need an opinion on a new system

[Darknut]

Acer is the third largest manufacturer of desktop and laptop computers. Hardware wise, they are actually pretty good. Several models also have an "unrestricted" BIOS in which the options on the equivalent commercial version of the OEM board are the same. RAID settings and Overclocking features were still accessible. In all honesty, the big four builders use parts from only a handful of different vendors.

Acer now owns Gateway and E-Machines (e-machines was acquired by Gateway before Acer acquired Gateway). The build quaility should go up on those models under the umbrella of Acer. Gateway, to some extent, increased the quality of components in E-Machines by using a different power-supply--the cheap power supplies that E-Machines originally used were the source of many of the system's longevity problems.

Aside from customer service issues, I haven't heard or found anything bad about the actual computers themselves.

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By the way, I believe a new AMD socket and DDR3 RAM are going to hit the market soon if not already.

[CreepingCharlie]

By the way, I believe a new AMD socket and DDR3 RAM are going to hit the market soon if not already.

Not to get off topic but, I doubt it. Intel is really gonna try to push DDR3 with their up and coming X38 chipset and Penryn CPU. But until AMD switches over to DDR3 I doubt it will become the norm like DDR2. Look what happened last time. It wasn't until AMD switched over did we see DDR2 prices drop and multitude of vendors selling it. DDR3 is the future like DDR2 from DDR was. I think it would be a mistake if AMD came out with a new socket. Besides if and when they do come out with a new socket it probably won't come till AMDs Fusion comes out which looks like it won't be till another couple of years from now. For now I'll be looking forward to Penryn if not Nehalem.