For computer geeks, I need a new computer

PADZZ

I've built this one at Dell. Is there something I don't need or DO need in this build? Basically, it'll be for net surfing, downloading and watching videos, maybe trying DVD burning. I won't be doing gaming, but do want a fairly fast and something that won't be obsolete next month. I don't know what all the duo, and quad and all that means.
Also, I've read bad reviews on Vista, so I guess I'll stick w/ XP home. I was going to get the 500gb external HD to back up pics and music.

Here's the specs:

PROCESSOR Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E6600 (4MB L2 Cache,2.4GHz,1066 FSB) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition with re-installation CD edit
MEMORY 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz- 2DIMMs edit
HARD DRIVE 320GB Serial ATA 3Gb/s Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™ edit
OPTICAL DRIVE 8x DVD+/-RW Drive edit
MONITORS 20 inch E207WFP Widescreen Digital Flat Panel edit
VIDEO CARD 128MB ATI Radeon X1300 edit
SOUND CARD Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio edit
KEYBOARD & MOUSE MX 3200 Laser Cordless Keyboard and Mouse edit
FLOPPY & MEDIA READER Dell 19 in 1 Media Card Reader edit
My Software & Accessories
PRINTER Dell Wireless AIO 966 - Integrated WiFi, Fax, 2.4” Display and Card Reader edit
SERVICE & SUPPORT 1Yr Ltd. Warranty, 1 yr HW Warranty Support, 1 yr Advance Exchange edit
DELL 966 PRINTER Dell All-In-One Printer 966 edit
SPEAKERS Dell AS501PA 10W Flat Panel Attached Spkrs for Analog Flat Panels edit

DESKTOP ACCESSORIES Western Digital 500GB 7200RPM USB 2.0 External Hard Drive edit

audiobliss

Looks like a good setup to me. Good processor, RAM and HD specs. If you're not that demanding a user, I'm not sure what else is really important.

How much is Dell wanting for a setup like that? You could build it for about $800, I'm guessing.

Serendipity

Looks good to me. If this were up to me, I wouldn't spend much more on a computer like that.

IMO, it's not really worth it these days to go all out and spend LOTS of $$$ on a new computer. Something that is more middle-of-the-road or just one model less than the "latest and greatest" is probably better for your wallet.

Been through this before (for example, a $400 graphics card depreciates FAST!)

But all in all, it's a good computer.

PADZZ

It's basically $1,800 shipped. That's with the 20" monitor, external 500gb HD and a wireless printer. I wouldn't know how to build one anyway. Thanks.

Early B.

PADZZ wrote: »

It's basically $1,800 shipped. That's with the 20" monitor, external 500gb HD and a wireless printer.

At that price, you're paying several hundred dollars too much.

Refefer

How about this one instead?

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E4500 (2MB L2 Cache,2.20GHz,800 FSB),
22″ Widescreen Digital Flat Panel,
Vista Premium,
Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100,
2GB SDRAM,
250GB (7200 RPM) Serial ATA Hard Drive w/DataBurst Cache,
16X DVD+/-RW Drive,
1 Yr Ltd Warranty, 1 Yr At-Home Service

Not quite as powerful as the machine you listed, but you can can buy 3 of them for the price you're looking at. Buy the rest at your local store and save about $1000.

PADZZ

Refefer wrote: »

How about this one instead?

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E4500 (2MB L2 Cache,2.20GHz,800 FSB),
22″ Widescreen Digital Flat Panel,
Vista Premium,
Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100,
2GB SDRAM,
250GB (7200 RPM) Serial ATA Hard Drive w/DataBurst Cache,
16X DVD+/-RW Drive,
1 Yr Ltd Warranty, 1 Yr At-Home Service

Not quite as powerful as the machine you listed, but you can can buy 3 of them for the price you're looking at. Buy the rest at your local store and save about $1000.

Thanks a ton! Looks like that coupon code will work on any one configured, so that's atleast another $200 off (I was still going to check currentcodes.com), but thanks!

bigaudiofanatic

I am going to warn you now I do not care what you buy but from what I have worked on and fixed. DO NOT BUY A DELL. Some people are going to reply that they have had nothing bad happen with dells but let me tell you. THERE ARE BETTER DEALS OUT THERE. In fact if you want to upgrade anything on that dell you have to buy the stuff from them. But hey this is my warning. But you do what you will.

shadowofnight

bigaudiofanatic wrote: »

I am going to warn you now I do not care what you buy but from what I have worked on and fixed. DO NOT BUY A DELL. Some people are going to reply that they have had nothing bad happen with dells but let me tell you. THERE ARE BETTER DEALS OUT THERE. In fact if you want to upgrade anything on that dell you have to buy the stuff from them. But hey this is my warning. But you do what you will.

