Besides my ID , which is more of a passion :-D , I happen to be an IT professional . Hopefully I would be help out some people going by the hints section at the top of this page :-D .
Here goes : First off , which one to buy AMD or Intel based comps?
Compared to Intel CPU’s AMD’s do tend to get hot , no doubt about it , but for a home PC which is not going to be running 24 hours a day it should not be a problem. AMD CPU’s are much more powerful than Intel P IV’s in certain aspects . True the Intel’s (non celeron CPU’s) are better while processing multimedia , AMD’s are not that bad. Overall the AMD Athlons would give a better performance . AMD Durons .... AVOID THEM !!. They are equivalent to the Intel celeron series and equally useless. The major advantage of the AMD’s is that they are much cheaper than the Intel based CPU’s . Since the Indian market is extremely price sensitive and normally avoid the branded computers and tend to pick it up from the grey market , I would definitely recommend the AMD .
My Opinion: AMD Athlon series , go for it ... If somebody suggests Duron , dont even think about it . go for celeron instead if the cash is in short constraint.
Branded Vs Assembled :
A lot of queries and questions I guess . The Major difference PRICE !!!! . Even with the cost of the branded PC’s coming down drastically , they are no match for the assembled PC’s you get in the grey market . Pro’s and Con’s , a branded PC will offer you a much better level of support than an assembled one . Normally nothing happens to the assembled PC’s but if you do run into problems with them you are in for a lot of travelling to and from Nehru Place . The bigger dealers normally do offer some kind of support for about a year , but then it is after the one year that this things start to give problems .
My opinion: If cash is a constraint go in for an assembled PC if it is not go in for a branded one.
Please do keep in mind that these are a few of my own opinions based on my experience . Before purchasing a PC I would still recommend going to as many different vendors as possible in the case of assembled PC’s and get individual component prices from each one of them . REMEMBER TO GET THE WARRANTY ON EACH OF THE COMPONENT AS WELL . The vendors may say 3 yrs warranty on the hard disk but you might get only a 3 week testing warranty on the RAM .