Dell 5100 - 19"TFT - 2048mb ram

fantasia_2

this comp. will have serious trouble playing the high end games such as doom 3, battlefield 2 etc.

lesley2004

when you say it will have trouble playing certain games, do you mean without a good graphics card? So if I added say the 128mb ati graphics card would it be any good? The games my son plys are total rome/sims2etc

I keep waiting for a good deal and always seem to miss them?!

amancalledchip

bought one of these a while back when they had a misprice.
It came with an X600 and played call of duty no probs.

Its the video card that does the work with a game really,

the 6600gt is a good card for the money , its about £100
Just looking at the amount of ram on a card isnt important, ddr3 memory is better, but it comes at a price.At the end of the day, you get what you pay for
The more expensive the card, the better they are when you crank up the resolution.BTW,i think that comes with the value 19" screen so it wont have DVI ( digital input)

lesley2004

dyd you get it much cheaper when it was misprice?

kevinyork

Think you need to be careful with 'offers like these'. This is a paired down system but with some headline grabbers included.

The P4 3Ghz is ok but not the latest available. The memory is excellent and the inclusion of a 19" TFT sounds good however, TFT has no DVI input for the best quality pictures from top end graphics cards. Given no graphics card is included dont expect to play the latest games or indeed any graphics games released within the last few years. You can indeed buy soem cheap add on speakers but again if you listen to music or want to plsy quality games you wont get the best sound. Finally if you are not going to be on broadband you will need a modem added.

If you want a solid system that will be good for some years with expansion potential this is fine. However if you want a media centre to listen to music on or play the latest games on Id recommend taking a look at another direct seller, someone like Mesh who tend to spec their machines a little better.

amancalledchip

was a few weeks ago it was a misprice.

came with a 250gb HDD, but only 1 gig of ram, but came with speakers and an X600 video card.The TFT was only a 17" tho. Was £430 delivererd.

lesley2004

that was a good deal. Think I might wait in the hope of getting one of these misprices, thanks everyone for help

buggu

I brought one of the those misprice pcs, they are pretty good.

If u wana play top games including online then u need a good card like the 6600gt(value for money, around £110) or X850XT(latest card lets u play in full resolution, around £220).

As for sound , onboard is adequate for most use except if u are really into music then a dedicated sound card and speakers will be ideal.

The systen seems a fair deal if u looking for a 19 screen and need 2gb ram. If they not on your list of priorites i would wait for another deal to come. Personally i,m after a good latop deal ( guess i,ll be waiting for along time)

andreboyle

Just thought I'd add my two cents worth and say that these machines are great.

Comments along the lines of not good for games and poor audio 'because its onboard' are misleading I feel to those that don't know any better.

Yes, the graphics onboard are not capable of great gaming. These machines will play doom3 and halflife2. I know as I've done it. It'll use the software rendered for the most part but the machine is meaty enough to be able to do that. However, if you're wanting great graphics then buy a great graphics card. It's kind of that simple. In terms of game graphics you get what you pay for.

On-board audio does NOT mean poor quality audio. It does mean restricted 'extended' functions typically and obviously you're not getting gold-plated connections and the quality that goes with it. However most people would not know the difference. I've had an audigy (Superb sound system) and surround speakers and most people that hear music in my study don't know I've gotten rid of the audigy and now use my on-board. These have come a heck of a long way in the past few years in terms of functionality, quality and overall performance.

The Pentium-4 processor is a well specced processor. Yes, it's not the latest and greatest but to be honest you're unlikely to need much more unless you definitely have heavy processor requirements.

Word-processing, etc can be done on a pentium-2. A Pentium 4 is capable of a heck of a lot. Remeber, if you're into gaming then the majority of the required power is needed from the GFX engine, so get a good card. The AI in games is relatively light-weight these days and is unlikely to change dramatically in the short to medium term.

As I said, it's just my two cents worth as I hate to see a good spec overall being put down. It's like the Dell SC420 £99 servers. I've heard so many people say it's a naff server but yet I've had a number of them built and servering out large quanitities of mail and 10's of 1000s of web-hits per day. It's all in how you use what you have.

One last point. If you've never had DVI then you won't know what you're missing so these 'value' flat panels seems great. If you've had DVI then you'll probably always want DVI as standard D-Sub will seem inferior.

Can;t say more than these are great and I'd recommend them every time as the best all-round Dell machine for home use.

biglugs

I wouldn't knock this machine - it's very robust, a 3GB Pentium 4 is a great processor for most people, and 2GB memory will be super for photo editing or keeping lots of programs open at the same time. The onboard sound is fine for everyday use, and I don't feel the need to get a separate one - although I do use my Altec Lansing speakers rather than the Dell ones. Another benefit is that this is a VERY quiet PC - the only noise I have is from the fan on the graphics card I installed.
As for graphics you will need a decent card to play games like Half-Life 2 or Doom3 at a reasonable quality - a 6600GT is going to set you back about £100-£120 (I got a Gigabyte one from Dabs).
If you aren't any in any hurry there's no harm waiting to see if Dell have another pricing error, but they tend to only happen about every 6 months or so. I'm just kicking myself that I only bought one last time! It was so good I decided to keep it for me and gave my daughter my Athlon XP3200 instead.