That was YEARS ago...today dells use the same hardware you get anywhere else....same cpu's...same memory...same PCI-E video cards...same PCI cards....same power supplies......same hard drives ( IDE or SATA ) ...same dvd burners....everything is identical to whats on the market. There is nothing inside a dell anymore that is proprietary. Even the laptops use the same cpu's...memory....hard discs and even the same slim dvd burner drives.


Go here .... http://www.dealcatcher.com/dell-home-coupons

and here http://www.dealcatcher.com/dell-sb-coupons if you want the best deals on dells. To use the small business just make up a company name...they could care less.

Blanket statements like that against dells are ridiculous....in about 100 to 120 purchases ( Laptops and desktops ) over the last 3 years...I have had 2...yes 2...failures in all...both were dvdburner drives in laptops that dell sent out to me immediately....I would say that was as near perfect a reliability record as could be.

On my own dells ( I mostly build my own custom pc's....but sometimes you get OUTRAGEOUS deals with dell.) I change out ram from newegg...add really cool slot drive dvdburners into the laptops...change cpu's out for higher speeds....everything

Where a lot of people have problems is with dells OS load...they suck horribly...too much bloatware running in the background...combine that with vista's immaturity with drivers and hardware and its a recipe for disaster.

If you want a dell to run SWEET...wipe dells vista off completely...wait till it matures....load a fresh copy of XP on it ( SP2 for any version of course ) and it will be awesome....the hardware IS THE SAME and works killer.....its the bloatware that screws you.....believe me...I dont just do a couple here and there...I do a LOT.

ben62670

bigaudiofanatic wrote: »

I am going to warn you now I do not care what you buy but from what I have worked on and fixed. DO NOT BUY A DELL. Some people are going to reply that they have had nothing bad happen with dells but let me tell you. THERE ARE BETTER DEALS OUT THERE. In fact if you want to upgrade anything on that dell you have to buy the stuff from them. But hey this is my warning. But you do what you will.

I would have to disagree with this statement. A few years back Dell used a lot of proprietary hardware that required you to use there parts. They have finally come around (more than most other manufactures) realizing that people like to upgrade their computers. If you are not into gaming any computer with a Dual core, and 2 gigs of ram with more than suffice for your needs. I am a big fan of AMD, but the Intel's are ahead of the game right now. If you take your time, and shop smart you can get a complete computer for $700.

Ben
Owner of Computer Repair and Networking

Edit.
If you go under small office home office you can still get XP on new Dells

bigaudiofanatic

Well by all means disagree my freind just bought one not more than a mounth ago and wanted to upgrade RAM gues what he could not put gaming ram in. He had to order whatever dell had. But like I said whatever.

shadowofnight

bigaudiofanatic wrote: »

Well by all means disagree my freind just bought on not more than a mounth ago and wanted to upgrade RAM gues what he could not put gamming ram in he had to order whatever dell had. But like I said whatever.

The problem with "Gaming" ram is it's SPD chip is programmed OUT of tolerance from ram standards.....he could buy ram from Crucial, Kingston,PQI, etc that would work perfectly. There are many motherboards from abit...asus...msi...etc that are not stable with some gaming ram because of the out of the norm specification SPD chip ...you have to go into the BIOS and change parameters ( CAS latency...strobe cycles..etc ) to get them stable.

Had nothing to do with it being a dell. Hell my favorite gaming ram of all time Mushkin, I have had to adj bios parameters...vdimm voltage..etc to get the most out of it in a stable manner.

kingofgames0304

though i dont know any specifics because i dont care for dell in the least. my cousin's wife has a dell and its crappin on her. her second dell by the way, its a sign

shadowofnight

Nice first post .....specifics or its a worthless statement

bigaudiofanatic

Hello and welcome kingofgame0304 also know as joe "my freind". Yes some details.

lomic

When you say DVD burning, are you planning to burn movies? As in rent a movie from netflix and winkwinknudgenudge burn it to a standard DVD?

In this is the case, I would swing for a Quad Core CPU, as media encoding applications have been among the first to be made multi-threaded (meaning they can use multiple cores) - so your encoding time could theoretically be cut in half with a Quad core and the right software.

ben62670

I have backed up DVDs to a standard DVD in less than 20 minutes with an old school opteron 165, any dual core will do it fine. Quad cores for desktops is silly. People are under the understanding that duals perform so much better than single cores. Yes they are better, but not by the amount that the average person thinks. Also the Quads are either silly expensive, or have slow individual core clocks. Yes performance test show the ability of duals to way out perform singles, but in reality people put way to much emphasis on the latest technology when programs are not written to fully use the potential of the multi core CPU's. Like I said $700 is plenty to get a real nice computer that will do anything you through at it.

phipiper10

Do you need 7.1 sound card? Are you going to be running HT from this thing?

