dell desktop query and viiv

Lady_K

If I got the one for £639 on here http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/desktops_better?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs
and added speakers which processor would I be better off getting? The viiv one is pre selected included in price but the other doesnt cost any more to select that. I may stay on winxp if I dont like vista so will this choice matter afterwards

Intel® Viiv™ Core™ 2 Duo E6400 Processor (2.13GHz, 1066MHz, 2MB) [Included in Price]

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6400 Processor (2.13GHz, 1066MHz, 2MB) add £0.00

Also is it better to have 2 sep hardrives of 160gb than just one at 340gb? is it worth paying a bit extra for it

offers stay on till end of jan but the free delivery ends at midnight tonight do you think its a good deal or should I wait till vistas properly out etc?

pizzaboy

I wouldnt worry too much about the offer running out there will be other deals,with other manufacterors,myself..id wait a bit longer if i could and see what other deals come up,the closer vista's launch gets.:D

Lady_K

Thanx yes its almost 11 45pm now so I'd be rushing into it, I'll wait a bit longer

Broke_Student

Hi. I also bought that same computer today, with speakers except this was the deal:

£650:
Intel® Viiv™ Core® 2 Duo® E6400 2.13GHz
2048MB Dual Channel DDR2 533MHz [2x1024] Memory
320GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst™ cache
256MB Nvidia GeForce 7300 TurboCache graphics card
Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
MCE to Vista Premium Upgrade (Free)
Dell™ 19" Value Flat Panel
Upgrade to ultra sharp, usually £41.
16x DVD +/- RW Drive
Collect & Return, 1 Year Service only
Dell 5650 5.1 Surrond System, usually £41 with a PC.

Graphics card is pants for games but I save enough money to buy a MUCH better one than Dell can offer for the money (I think...). I can also make a tidy £35 profit selling the surround on ebay, but they look like good speakers so I may keep them.

Also note there is no media card reader but I do not need one as I already have one built into my printer. Rather have the money off!

BillScarab

The processors are the same. Viiv is just a bit of marketing fluff from Intel. Have a look here for more info if you're interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viiv

The main reason for having two hard drives is that you can configure them in a raid array. There are two common sorts of RAID array.

RAID 0 - the discs are striped. This means as far as your are concerned they are merged into one big drive, so if you had two 160Gb drives to you it would look like one 320Gb drive. The computer writes alternate bits of data to the each physical disc which is generally faster than writing everything sequentially to one big disc. Therefore there is a slight performance improvement.

RAID 1 - the discs are mirrored. This means as far as you are concerned you only have one 160Gb disc, but the computer writes everything to both discs. This is more useful for most people as it means that if one of your hard discs fails you have an exact copy of it on the other disc so you don't lose any data.

There are other sorts of RAID arrays that combine striping and mirroring but for home use the above are the most common and RAID 1 mirroring is usually the most useful.

If you do go for mirroring it's still a good idea to do regular backups though.

Lady_K

Whole thing went up by £60 just after 12 midnight plus the free vista upgrade was removed that was meant to stay till jan 31st and the free win media center upgrade which was also supposed to stay till 31st jan too. It was only the free shipping that it said ended on 3rd jan so I don't know whats gone off there then unless they will correct it by morning...

albertross_2

"photos music dvd" - the lowest spec PC that Dell make (with a DVD writer) can do all of those with ease, and will be much more powerful than your 8 year old system.

The world has gone PC power mad of late, if you don't play games, a PC for half to two thirds of the price would do the job. Whatever you get is going to be out of date and cheaper in 18 months, so personally I wouldn't go blowing a lot of money on a souped up system if you don't need it, it's like buying a ferrari, for a once a month drive to Tesco's.

Dell offers usually change on a Thursday, keep an eye out here:

http://www.dmxcomputers.co.uk/blogcategory/dell-hot-offers.html

and drop the service to the lowest option to save money.