Is this a decent computer?

[orangat]

Wow. Practically worth buying the machine, selling on the graphics card and sticking in a cheap thing. Would make you $900...

No. Quadro cards run professional 3d apps much better than geforce models. A $100 consumer card would be useless for those apps.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Good god. You're at college for studying/working, not gaming.

You're a funny, funny man.

And I'm not even going to be an architect student - my parents said they'd buy it for me instead of the mediocre "baseline" Dell.

So it sounds like a good buy.

[Lemur]

Um, Alex, do you have a use in mind for that video card? Are you going to be using high-end 3D packages or something? If not, you might want to sink the savings into a gaming card. Just an idea ...

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

Well, I might be doing some 3d modeling/rendering stuff *maybe* with an architecture class or two as part of my video-game design minor, but other than that, no serious non-leisure activities that I know of...

Could you sell it for much if you take it out of a Dell without packaging?

And would it differ that much in performance in playing video games? I mean, if it still works fine and stuff, I would probably keep it in there, if just to keep the warranty.

[orangat]

It won't be worth it since the build is probably only abit lower than what you would get by pricing it on newegg. The advantage is the Dell warranty and software.

Don't bother getting that build, its way overkill even if you might be doing some 3d rendering.

[orangat]

You're a funny, funny man.

And I'm not even going to be an architect student - my parents said they'd buy it for me instead of the mediocre "baseline" Dell.

So it sounds like a good buy.

Then that link you posted would be a terrible pc for your needs if you're not going to run professional 3d apps.