Graphics card- a serious one is only necessary if you are serious gamer otherwise something lesser would be fine for watching a couple of things or for everyday desktop use.
All in all I'm sure these things aren't much but they all add up.

The mones is for HD, memory and the processor primarily - Looks good though- Enjoy!

mrbigbluelight

Another good spot to check for computer deals is Bensbargains.net

http://bensbargains.net/category/5


With the price of computers nowadays, you shouldn't be spending over $1000.

fatchowmein

ben62670 wrote: »

I have backed up DVDs to a standard DVD in less than 20 minutes with an old school opteron 165, any dual core will do it fine. Quad cores for desktops is silly. People are under the understanding that duals perform so much better than single cores. Yes they are better, but not by the amount that the average person thinks. Also the Quads are either silly expensive, or have slow individual core clocks. Yes performance test show the ability of duals to way out perform singles, but in reality people put way to much emphasis on the latest technology when programs are not written to fully use the potential of the multi core CPU's. Like I said $700 is plenty to get a real nice computer that will do anything you through at it.

I'm with Ben on this one. Unless you've hooked up a home server with multiple drives and you're streaming video and music to multiple parts of the house concurrently while downloading huge multimedia files while running quickpar and winrar and ripping DVD's/CD's all at the same time, I doubt you'll need a Quad. Even then the bottleneck will be the drives.

On the other hand, if you've got the budget and that's what you want, more power to ya. Have fun!

shawn474

I've purchased 3 dells in the last year - one for work, one for home and a laptop. Got all three at a great deal through my job. All had Vista - all were wiped and i installed XP. I LOVE these machines. Could you find a better deal elsewhere? Sure you can. But I will always pay a little more for peace of mind. Their customer service is fantastic in the dealings that I have had with them. Good luck getting that type of service with a lot of other companies out there.

Shawn

shadowofnight

Lasareath wrote: »

John, you are Correct. Thursday night I was at a client, they went ahead and bought a new dell without consulting me and ordered Vista!!!!, Oh God, I will never order that OS. It is a Piece o Crap.

This particullar machine would not accept XP SP2. Every time I got to around 34 minutes in the install it would lock up. Server 2003 the same thing. Also XP SP1.

So I installed XP x64 edition and it worked like a charm. I was there 12 hours, @ $100 per hour!!! woo hoo!!!, I bet next time they will consult me before buying a system on their own!, HA!!!

Sal

Wow...that is really strange....for the XP SP2 load you pressed F6 at the beginning to load your hard drive controllers own driver correct ? Doing the F6 and loading my own driver I have never had an OS not load ....it looked like to me your XP x64 OS had the correct controller driver for the hardware ( But then again , If it was a new load on a clean drive it wouldnt have even seen the drive to begin loading if it didnt recognize the controller it was hooked up too ). Very strange....but glad it worked out for you

Vista will mature just like XP did with the release of SP1 and SP2 ....but for now its crap....add dells bloatware and its like Sal says...a Piece O Crap

As for Shawn....same experience here... as well as all my friends and family....the hardware is great....flush the OS and the Dells are great.
I have always had awesome customer service as well...you have to let them know YOU have already troubleshot the issue ....then you TELL them what they are sending you...has worked perfect everytime for me.

Sami

First thing when you order a pre-made computer is uninstall all the crap, including Norton, and also clean out the services and startup. Can't say I like Dell but it's the same with any pre-made company out there.

sophie

i would say go with a amd 64x2 6000+. it is much faster than anything intell has for that price. (i have no clue what dell has for processors/mobo's and what they charge) just saying if i were buying from newegg thats what i would use/am using.

exalted512

IMO, AMD is more expensive per performance right now than Intel.
-Cody

Kinetic

hello PADZZ

1.- 2GB of ram
Advise: Choose the "No Cost" RAM Option, and then buy the RAM on Best Buy, circuit city, or even better Ebay.

DELL over charges the RAM.

2.- Integrated Sound CARD
Dude buy the Audigy, its worth it, and you can connect it to your home audio system.

3.- Floppy
I dont think you are going to use it, but since is a desktop maybe its ok

4.-Printer
Buy a HP or Epson

5.-Warranty
buy the 3 years warranty thats the best thing about DELL, becouse its not the best computer, but the warranty makes it the best option.