Opinions on this bargain PC

muffler

Just seen this PC and I am considering buying. Im not that well up on PC's and I was hoping that I might get a bit of advice here. It appears to be a good bargain but has anyone opinions on things that I should watch out for.

The cost would work out at less than €700 including delivery. They will only deliver to a UK address but thats not a problem for me as I live only a few miles from the border with Northern Ireland and have a good few friends there.

As I said Im toying with the idea of buying and any help would be much appreciated

Nalz

It seems a decent enough bargain, but do ya mind me askin what are you needs? What do you intend on using your pc for?

Endurance Man

Dont expect your games to look great, other than that it should do everything else .

PogMoThoin

Not bad, but gfx card is a low end card and is a bit dated. Dont expect to play newer games without reducing resolution/settings.

muffler

Trilla wrote:

It seems a decent enough bargain, but do ya mind me askin what are you needs? What do you intend on using your pc for?

A bit of everything. I would primarily be using it for Autocad work but also for film and music (burning CD's & DVD's). playing a few games and general word processing etc.

I dont think my present model (Dell dimension 5000) is up to the same spec.

muffler

Endurance Man wrote:

Dont expect your games to look great, other than that it should do everything else .

Thats a good point. I do play the odd game but the kids use it more so for the games. The card I have in the present system is 128mb

Endurance Man

muffler wrote:

Thats a good point. I do play the odd game but the kids use it more so for the games. The card I have in the present system is 128mb

Well the mobo does have a PCIx slot, for 100-130euro you could pick up a much better card on adverts.ie, might be worth doing that.

Cuddlesworth

Could you post the specs of your current system, it might be worth upgrading your current system with more ram etc. then buying a whole new one.

PogMoThoin

Even tho its a 256mb card it still is a low end card. Let me explain:
nvidia 6200....6 means generation 6, newer cards are generation 7. for example i have nvidia 7900.
its the second number that tells you whether its low end or high end ie. 2 tells you its low end as compared to my 9 which tells you its high end. this is the easiest i can explain it. My last card was a 6800 which was mid end and fairly good for games.
Depends on which games the kids like to play. It'll play newer games but you gonna have to reduce the settings or resolution.

PogMoThoin

krazy_8s wrote:

Could you post the specs of your current system, it might be worth upgrading your current system with more ram etc. then buying a whole new one.

That might be a better idea.

muffler

PogMoThoin wrote:

its the second number that tells you whether its low end or high end ie. 2 tells you its low end as compared to my 9 which tells you its high end. this is the easiest i can explain it. My last card was a 6800 which was mid end and fairly good for games.

Thanks for that, you learn something new every day. I had just assumed that the more mb the better the card

muffler

krazy_8s wrote:

Could you post the specs of your current system, it might be worth upgrading your current system with more ram etc. then buying a whole new one.

Heres a brief spec (apologies if its not in the correct techo language)

Intel Pent 4 – 3200 mhz
1024 mb RAM
Graphics card – Radeon X300/X500 series 128mb
Separate DVD drives
80 gig hard drive
Windows XP home

PogMoThoin

This will upgrade to better specs than the one you were thinkin bout buyin. New gfx card, 1gb ram and maybe another hd or external hd. Dont have time to post recommendations cos i've gotta go now but sum1 else will. Happy shoppin.

Cuddlesworth

Glad you posted that up, you would see no conceivable difference between the 2. In fact the x300/x500 would perform better then a 6200 with turbocache. Turbocache means the card has no ram, it just use's the systems memory.

What is the problem with yoru current pc? If its slowness in games or a all round lack or responsiveness, a simple gfx upgrade and mabye a new hardrive with a fresh install of windows may help. Look up the dell-decrapifer to remove unwanted junk from the dell install.

gamer

all you need is a new 256meg graphics card, and a dvd writer ,cost 200 euro aprox, and you,ll be able to play any game,get agp type card if you dont have the new pci-express grahics slot in your pc.sims2 would run perfect on that pc.

muffler

Thanks lads for all the advice. I've been thinking of changing but when I see the posts here I think I would be better off upgrading the graphics card.

My main problem is the kids (what else ). They have an older Dell model and some of the more recent games the got wont play on their PC and to keep the peace I allow them to install them in mine.

A few weeks back I got more memory installed in their PC and hey presto they were able to play some of the games that had been installed in my PC as they wouldnt play on their computer. An example was Age of Empires 3, after they got the additional memory installed they could then play it on their own PC.

