e machine with dual core pentium £269

webuserisme

I paid £2200 for my first PC in 1996. A Gateway summat or other with upgraded RAM (32mb!!) and a 3.4gb Hard drive (my work colleague at the time said I was stupid buying such a huge HDD as 'you will NEVER fill that b*gger!).

gazbert_2

More info on this machine on the e-machines web site HERE

My one concern about this machine would have been upgrading the graphics card, but the motherboard has a 16x PCI-E slot free so happy days.

Unless someone can point me at a Core 2 Duo machine for the same price or less I'll be having one.

brad

A bit more information. The machine comes with an upgrade from XP to Vista just need to register it on Gateway Website.

Mobeer

bongo wrote:

Also the processor is a Pentium D which is not the same as dual core, both of which would not provide much benefits with most applications becasue they are generically not multi-threaded to take advantage of the dual processing power. Most people think 'Ooh two processor so therefore twice as fast' - not true (try 1.2).

A Pentium D is a dual core processor: features

How much faster a dual core processer is versus a single core processor depends upon the software being used. I use single and dual core processors with parrallel equation solving software and the dual core processor PCs I would put at about 80% faster when solving. I also play puzzle games that hog an entire processor, so on a dual core PC (a Pentium D no less) I can play a puzzle game and have Real Player in the background, whereas on my old Penitum 4 the music would cut out when the game was busy.

gazbert_2

As an intellectual exercise I just put together a very similar spec using budget components and ended up with a total price of £335.40 inc VAT from Aria.

Aria is my local PC Store so I shop there fairly often. £65 seems a pretty decent saving to me. Plus there's one available in my local Comet.

brad

I noticed as usual people wanted to correct my description. Read it carefully I said Dual Core not Core Duo . It is an Intel® Pentium® D Processor 805 (dual-core), according to Gateway .

It is nice to see Gazbet above has illustrated what a good deal this is. I am not sure if he has included the cost of Vista Home Premium which must be worth a few quid.

abomb1969

Been dabbling with the idea of WMC or an Mac Mini, but think this will offer far better value for money than the Mac. Anyway you can dual boot to OS X Tiger.

I think the tv tuner will be single channel and need an upgrade and the video card is vga, I intend to use this with my 42" lcd so will have to have HDMI output. This will replace a PVR, and I can sell my Dell laptop and run and RDP session from an older Tosh laptop to the new PC and just use the lappy as a thin client and get all that power out of the PC.

They were out of stock for instore collection tho.

Zagu

brad wrote:

I noticed as usual people wanted to correct my description. Read it carefully I said Dual Core not Core Duo . It is an Intel® Pentium® D Processor 805 (dual-core), according to Gateway .

I really wasnt trying to rain on anyones parade, I just wanted to make it clear to those who might have confused Dual Core and Core Duo that its a Pentium D. Its still a good processor, and is similar to what I use, but having seen some questions in the tech section, I felt it was worth highlighting for the less aware.

Midnight_Tboy

abomb1969 wrote:

Been dabbling with the idea of WMC or an Mac Mini, but think this will offer far better value for money than the Mac. Anyway you can dual boot to OS X Tiger.

I think the tv tuner will be single channel and need an upgrade and the video card is vga, I intend to use this with my 42" lcd so will have to have HDMI output. This will replace a PVR, and I can sell my Dell laptop and run and RDP session from an older Tosh laptop to the new PC and just use the lappy as a thin client and get all that power out of the PC.

They were out of stock for instore collection tho.

I believe I read somewhere that the TV Tuner is a basic analogue only tuner....not a DVB-T (ie freeview tuner) - as I was considering buying this machine too

I could be wrong tho - but I'd double check if I was you.

I'd like to know if it has a DVi output

check this thread http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=366134

Vicky has bought one and posted on there a few answers about it also from page 3 onwards

ramtec

its an analogue tuner (fine for cable etc) Hauppauge I believe which isn't a shabby make.

it comes with xp media center pre loaded (upgrade to vista home premium through mail in offer)