You guys here have always been stand up with me and I'm reaching a crossrads here with my current rig and something for my son. Some background, Ian's 16, he's leaving in less than two years for college (or somewhere other than my couch!!!) and he'll need something to run then. Now, my current AMD FX-60 rig is adequate for me to run most games I'm currently in love with and most he might like to but I want an upgrade so I've the following options.

1. Give him my current rig, lock stock and 24-inch monitor, know I'll have to build a whole new rig AND perhaps buy him a laptop in a couple of years.

2. Buy him a decent (sub $1,000) laptop now and hope and pray it's enough to get him through his first years in college. I'm talking work here no gaming. Under this scenario I'd keep my old case, HD's and upgrade mother board, chip and ram to an AMD3 Phenom rig.

Now under secnario 2 I'd possibly save enough on old components to make it worthwhile but I'm not sure.

Second question. I'm running XP 32. I've Vistal Ultimate in the desk unused. Should I do the following:

1. Stay with XP on all current home rigs.

2. Use the free Vista Ultimate and upgrade all rigs to 64bit THEN purchase Win7 as upgrade?

3. Just get Win7 and do fresh installs on all three rigs?

Thanks in advance folks.

Da Worfster

There is a famlily pack deal with windows 7 right now where you get three licenses for something like $120 or there-abouts. So that's where I would go for that, and quick since it's a limited time offer.

As for the rigs, while at college the desktop rig will be appreciated BUT when going back and forth and moving rooms and such that whole desktop rig will be a pain so a good solid laptop would be best for when he goes to college. I think in two years laptops will have evolved enough to warrant a new one, so I would go with option 1 and give him the current rig and start putting a little away for a decent laptop, my guess would be you can get a pretty decent laptop in a couple years for $500-$800. Yu can get a good netbook now for $300+ (and those little things ARE pretty fast) and I can go on newegg and get a gaming laptop for a grand, so in two years time that is bound to improve since laptop sales are outpacing desktops these days.


Edit: Here's that family pack, it's $149.

I'd ask him what he wants the computer for, if he wants to do gaming then a desktop is better, if he wants it more for work and wants portability, then a laptop is better. Since he's 16 I imagine gaming is more important to him now.

But pretty much all kids have laptops at college now but you don't have to spend much to get a netbook that you can write a paper on, take notes on, and surf the web.

They are more expensive than equivalent PC laptops but I would recommend having a look at a MacBook. The one with the intel chip can run both Windows and Mac OS simultaneously using bridging software like VM Fusion or Parallels or you can boot to one or the other using the Boot Camp feature that comes with it.

I have a MacBook Pro and I have had to do far less "futzing around" with the software, drivers and the like than I had to do with pure Win based systems.

I'll keep my PC desktop for gaming though thank you very much

As for as your OS question goes, Urufu has it right. Go for the Win 7 FAMILY PACK, and do fresh installs on everything.

I'd also go with Option 1 for the systems, and built an entirely new system for yourself. Going with an good AM# system makes sense, especially if you have SOW in mind.

Thanks folks. I'll ruminate a bit, see if anyone else chimes in. Right now option 1 on the rigs is looking good. Hand me down and build new after the first of the year. I got Vista ultimate free, a three license upgrade might be the best way to go.. Thanks for the quick answers and that ever present Ubi-forums love.

Worf