Cheapest Dual Core Computer

Crossy

I am looking for a replacement dual core PC. but my budget is between 300-400 - am I being too optimistic!

I also want a decent ram (512 or even 1gig) and at least 80 hard drive size

Any help would be great:T

f1charlie

If you want a base unit only, you can get a Dell 5150 dual core for £328.

See second item down on http://www.wizmarkcomputers.co.uk/hotdealsdell5150.htm.

It says £388 on there, but when you go through to Dell and change the support to one year collect & return it drops to £328.

Charlie

mrmilo69

eBay would be a good bet, or if you're capable or know someone who is, you can build it yourself!

brummybloke

f1charlie wrote:

If you want a base unit only, you can get a Dell 5150 dual core for £328.

See second item down on http://www.wizmarkcomputers.co.uk/hotdealsdell5150.htm.

It says £388 on there, but when you go through to Dell and change the support to one year collect & return it drops to £328.

Charlie

and then go through quidco for an extra 5 % off

PhilL_3

I'm looking for a new dual core too but i'm looking for the base unit only with a budget of 400 quid ex VAT (i will use it for working from home)...

Anyone have any thoughts on this setup? It is to be used for freelance graphic design work (photoshop and illustrator). Any comments would be gratefully received...

Quote from Mesh after haggling a bit with their sales.

ELITE² Value
System Base Price: £ 297.02
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6300 Dual Core Processor(1.86GHz,2MB Cache,1066MHz)
Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition
Mini-Tower Micro ATX Case +250W PSU - Black
ASUS P5B-TMX PCI-Express Mainboard - Pentium® D/Core™ 2 Duo - Micro ATX
1024MB DDR2 533MHz Memory - (2x512MB) [upg £ 35.00]
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer [upg £ 20.00]
SONY 16x Dual Layer DVD Writer +R/-R/RW
512MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro - TV-Out + DVI - PCI-Express [upg £ 60.00]
5.1 High Definition 6 Channel Audio Codec (on-board)
Free Cyberlink Video Editing Suite - 7 titles (oem)
8x USB 2.0 Ports (onboard)
1x Gigabit LAN (onboard)
Classic Warranty - 3 Years Back-to-Base - Parts & Labour
£ 402.02 1 £ 402.02

Delivery Charge: (9am - 6pm) - Mainland UK (O Service) Default £ 17.00
Order Value £ 0.00
Discount £ 27.00
Subtotal £ 419.02
VAT £ 73.33
Total £ 492.35

I also tried haggling with Dell and they managed to give me a price for a similar system for 424 + VAT inc 2 year next day on site warranty

Any ideas if i'm likely to better these deals?

Newbioe by the way, so hi everyone... GREAT SITE :T

brummybloke

PhilL wrote:

I'm looking for a new dual core too but i'm looking for the base unit only with a budget of 400 quid ex VAT (i will use it for working from home)...

Anyone have any thoughts on this setup? It is to be used for freelance graphic design work (photoshop and illustrator). Any comments would be gratefully received...

Quote from Mesh after haggling a bit with their sales.

ELITE² Value
System Base Price: £ 297.02
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6300 Dual Core Processor(1.86GHz,2MB Cache,1066MHz)
Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition
Mini-Tower Micro ATX Case +250W PSU - Black
ASUS P5B-TMX PCI-Express Mainboard - Pentium® D/Core™ 2 Duo - Micro ATX
1024MB DDR2 533MHz Memory - (2x512MB) [upg £ 35.00]
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer [upg £ 20.00]
SONY 16x Dual Layer DVD Writer +R/-R/RW
512MB ATI Radeon X1300 Pro - TV-Out + DVI - PCI-Express [upg £ 60.00]
5.1 High Definition 6 Channel Audio Codec (on-board)
Free Cyberlink Video Editing Suite - 7 titles (oem)
8x USB 2.0 Ports (onboard)
1x Gigabit LAN (onboard)
Classic Warranty - 3 Years Back-to-Base - Parts & Labour
£ 402.02 1 £ 402.02

Delivery Charge: (9am - 6pm) - Mainland UK (O Service) Default £ 17.00
Order Value £ 0.00
Discount £ 27.00
Subtotal £ 419.02
VAT £ 73.33
Total £ 492.35

I also tried haggling with Dell and they managed to give me a price for a similar system for 424 + VAT inc 2 year next day on site warranty

Any ideas if i'm likely to better these deals?

Newbioe by the way, so hi everyone... GREAT SITE :T

i would defintitely get a higher powered psu, i had a 350 watt one but once i had a nvidia 6600gt running on the pc with 2 hard drives and 2 dvdrw the psu packed up.
try and see if you can get a psu upgrade to a 400watt one or higher, it saves messing around in 6 months once you have added something else to your system.

Blacksheep1979

If you are going for a higher powered PSU don't go for a cheapo one as they don't output a constant stable power on all the voltages which can lead to failure would avoid ones by qtech etc.

Also can I ask why you guys are after dual core computers? If its just because thats what television advertising says you want/need you may be better off with a single core processor that runs a little faster as very few applications at the moment take advantage of both cores. They're great if you want to do several fairly intensive things at once like burning/watching dvds and image editing etc but if you are just going to surf the web or play a cd or play a game or even have a word doccument open and a web browser its not overly important to have 2 cores.

devils_advocate

f1charlie wrote:

If you want a base unit only, you can get a Dell 5150 dual core for £328.

See second item down on http://www.wizmarkcomputers.co.uk/hotdealsdell5150.htm.

It says £388 on there, but when you go through to Dell and change the support to one year collect & return it drops to £328.

Charlie

Looks a great deal. I'm not too sure of the onboard graphics though. If I were to put in a separate video card, would this effectively sidestep the onboard graphics, and mean that I wouldn't be penalised on the performance?

f1charlie

devils_advocate wrote:

Looks a great deal. I'm not too sure of the onboard graphics though. If I were to put in a separate video card, would this effectively sidestep the onboard graphics, and mean that I wouldn't be penalised on the performance?

I see they have updated the price now on http://www.wizmarkcomputers.co.uk/hotdealsdell5150.htm.

Assuming the motherboard has a PCI-Express slot (and I'm guessing it's the same motherboard in all 5150 models so it will), you should be able to add a graphics card, disable the onboard graphics in the BIOS (unless it is done automatically when a graphics card is added) and get a boost in graphics performance.

Charlie

Crossy

Thanks for your replies the one from Charlie is really interesting as it has a monitor as well. Could someone please explain how to use quidco for the 5% discount?

Thanks

f1charlie

Go to https://www.quidco.com, register, click on link to dell through the quidco website and wait for your rebate to come through to your quidco account. You can elect to have it paid into your bank or Paypal account.

Quidco take the first £5 you earn, but everything after that is yours!

Note Dell rebate is only 4.5% now.

Charlie