E-Machines any good?

**wiggerbeater** · February 11th, 2007, 10:19 PM

I mean I know they arent top of the line or anything... But are they good for what they are supposed to be? As in cheap and decent? Is one even worth getting? Thanks.

**JLK03F150** · February 11th, 2007, 10:33 PM

What do you plan on doing with it? I have a bottom of the line emachine at work & it's fine for MS Office apps & web. It has a Celeron & nothing but onboard video (no add-on slot). It does better since I added 512mb of ram for a total of 768mb-32mb for video.

**#43 fan** · February 11th, 2007, 10:35 PM

Depends what the planned use is: for internet surfing, yes. Gaming/heavy video editing, no. For a cheap PC, they are decent.

**wiggerbeater** · February 11th, 2007, 10:38 PM

are they capable of running the newer games? The reason I'm asking.. I was just at Wal-mart and saw one. They are damn cheap for pretty high specs. I never heard of them before tonight.

**xbanhcuonx** · February 11th, 2007, 10:45 PM

depends...games like maplestory and trickster and such...yes...for games like counterstrike source/halo/halo2/etc./half life...no...<.<...

**RamonGTP** · February 11th, 2007, 11:16 PM

Originally Posted by wiggerbeater

are they capable of running the newer games? The reason I'm asking.. I was just at Wal-mart and saw one. They are damn cheap for pretty high specs. I never heard of them before tonight.

That would depend on this complete specs... No one here can tell you if it will or will not run games just by knowing the name brand. We need to know the guts.

**Lord_Infamous** · February 11th, 2007, 11:40 PM

i had an emachine for 5 years with no problems at all. They are good PC's but they problem is they are not upgrade friendly. The cases also are a bit cheap, but they work perfectly.

**JLK03F150** · February 11th, 2007, 11:47 PM

I agree with Ramon. Some of the emachines are actually pretty nice, but still will require upgrading for gaming. A friend has one with a nice s939 cpu & a pci-e slot, but he's not a gamer so that slot is still empty.

By the time you add ram (because none of them come with enough) and a decent video card it may not be such a great deal anymore.

**RamonGTP** · February 11th, 2007, 11:52 PM

The main achilles heal in emachine's is the power supply. I have replaced many emachine PSU's, they tend not to last more than a couple years, and that is when you use the machine as configured from the store. If you start upgrading your memory and especially adding powerful GPU's, you will most definitely need to replace the power supply.

**RetroEvolute** · February 12th, 2007, 01:08 AM

What Ramon said. I've had to drop a new PSU in a number of people's emachines after they crashed. Two in one week once.

**EXreaction** · February 12th, 2007, 01:11 AM

Find out exactly what specs it had(and if it included a monitor, etc) and the price of it. We will see if we can configure one with the same or better specs for less.

**xbanhcuonx** · February 12th, 2007, 01:15 AM

for the price of a good/decent emachine you can make a better one for a much cheaper price...my system is like...hm........I'd say like 300-400ish tops and it's a pretty decent system...

1.5 gigs of DDR RAM
a 3.0 GHZ Intel 4
XFX 6800XT(should be able to play all the current games right now at decent/higher resolutions)

for 400 bux it's a very good bang for the buck...

**ShawnD1** · February 12th, 2007, 01:44 AM

Originally Posted by wiggerbeater

I mean I know they arent top of the line or anything... But are they good for what they are supposed to be? As in cheap and decent? Is one even worth getting? Thanks.

The one emachines computer I had was good in some ways and bad in other ways. On the good side, it was a great deal for what I got. On the bad side, it was not upgradable at all. It had no AGP slot (most computers at the time had open AGP), only 2 PCI slots (4 slots was standard at the time), no integrated ethernet (typical at the time, but means there's only 1 PCI slot left), only 1 hard drive slot (most computers have 2). Worst of all it had a pathetic power supply, the sticker said it was only rated for 120W (yes watts, not volts).

If I were to get a computer that was not upgradable, I would look more towards one of those tiny computers that's about the size of a Mac Mini, something like this.
My friend has one (not an HP), and it's pretty damn cool

**wiggerbeater** · February 12th, 2007, 09:53 AM

Originally Posted by xbanhcuonx

for the price of a good/decent emachine you can make a better one for a much cheaper price...my system is like...hm........I'd say like 300-400ish tops and it's a pretty decent system...

1.5 gigs of DDR RAM
a 3.0 GHZ Intel 4
XFX 6800XT(should be able to play all the current games right now at decent/higher resolutions)

for 400 bux it's a very good bang for the buck...

ya, but how hard is it to "make" one, when I dont know much about computers?

**wiggerbeater** · February 12th, 2007, 09:56 AM

Originally Posted by ShawnD1

The one emachines computer I had was good in some ways and bad in other ways. On the good side, it was a great deal for what I got. On the bad side, it was not upgradable at all. It had no AGP slot (most computers at the time had open AGP), only 2 PCI slots (4 slots was standard at the time), no integrated ethernet (typical at the time, but means there's only 1 PCI slot left), only 1 hard drive slot (most computers have 2). Worst of all it had a pathetic power supply, the sticker said it was only rated for 120W (yes watts, not volts).

If I were to get a computer that was not upgradable, I would look more towards one of those tiny computers that's about the size of a Mac Mini, something like this.
My friend has one (not an HP), and it's pretty damn cool

that one does look cool, thanks. I will do some more research. can i play decent games on it?

**eagle1** · February 12th, 2007, 10:16 AM

Most recent Walmart E-Machines are actually quite good.
I bought one about 1 and a half years ago and it had an

AMD Sempron CPU
512 Ram
80GB Hard drive
Dual Layer DVD RW
bla bla bla...

It had an open AGP slot so I put in my Radeon 9600 Pro card there.
Then it happenned... not enough power...

I had to replace my PSU (like Ramon said) and everything worked perfectly.
I could play decent games.

I believe that all of the E-mAchines Walmart carries have open PCI-E slots but you should check. If it does, you can upgrade your video card when the time comes. Also, depending on the motherboard, you'll get an integrated video card that can do a decent job at very low resolutions but don't expect much!!! (i.e. Don't expect to play Elder Scrolls Oblivion with it).

Right now, I'm using this PC for recording music. Along with an interface card it does its job.

**xbanhcuonx** · February 12th, 2007, 11:23 AM

it is not hard at all to make one...I was very nervous at first to make one...many people on this forum can tell you this but when I was actually working on it it was a breeze...just ask us and we'll definately answer...i'm only 13 so if I can do it you can do it...<.<...

**420am** · February 12th, 2007, 01:07 PM

Like others have already stated. It will serve you well for basic tasks. E-Machines was purchased by Gateway a few years ago and I believe, oddly enough, that they are currently trying to buy Gateway.