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

wildeep

scottgreenwood wrote:

PS Get a 7900gt and fit with a zalman coller vf-900 (ultra quiet). Replace dvd drive with a lowestontheweb £25 dvd-rewriter, sell the dvd player for £12 on ebay (it is soo loud). I did!

is fitting this thing easy?

so is there enough power from the 5150 if you just plug this graphics card into the pci-e slot?

where's the best place to buy the above two things? graphics card and zalman

scottgreenwood

wildeep wrote:

is fitting this thing easy?

so is there enough power from the 5150 if you just plug this graphics card into the pci-e slot?

where's the best place to buy the above two things? graphics card and zalman

1. 7900GT and zalaman fan

Gainward BLISS Geforce 7900 GT 256MB £211.54 (this week only!!) here

Zalman fan vf900 fan £24.62 here

Total cost is £236.16

The zalman fan is straight forward to fit and comes with clear instructions. It keeps the card much cooler and is extermely quiet!! The card it self does not have enough power from the motherboard, you need to plug a cable in the back of the card and hook up to the PSU directly. This means taking up the 2 power cables which provide power to dvd drives.

No worries, buy a y-cable splitter as well: £1.76 here

Total order cost including delivery: £246

This is peanuts! Especially when you will own a £646 pound system that performs better than most £1000 systems

wildeep

scottgreenwood wrote:

1. 7900GT and zalaman fan

Gainward BLISS Geforce 7900 GT 256MB £211.54 (this week only!!) here

Zalman fan vf900 fan £24.62 here

Total cost is £236.16

The zalman fan is straight forward to fit and comes with clear instructions. It keeps the card much cooler and is extermely quiet!! The card it self does not have enough power from the motherboard, you need to plug a cable in the back of the card and hook up to the PSU directly. This means taking up the 2 power cables which provide power to dvd drives.

No worries, buy a y-cable splitter as well: £1.76 here

Total order cost including delivery: £246

This is peanuts! Especially when you will own a £646 pound system that performs better than most £1000 systems

nice1 cheers for the help

bookshifter

Is there a consensus on what the best graphics card the 5150 can take without fiddling with the power supply, ie. a card where all I need to do is install it to the PCI-E slot and switch the lead from onboard to the newly installed card?

BTW I have had my machine for nearly a month and so far so good (I got the 512RAM/80GBHD) £399 variety - so far the only things that annoy me are the quality of the mouse and the fact of not having a CD burner as standard ..... minor but noticeable niggles!

fairytooth

swapmeetpete wrote:

I'd pay extra to NOT have McAfee

me too :rotfl:

fairytooth

bookshifter wrote:

Is there a consensus on what the best graphics card the 5150 can take without fiddling with the power supply, ie. a card where all I need to do is install it to the PCI-E slot and switch the lead from onboard to the newly installed card?

BTW I have had my machine for nearly a month and so far so good (I got the 512RAM/80GBHD) £399 variety - so far the only things that annoy me are the quality of the mouse and the fact of not having a CD burner as standard ..... minor but noticeable niggles!

Get a wireless k/b and optical mouse for under £20. Same with DVD burner - and easy to install. Several links in the Techie thread.

fox2319

bookshifter wrote:

Is there a consensus on what the best graphics card the 5150 can take without fiddling with the power supply, ie. a card where all I need to do is install it to the PCI-E slot and switch the lead from onboard to the newly installed card?

BTW I have had my machine for nearly a month and so far so good (I got the 512RAM/80GBHD) £399 variety - so far the only things that annoy me are the quality of the mouse and the fact of not having a CD burner as standard ..... minor but noticeable niggles!

Installing one of the PCI-E grfx cards which need the power connecter isn't really difficult. There's even a clip on top of the CPU cooler to make the cables a bit tidier.

I installed a X800 GTO2 last week, it took longer to get the PC out and the case off than it did to install the card. Very nice case too with no need for tools.

In addition, the BIOS is probably already set to 'auto' for the grfx card, it should use a PCI-E card if present or the on-board one if not.

Cheers

Jeff

scottgreenwood

Purchasing a card that does not require you to plug it in to the psu directly is a waste of time guys. These cards will only be able to play games at half decent detail this year, and next year probably only at lowest. In terms of depreciation, the x800 will drop furtjer in price than the £200 7900gts you can pick up just now (don't ask me where, search the web)

You are playing into the hands of dell if you buy a card that doesn't require plugging into the psu. It is clear that they have reduced the power from the pci-e slot to discourage upgrading (epxecting someone to plug in a card see the "no enough power box" and send the card back).

There is a problem - some of you guys missed out on the double ram deal. 512mb ram will be the minimum on most games. You will probably have to upgrade to 1 gig (or 1.5) to take advantage of any high-end graphics card.

borgs

biglugs wrote:

borgs
If you have an E196FP and you are having these problems I would first check your gamma settings and contrast/brightness are all OK. If they are then I would ask for your monitor to be replaced because I have one of these and it is very sharp and even with equal colour/brightness across all of it.

Sorry I'm a bit confused... I've just installed the TFT driver and still cannot find a way of changing the gamma settings on the PC except by changing the red, green and blue values from the TFT menu itself. Is that what you meant?

Thanks

biglugs

If you are using the onboard graphics you probably can't change the gamma settings? I don't so I can't tell you how to adjust them, but maybe someone else can.
It sounds to me then as if your TFT is duff and you should contact Dell and demand a replacement.

As for the Dell mouse that comes with these you're probably better off doing what I did. I threw it away! Worthless piece of junk - I bought a Saitek optical mouse for about £10 and it's in a different league.

If people want a graphics card without a separate power connector I think the 7600GTs are about the highest you can go? I'm about to upgrade mine from a 6600GT and I'm debating whether to get one of these, or bite the bullet and spend the cash to get a 7800 or 7900. However I need to buy this late at night and get it delivered to work so she doesn't find out about it