New video card needed

[kandrathe]

The question is, "Will they really take it to the "Geek Squad" or whomever -- or will they continue to call you anyway?"

If it's the later, then I would tell them that since you're going to be their repair guy you'd also want to design a reliable and flexible system.

If so, then I guess I would start at a site like;

Entry Level; http://pcpartpicker.com/guide/gcTwrH/ent...ming-build

Ultimate; http://pcpartpicker.com/guide/pYgXsY/glo...ming-build

Then scale up or down to your budget. The high end machines build cost is ~44% on 2x SLI video cards.

I'd second LennyLen's take on HP. I've spent way too much time troubleshooting issues with friends and family HP or Dell machines. And, since they're proprietary, they have more limited upgrade and replacement paths. Now that I've invested in some standard solid steel ATX cases, with decent power supplies; to replace the CPU/Mobo/Ram or Video, or peripherals is a matter of shopping for the BEST components I can afford when I need to replace a bit of it. And, only the bits I need to replace.

But, like with my youngest son's machine "Jörmungandr" (which was a low-end $500 iBuyPower machine that sort of sucked but, was OK for a 7 year old); I just spent $250 on an video upgrade (Video, PS, Monitor), which is has better video than the $1200 machine "Ragnarök" I built for myself 3 years ago. The next upgrade for him will be the peripherals, SSD+HD(s) and then in a year, or so I might start thinking about Mobo-CPU-Ram for him again.

My eldest son is using an HP Pavilion 23-h070 Touch All-in-One he inherited from his grandmother, but I also gifted him my old ATX machne we call "Den Mörka Ängeln". We plan to make it into something useful together this summer.