To give you an idea, I use a Toshiba Satellite laptop with Vista, a 1.73 Ghz processor, 2 Gb of ram, and a N Vidia 7600 512mb video card. It can run everything from the Orange Box perfectly with everything but shadows on high.

Using a Dell Inspiron for $999 after rebates:
PROCESSOR Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600 (8MB L2 cache,2.4GHz,1066FSB)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition
MONITOR 22 inch E228WFP Widescreen Digital Flat Panel
MEMORY 3GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 4 DIMMs
HARD DRIVE 500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
OPTICAL DRIVE 16x DVD+/-RW Drive
VIDEO CARD nVidia GeForce 8300GS 128MB

More than enough to play h-games and draw.

But still, the motherboard and CPU are unharmed. If I weren’t so smart to be able to upgrade/replace hardware, I’d have to buy several new computers.

I think you don’t really need a hyper-super-special-awesome computer from a production line. I always buy separate parts in order to have an ultimate config. Stick to the parts that were brand new about a year ago, saving lots of money. They’re atill good, but a lot cheaper. Photoshop needs a good graphic card, but you don’t really have to buy anything expensive made for hardcore gamers. Look for benchmarks. Like so: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/

I suggest that you compare the list of mid-range CPU with their prices. Something that’s 2 times better is sometimes 4 times more expensive. And sometimes inferior hardware costs an arm and a leg(vide:Macs).

Next thing: When buying RAM, besides from checking the bookmarks it’s good when there is ECC correction. It helps a lot.

Of course, when you’re buying a laptop, your freedom of hardware choice is limited. That’s why I wouldn’t buy a laptop unless it was truly needed.

Then look for some tutorials how to speed up xp, and I’m sure it’ll be just fine.
You may not know that your hardware has lots of wasted potential. Proper partitioning, customising the OS, optimisation and maintenance are crucial if you want to save some money for e.g. some anime posters ;:)

It has been traditionally suggested that a pagefile be placed on a separate hard drive on a separate channel from the Windows installation because then Windows can access the pagefile while the OS drive is being accessed. Remember that even when you have 4 GB of RAM, the pagefile is still needed. Like when you use photoshop, while e.g. downloading a batch anime torrent.

Also, everything that is placed on the first sectors of the HDD, is a lot faster(since the disc is round).
Defragmentation also helps.

http://www.nliteos.com/ <- for reducing XP size and improving performance.

Oh, and by the way - Photoshop CS3 is a lot lighter than CS2. I was amazed that I can no longer prepare tea while Photoshop is loading.

Cheep
Fast(Power)
Built well (not a piece of crap that going to fall apart)

64-bit does offer better performance, but only if the application in question has 64-bit support. Even at this point, drivers for XP x64 and Vista x64 aren’t great.

For you, the only good thing that will come out of going with a 64-bit OS is that Photoshop CS4 will ship with a 64-bit version.

Most built to order computers are okay. If I was going to do it, I would go with Dell. Yes, Dells often crop up with problems, however, Dell’s customer service is the best out of all of the big names. If your Dell screws up, they genuinely try to help you.

So, buy a Dell. But do invest in either a 2 year or 4 year extended warranty, just in case, because after all, you get what you pay for.

OS wise, I would go with Vista. It isnt quite ready yet, but another year or so will se SP2 come out, and then (hopefully) it will be just as stable and awesome as XP. Vista is more futureproof.

Good luck.

Just got Windows reinstalled on the laptop. Seems that horrible spyware/virus is gone…

A pre-built I can suggest: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883107657

It doesn’t exactly have the capabilities to be a gaming powerhouse, but if you replace the power supply and graphics card, it can.

Remember to shop around and check out review websites. If you don’t choose a q6600 or q9300, I highly recommend the e8400.

Right now I’m running a q9300 and 2GB of DDR3-1333 and it takes about 14 seconds for CS3 to open up, and it runs extremely smooth. I’m sure that system I linked could compete very well.

Also, if you’re buying a pre-built, it doesn’t matter if you are not a computer person. ADD SOME EXTRA FANS IF THERE ARE SLOTS ON THE CASE. They never hurt.

Taking a look at one of my local resellers, I can get the following config:

Processor: Q6600
Motherboard: Asus P5K Pro
RAM: 2×2GB Corsair
Graphics card: fanless 8600GT 512MB
Hard drive: 750GB (Samsung Spinpoint F1)
DVD burner: a Pioneer one
Computer case: a nice Antec one
+ some USB card reader and a PCI wifi card

for about 600€, or $900. Prices over here are somewhat inflated compared to the US, so I guess you can get something similar with nifty extras (better graphics card, dual hard drives, whatever) for less than 1000.

@roast-beefy: Bad luck, I’d say. I’ve worked with over ten WD drives and have had none of them fail. My friend runs ten of their Raptor drives (15,000 RPM) and none of them have failed. It’s been a couple of years I think for both of us.

No, fuck that. I’ve had 2 of their hard drives fail, my dad has had two fail, my roommate’s failed. FUCK Western Digital

I haven’t been keeping up with the latest tech, but I do know that Intel’s Core 2 CPUs still reign supreme; just get something that’s affordable. As for RAM, that website doesn’t seem to provide you specific vendors… but any 3GB should be fine.

Everything else is just up to you… if you’re not an audiophile and don’t need anything special to record, then some relatively cheap Sound Blaster card should work fine. Video card depends on what you plan to do with it: gaming? modeling (Maya and such)? DVD drives and media card readers are also up to you…

The site also doesn’t tell you the brand of hard drives… certain brands are more reliable; Seagate and Western Digital are common and reliable.

Power protection? A surge protector or a UPS? The latter will depend on the amount of power outputted by your computer (and anything else that you connect to it). That should probably be picked last…