The other example is The Godfather. Thats installed on my PC as it wont run on the kids PC - most likely because of the graphics card - I think they have either 64mb or 128mb MX420. Most likely 64mb. The memory on their PC is 768mb (256 + 512 installed recently)

Actually my problems would be really solved if someone could confirm that a better graphics card on their PC would allow them to play all their games. At least that way I would get using my own PC without a fight with them

I will post up later, if necessary, their PC spec but off the top of my head its a Dell 4550, windows Xp, 80gb hard drive, CD/DVD combo drive, 64mb ?? graphics

Cuddlesworth

The general problem with Dells is ram and graphics cards. Integrated graphics are worthless. And dell ship with these all the time or crap equivilants like the 6200.

Find out if your kids pc has a Agp slot, if it does than a second hand 9800pro/9600pro off of the boards Adverts section would solve a lot of your problems.

Your current pc if bought recently would use a pci-express slot, so a upgrade would mean that your current graphics card would be useless for the second pc.

PogMoThoin

I know. Got 7yo son flat out gaming ere. Love gaming myself (bigger child)

Doesn't take much of a pc to run godfather. What processor they got in their pc? Maybe you should upgrade your 1. I cant find any Agp x300's so i think its Pci-E (some1 else might know better). Have a look at this gfx card. Its pre overclocked so it runs faster than normal.
http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=319351

To upgrade ram your gonna need to know the exact type of ram in your system and get it. A 1gb to 2gb upgrade would see a massive improvement in games (quicker loading & less stuttering). Also keep a check on Aldi, they do great deals every so often on external hd's. I got 320gb for E150. Pc World do good deals on external hd's 2.

sdanseo

X300 is PCI-e. As has been said, I don't think you need to shell out for a new system, upgrading your curret spec will do you fine. Bear in mind though that that is a ver good price for that HP PC, I shelled nearly 1300 for pretty much the same syatem except with an AMD 3700+ 939 on board.

Cuddlesworth

PogMoThoin wrote:

Doesn't take much of a pc to run godfather. What processor they got in their pc? Maybe you should upgrade your 1. I cant find any Agp x300's so i think its Pci-E (some1 else might know better). Have a look at this gfx card. Its pre overclocked so it runs faster than normal.
http://komplett.ie/k/ki.asp?sku=319351

To upgrade ram your gonna need to know the exact type of ram in your system and get it. A 1gb to 2gb upgrade would see a massive improvement in games (quicker loading & less stuttering). Also keep a check on Aldi, they do great deals every so often on external hd's. I got 320gb for E150. Pc World do good deals on external hd's 2.

The above card all-though good is passively cooled and gets very hot, putting that in a dell with terrible airflow is a bad idea. Providing that your kids pc has a Agp*8 slot this would be a good upgrade for their pc. And a 1 to 2 gig upgrade cant be worth it if you yourself dont play new games, as these are the ones that need it. The same can be said for graphics cards since surfing, dvd encoding and buring dont need a better card and your cpu is sufficant.

External harddrives are good for storage but not much else, a internal Sata or Pata would be better .

PogMoThoin

They will be playin new games before long. If they haven't played FEAR yet they be totally blown away by it. I upgraded to 2gigs just to play it. They wont be playin older games forever. They will want to upgrade again soon. Expensive business this pc gaming. I'm plannin to spend E2000 on new build in bout 3 mths.

muffler

PogMoThoin wrote:

They will be playin new games before long. If they haven't played FEAR yet they be totally blown away by it. I upgraded to 2gigs just to play it. They wont be playin older games forever. They will want to upgrade again soon. Expensive business this pc gaming. I'm plannin to spend E2000 on new build in bout 3 mths.

I downloaded a demo of it and I found it a bit spookey.

Im hoping to get their PC sorted for a couple of hundred but as you say that may be no use in a year or two

PogMoThoin

Ya. Great game. Realy freaky. Loads of action.
Heres a your options if you gonna buy new. Decide how much you wanna spend and post back.
http://komplett.ie/k/kl.asp?bn=10413
Make sure you got Agp slot in kids pc

muffler

Thanks again guys for all the replies. I think you have all (and rightly so) put me off the idea of buying a new PC

What I hope to do now is upgrade the kids PC so that they can play away at their games and thus allowing me access to my own PC again.

As this thread was about opinions on a new PC and as we are straying off topic (dont know how strict the mods are here ) I decided to open a new thread about upgrading graphics card here

So mosey on over and give me some good advice. Thanks again