New PC advice

sumeet

Following on from Ashok's thread I have checked out Dell's site and am thinking of buying the PC below available at £1,086.87 ex. Vat, free delivery + 4.5% Quidco.

I'm replacing my current home PC after 6/7 years and am looking for something with decent spec and budget is around £1k to £1.2kmark gross. Any tips of sourcing something similar from elsewhere or on options selected, anything which is needed on top or wasteful in options already selected. Also not sure if I need modem or whether this comes with a Virgin broadband connection.

Thanks for any advice.
Spec
PROCESSORIntel® Viiv™ Core™ 2 Duo E6600 Processor (2.4GHz,1066MHz,4MB cache)

OPERATING SYSTEMGenuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium - English

HARDWARE SUPPORT 1 Year Base Warranty - Collect & Return

MONITORDell™ 22" Black Wide Flat Panel (E228WFP) - UK/Irish

MEMORY4096MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [4x1024]

HARD DRIVE640GB Serial ATA RAID 0 Stripe [2x320GB 7200rpm drives with DataBurst™ cache]

GRAPHICS CARD256MB nVidia™ GeForce 8600GTS graphics card

OPTICAL DRIVE16x DVD+/-RW & 48x CDRW/DVD Combo Drive

KEYBOARDDell™ Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard and Optical Mouse - UK/Irish (QWERTY)

MOUSEMouse Included in Wireless Keyboard and Mouse option

AccessoriesDELL PRINTERSFree Dell™ Photo All in One Printer 926 - Photo Print,Copy and Scanner
PAPERFree Photo Paper 4x6 (10x15cm) with 926 All-In-One Printer

926Free 926 order with system

CABLESDell™ USB 2.0 Printer Cable - 3m black cable

SOUND CARDIntegrated Audio with Dolby Digital 7.1 capability

SPEAKERSDell™ A525 Speakers with Subwoofer

FLOPPY/MEDIA DRIVES1.44MB Floppy Drive

MODEMSNo Modem

TV TUNERSIntegrated Hybrid (Analogue/Digital) TV tuner PCIe x1 card and Dell™ remote control

Services & SoftwareSECURITY SOFTWAREMcAfee® Security Centre™ 8.0 - 24 Month Protection - English

MICROSOFT SOFTWAREMicrosoft® Works 8.0 - English

PHOTOGRAPHY SOFTWARECorel® Paint Shop Pro® Photo XI - Full Version

Also included with your systemGedis Bundle ReferenceList D07926 Dimension 9200Shipping DocumentsEnglish Documentation with UK Power CordOrder InformationDimension Order - UKStandard Warranty1 Year Base Warranty - Collect & ReturnMoney Off SavingsSave £70 inc VATDell Internet OrderDell Internet Order.SYSTEM MEDIAResource DVD - (Diagnostics & Drivers)

sho_me_da_money

If it's really:

4 gig ram

640GB HDD

256mb graphics.

Then id say it's a good deal.

Not sure what the price is including VAT but i reckon i could make a super machine with about £1200.00

Cerro

I dunno about the ram... Dell have a habit of using cheap nasty stuff and selling it at skyhigh prices. If I were you i'd select the cheapest ram they have and they buy my own (something faster too 800Mhz ram is much better) and replace it - takes all of two seconds, however dell will not cover that in their warranty.

Modem - You don't need an old Dial-up modem, im pretty sure that is what dell sells - not to be confused with a broadband modem.

Graphics - The graphics card is fine for your average user, supports DX10 which is good for Vista but if you are a serious gamer you might want something better...

Drives - Didn't know Combo drives were still available - no harm with it but it would be just as good if they made it two dvd-rw drives. Is a floppy drive needed? Not seen anyone use a floppy in a few years.

Sound - Not a fan of integrated Audio, tends to be pretty poor quality in comparison to proper soundcards. Same with integrated NICs these days...

