A lot of people will tell you to build your own, which is really the best idea, but I know that sometimes this just isn't comfotable for some people who have never done so. I certainly was not comfortable buying a thousand dollars of parts and then maybe being able to put it together without breaking something.

If you must buy pre-built, here is some advice:

- Do not buy a refurbished computer if you can help it.
- Do not buy an Alienware. They're just Dell computers with nice cases that had the prices jacked up.
- Do not buy a computer from someone on ebay.
- Do not buy a computer from Target, Walmart, The Dollar Store, etc. The descriptions provided with the computers they sell do not give enough information about their product nor are the staff as knowlegable about their products as someone at Frys or Best Buy may be.
- If you can avoid it, don't buy a "gaming laptop". 99% of the time, a desktop is going to be cheaper and more powerful.

I use a Gateway NV78 laptop, but you're probably better off building one.

My laptop runs MC pretty well, and minimal lag when playing CS:S

Please do not buy a prebuilt one. Just build one, you'll end up saving so much and you'll get better specs than a more expensive prebuilt one.

Whenever I buy / upgrade my parts I normally go for the ones that are just a bit more expensive than average, because more likely than not they'll both be better and last longer. [/quote]

They are quality parts actually, I just got them cheap. The RAM had a 5-year warranty, I just never got around to actually sending it back because I never noticed the difference. AMD are the second-best processor manufactorers and my MoBo is ASUS too.

I know what you mean though, I was gonna buy a cheap Radeon 7870 and figured "Hey, extra £50 and I can get this Gigabyte 7950 which is massively more powerful and a known brand", so I went for it

Silvania StudiosI've got an AMD FX8100 machine, 12gb RAM. I had a basic graphics card and I'd get 30FPS with Minecraft, Skype, Chrome, iTunes and various other things at once.

Just upgraded to a Radeon 7950 graphics card and I got about double that. Then my PSU died :P

at any rate, relatively cheap parts. I think I payed around £300 for the processor, 16GB of ram (One stick died) and the motherboard but that was 18 months ago.

Whenever I buy / upgrade my parts I normally go for the ones that are just a bit more expensive than average, because more likely than not they'll both be better and last longer. :P

I've got an AMD FX8100 machine, 12gb RAM. I had a basic graphics card and I'd get 30FPS with Minecraft, Skype, Chrome, iTunes and various other things at once.

Just upgraded to a Radeon 7950 graphics card and I got about double that. Then my PSU died

at any rate, relatively cheap parts. I think I payed around £300 for the processor, 16GB of ram (One stick died) and the motherboard but that was 18 months ago.

Build your own.

For minecraft you dont need much to do that stuff without lag. Nvidia GT620 or above is perfect. Intel i3 or AMD equivilant will do too. 4gb of ram or more preferably. Use these as guidelines

http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-x51-r2/pd.aspx
Or build your own