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

denys

Get yourself a 7600GS for less than £100. Anything lower is sort of pointless due to price/productivity margins and anything higher is bottlenecked by 820, only 512 MB of memory and especially crappy foxconn’s board on i945G. You do not need any additional power for GS. It is also passively cooled – no small and noisy 7600GT fan, which would compromise a quiet Hell machine. At basic spec you still would be able to get over 2000 in 3DMark 2006, which is ok for fear or oblivion on 1280:1024 at medium settings, bloom and 4x antialiasing (should get 15-20 playable FPS in action) and at least a two years future-proof.

Recommended update path for 5150: HDD as and if required (only one free slot and needs a SATA cable) > graphics (as above) > memory (at least another 512 @ 533MHz , that is if you have 533 modules in already – make sure you use matching modules that will go into two unoccupied slots or replace existing. If you use only one of unoccupied slots lets say with 512Mb 533 memory youd loose on dual channel mode) > processor (up to P650, anything else is really pointless due to chipset limitations) > soundcard if you are finicky and have adequate speakers.

And I am not saying that you NEED to do all that, - just for info.

Whirly

scottgreenwood - I apologise if I offended you - I simply disagreed with your statements where a lot of MSE'ers are concerned.

I'm not going to reply to anything you said in your reply as I have no wish to upset you further EXCEPT to say that I'm playing Oblivion quite happily using my X800GT. The detail levels are around 3/4 of max @ 1280x1024 and the only time I experience slowdowns are when there are a *lot* of enemies attacking at the same time.

BUT...I would be ecstatic if I could afford a 7900GT (who wouldn't be?) and I'm sure it would allow me to max Oblivion out. Some of us are happy to just play the latest games but all of us would love to play them how they were really meant to look.

So I wish you great fun with your PC.

fox2319

Got an X800 GTO2 on ebay for £100. Seems to be one of the best cards for those of us who don't mind some fan noise when playing games (and the speakers are usually up to loud anyway) It _does_ need a connection to the PSU but this comes with a cable which is an absolute doddle to fit.

Performance is no slouch either, Oblivion is very smooth and seems to be detailed enough for me. Half Life 2 gets 120 fps in the stress test at 1280x1024. Excellent buy.

Cheers

Jeff

JIT_3

Could i install XP Home on my 5150 and put XP Media Center onto another PC?

I paid the extra for the disc.

denys

Whirly wrote:

I'm playing Oblivion quite happily using my X800GT. The detail levels are around 3/4 of max @ 1280x1024 and the only time I experience slowdowns are when there are a *lot* of enemies attacking at the same time.

That is you CPU most likely, type "tdt" in the console (press “`”) and check queue and sleep.

Ditto

James's_Dad wrote:

I ordered one of these pc's last Saturday.

I did'nt get a confirmation email from Dell confirming delivery date/time. But A man from Business Post (the couriers) phoned on Wednesday night at 8.30pm to say the pc would be delivered Thursday .am, which left me very little time to organise a morning off to accept the delivery:mad:
Anyway the pc did not arrive .am so I had to phone the depot who said it would now arrive around 4pm. Which ment I had to book a full day off work:mad: Finally the pc was delivered 5.15pm ( the courier apologized for the fact that I had to phone the depot (they should had phoned me) but if I contacted Dell they would possibily give compensation for the wasted day I spent waiting.

Would I be able to claim compensation for the wrong delivery time etc?

Sorry to quote myself;)

After complaining to Dell I received this email:D

> Dear Customer,
>
> Thank you for contacting Dell Online Customer Care.
>
> We apologize for any inconvenience this issue may have caused and for
> waking you up on a Sunday morning. I am sorry for the same. I only
> intended to sort the issue out at the earliest.
>
> However if you may retain the order for a refund of 50.00 GBP to your
> account I shall raise a refund request for it. Please reply and we shall
> proceed accordingly.
>
> Should you have any further queries please do not hesitate to reply to
> this mail directly.

So £400 less £50 less £12 (Quidco) = £338. Not bad for a decent pc with a 19" tft;)

rogerramjet

JIT wrote:

Could i install XP Home on my 5150 and put XP Media Center onto another PC?

I paid the extra for the disc.

Yes, however you would need a serial number for xp home as the serial number you would have had for xp MCE would need to be used on the other system you put it on.

Ditto

rogerramjet wrote:

Yes, however you would need a serial number for xp home as the serial number you would have had for xp MCE would need to be used on the other system you put it on.

How do you get a copy of MCE off the pc to put on another pc?

rogerramjet

James's_Dad wrote:

How do you get a copy of MCE off the pc to put on another pc?

The poster mentioned he had a disc....I assumed XP MCE. I'm aware that on the Dell laptops there was the option to create a restore disk and I'd assume if a disk is not supplied then the option should be available on desktops units as well

link below to the thread where it explained how to make a restore cd

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=183067&highlight=dell

The_Geek

How important is a graphics card for things like watching online video streams or using webcams? Will upgrading to a £30-£50 graphics card offer any improvement over the onboard offering?

You won't see a difference. If thats all you want to do, save yourself £50 and stick to the onboard.

Could i install XP Home on my 5150 and put XP Media Center onto another PC?

No. Dell supply OEM versions of Windows which are only licensed for that particular PC. The disk you have ordered will only work with Dell PC's and maybe even locked to that particular model.