Software Bundle - Have you used MS works? Its a horrid program and its not anything like MS Office - if its a choice between works and something free like OpenOffice, i'd go with OpenOffice. You do get Windows Vista however - but I can't remember if its OEM or not from Dell. If its retail then fine, if its OEM you aren't making much of a saving! McAfee isn't a bad Anti-Virus program, but again, free ones will do much the same.

Other Hardware - 640Gb ain't bad, but hard disks are so cheap these days! I have 1.6Tb in my PC (I use Raid 5 because if i lost my data, i'd cry) and it wasn't a costly solution. £65 for a 500Gb disk. For £1200 its abit high imo then again you are getting a good warranty. Although its rare for anything to go wrong within 1 year - hardware wise and if you bought parts yourself most come with the same 1 year warranty. CPU is good, nice solid one but next month there will be a release of a few new ones at lower prices - they will be worth the wait. The rest is fine, generic wireless keyboard/mouse I guess...

Monitor - Excellent, Dell usually do a good job with their widescreens. But i've seen graphics issues with widescreens on certain cards, I guess newer drivers should have fix these issues by now - just a note of caution.

You know, before I started this post, I was going to say it was a decent deal by dell but after reading over what I have just written, its not that great... how odd. :rotfl:For that price, you could get yourself a much better system with the same or equivalent software (all legally).

SuziPerry.tv

1) VirginMedia Broadband will be connected to PC via USB or Network Cable.

2) Why 4GB Ram & such a High Spec PC? Maybe if you explained what its for then other ideas may come to light...

I phoned Dell up on my last PC, they Priced Matched a Dell Outlet PC & I got NEW Dell inc 3yr Cover at Home (top Spec PC) for £600 (no Monitor as I have that already)...

Look in Outlet Dell, ring em up & say you saw this PC and want to Add Extra's for Budget of £900 Worth a Call., Worked OK for me.

Cerro

SuziPerry.tv wrote: »

2) Why 4GB Ram & such a High Spec PC? Maybe if you explained what its for then other ideas may come to light...

You can never have too much ram - it effects so many things. I wouldn't say that was a High spec PC, its pretty much mainstream these days.

sumeet

Thanks for all your feedback.

The high spec 7 RAM was partly because my old PC's hard drive has gone and I thought the bigger the better on the new one plus to some extent as I'm looking for something to last a while, I'm trying to future proof as best I can.

Do you know what CPU's are coming out next month and when roughly. Also, will that lead to reductions on the current models and accross all main suppliers? If so, maybe best waiting although that maybe why the discount and free delivery on Dell PC's only lasts till 25/7.

albertross_2

What are you going to be using the PC for, gaming, if not, you can get a perfectly decent PC for half the price, or less.

If you try and future proof, you will end up paying through the nose for it, and fail anyway (things move too fast in the PC industry).

sumeet

Not really gaming, but watching/burning movies, working from home plus my wife builds websites.

albertross_2

You don't need to go mad on spec to do those things, just pointing this out as we are on a money saving site, but upto you in the end.

https://www.dmxdimension.com

[Deleted User]

I love how people over spec new machines. I run by the mantra of replacing from scratch every 2-3 years and spending no more than 300 quid on it.

Watching and Burning movies requires a very little spec and neither does building websites. Big ram, yes - this will help if you're doing a lot of graphics as part of the site. High spec graphics card - not much point really. Big CPU - what for? even the low spec machines now have enough grunt to do most things. Anyone spending more than 500 quid on a machine needs their head examined (unless you're a gamer)

Cerro

Yeah true enough, if you're not gaming or creating some sort of animated movie, a high end, expensive PC is not required anymore.

The low end dual core (E4400) is more than enough for everything else. Ram is important for your websites and doublely so if you are creating/using SQL databases from it too...

Future proofing these days in neigh impossible, in 6months the thing you bought will no longer be compatible with the new stuff. Just look at DDR2 RAM, now DDR3 is coming in (but now would be a bad time to switch) and the same again with things like PCI/AGP and PCI-Express. Happens all the time.