Hey Harm! You're just the one I was hoping to hear from, since I've admired your answers to other discussions here.
Yeah, on the desktop thing, our techie priced out a similar HP Pavilion h8xt, with the following configuration:
Genuine Windows 7 Professional [64-bit]
Intel Core i7-2600 quad-core processor
8GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM
1TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
1GB DDR3 Radeon HD 6670
600W Power supply
Blu-ray writer & SuperMulti DVD burner
Overall, a very similar machine to the laptop with the notable exception of the processor, since the Core i7-2600 is quite a bit higher performance than the 2630QM, but otherwise virtually identical systems. Price ended up being almost identical. $1169 for the laptop, $1159 for the desktop, and that's not including a monitor for the desktop which we'd have to buy in addition to the system. Certainly the desktop would give us easy ability to add more memory and hard drives, but the inital price looks pretty similar.
Meanwhile, we priced out a system we'd build from components, and came up with:
Intel Core i7 2600 LGA 1155 Boxed Processor
$250
ASUS P8P67 R3.1 LGA 1155 P67 ATX Intel Motherboard
$130
Crucial Ballistix Sport Series 12GB DDR3-1600
$80
Cooler Master Elite 430 Mid Tower Computer Case
$40
Cooler Master Extreme Power Plus 700W ATX Power Supply
$95
LG 12X SATA Blu-Ray DVD Burner
$90
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit
$150
Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000 1.5TB SATA 6Gb/s 3.5"
$50
HIS H667F1GD AMD Radeon HD 6670 1024MB GDDR5 PCIe
$85
So we can make it ourselves for right at a thousand dollars (and get 12 gig of memory rather than 8), but dunno if the savings is worth losing customer service and warranty from HP.
On the video card, you prefer the GeForce to the Radeon's in general or you're suggesting that particular card for this situation? Thanks!!
