office for home for ~$100.  Still kind of pricey, but since so much of the world works on Word and Excel I found it worthwhile to buy.