Dell 5150 Dual Core 2.8GHz inc 19" LCD Monitor & Free Printer £429 (merged)

Whirly

wildeep wrote:

any ideas about the cheapest place to get one?

The usual suspects really - most online computer shops will stock them. Just remember to get PCI-E.

BTW I have no idea if these will fit/work in the 5150 (extra power connector needed?) so please be do some research first.

Of course, you could always just pick up an X600 which, as Dell were putting them in themselves, are pretty certain to be fine. The bonus is that you don't get that nasty hypermemory. *shudders*

Pretty_Thing

wildeep wrote:

any ideas about the cheapest place to get one?

Just bought a Gigabyte 6600GT 128MB off ebay for £50 new - they go for about £100 at most online stores. Evidently the mid-range cards are fine with the stock PSU.

If you go to the Dell forums - link on their web site - there is a whole group dedicated to Dimension models, with sub sections about graphics and upgrading (ive been reading it avidly) It appears that Dell underate their power supplies and the stock one is quite adequate for most mid-range cards.

Depends what your requirements are really. A GeForce 7900GTX would certainly need an upgraded power supply.

Whirly

Pretty_Thing wrote:

Just bought a Gigabyte 6600GT 128MB off ebay for £50 new - they go for about £100 at most online stores. Evidently the mid-range cards are fine with the stock PSU.

You must let us know how you get on when you install it.

jase_uk_2

AJP558 wrote:

Why not just burn your own XP CD?

All the Dell's I bought recently (inc a Dimension 5150 & Inspiron 1300) had an option under the Start Menu/Programs/Dell Accessories allowing you to burn one XP CD. The option disappears once that has been burnt. You can then format the hard drive and do a fresh install of XP from scratch (ovbiously download the Dell h/w drivers and burn them to CD first).

I have looked under Dell Accesories and the only thing listed is 'driver reset tool' , it has no option to burn a disc. Help!! , also if i can get hold of a wondows disc, what do i do about a serial number?

Pretty_Thing

jase_uk wrote:

I have looked under Dell Accesories and the only thing listed is 'driver reset tool' , it has no option to burn a disc. Help!! , also if i can get hold of a wondows disc, what do i do about a serial number?

XP serial number will be on the MS sticker usually fixed to the case side or rear - (not received my 5150 yet so dont know for sure). Just make sure the copy of XP that you use is exactly what you have installed on your PC. ie XP Home SP2 ot XP Pro SP2 - the serial number is specific to the OS - not each CD, otherwise your installation will fail.

Pretty_Thing

Whirly wrote:

You must let us know how you get on when you install it.

Yeah will do. 5150 due for delivery this week sometime

wildeep

Whirly wrote:

The bonus is that you don't get that nasty hypermemory. *shudders*

excuse my ignorance - what's hypermemory? also, what's all this stuff about needing a power supply for certain graphics cards?

sorry i'm so computer dumb!

amancalledchip

from the ati website...

"HyperMemory gives ATI and its board partners the option to deliver cards with less on-board memory and instead use system memory to handle the graphics storage requirements. The result is a lower overall PC cost for the same great graphics performance".

But its not as good as a proper video card lol

Cab00se

bookshifter wrote:

Thanks for the alternative number, gdh82

Fingers crossed I hope I can secure a similar discount to what Cab00se got. I am not too good at this type of thing. I'd prefer to get a discount as opposed to returning it. I assume that Dell's Customer Service is a 24hr operation, I got no chance to call them from work! My system is supposed to come between 5-9 tonight!

Any others who got the £399 deal trying for a discount?

How did you get on phoning them?

I really hate using the phone, much prefer e-mail, but have to say dell's indian call center was actually pretty good in this instance :eek: Got through straight away, and "Amit" was easy to understand, he understood my accent, and he was really helpful. :money:

Oh, mine was the £439 deal not the £399 one.

Whirly

wildeep wrote:

excuse my ignorance - what's hypermemory? also, what's all this stuff about needing a power supply for certain graphics cards?

sorry i'm so computer dumb!

No Problem wildeep.

Hypermemory is basically a way of conning the buyer....

ATI X300 128Mb ...ACTUAL memory = 32Mb.
ATI X600 256Mb ...ACTUAL memory = 128Mb

The quoted figures refer to the maximum memory the card can address...and it gets the difference from your RAM.

The thing is, you can get a true 128mb or 256mb card for less than Dell charge for the hypermemory ones. But far, far worse, IMO, is that they do not mention the truth about the cards anywhere the average buyer is going to look.

So if you sell a card as 256Mb and fail to clearly state it's actually 128Mb I believe you are mis-selling.

As for why hypermemory is bad, well the memory the card takes from your RAM is bad in 2 ways:

1. It's much slower than on-boad video memory.
2. Stealing memory from your PC slows it down.


Power supplies:

More powerful video cards (eg Geforce 7900) require a large amount of power to run. The PSU supplied with the Dell is nominally 305w (though I hear it is actually 400W+ peak which is how most PSU's are rated) and this is not enough for the big beast video cards.

Hope that helps.