Dell's Replacement System.

Buceph

After a month and a half of problems with Dell, they have offered to replace my old system. However I'm not up to date with systems at the moment. I bought my old system a year ago, and quite a bit of the specs have changed. Could people tell me if they're screwing me over in anyway. Because at the time I payed a lot of money for a high end system.


New system:
Intel® Viiv™ technology - Intel® Pentium® D 915 DualCore(2.80GHz,800MHz,2x2MBcache)

Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 (Does not include Operating System Re-installation CD)

Basic: 3-Year At Home service & Multimedia E-Learning

2048MB Dual Channel DDR 533MHz [4x512MB] Memory

250GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst™ cache

16x DVD+/-RW & 16x DVD Drives

256MB nVidia™ GeForce™ 7300LE Turbocache graphics card

Sound Blaster® X-Fi Xtreme Music PCI Soundcard

The Old System:
A standard Pentium 4 3.2Ghz with Hyperthreading.
4*512MB PC3200Ram
160GB HDD
DVD-Rom & CD-RW
256MB nVidia Geforce 6800GTO
A Soundblaster 2(I think)
XP Home

The only thing that immmediatly strikes me as wrong is the OS which is Media Centre instead of XP Home. And after that the processor, which may not be decent for gaming, and graphics card, which I'm probably most worried about.

B0X

Well thats a terrible graphics card. Also, try and get them to give you a Core 2 Duo.

TempestSabre

The system they are offering is a decent spec but it is not a high end system, and will be slower in games, because of the CPU and the gfx card. Theres a ton of machines in the outlet store they could easily pick one thats a better match.

Buceph

B0X wrote:

Well thats a terrible graphics card. Also, try and get them to give you a Core 2 Duo.

I somehow doubt that a Conroe is an equivalent processor to P4 3.2HTT. Dell don't even offer it on their Dimension9150 which is what they're offering.

Is there any comparisons that would indicate that they should bump the Processor from a Dual Core 2.8 to a higher Dual Core 3.4, considering the part it's meant to be replacing is a standard P4 3.2.

Will the Dual Core 2.8 perform as well as the P4 3.2 at gaming, which is what the original system was bought for.

Edit:

TempestSabre wrote:

The system they are offering is a decent spec but it is not a high end system, and will be slower in games, because of the CPU and the gfx card. Theres a ton of machines in the outlet store they could easily pick one thats a better match.

So it's not a proper replacement? How would I argue this. Remember, they're not trying to upgrade the system, just replace it with an equivalent system. However, it has to be at least as good as the old system. And the system was an excellent gaming system at the time(for a pentium based system anyway.) Also, they're not going to give me one from the Outlet Store, it will have to be a new system, at my parents(billpayers) and my insistence.

SickBoy

I think you're getting a good deal apart from the GFX card.
Try and get them to up the card to something along the lines of a 7800/7900.
They're not screwing you on the processor. the 3.2 you have is single core with Hyperthreading Technology where as the 2.8 has 2 physical cores and 2meg cache per core. A good deal in my opinion!

TempestSabre

Look at Toms Hardware Guide for a comparision of CPU's in different games. For gfx cards, try to find a review that gives a 3D mark for the different cards in the same spec machine. The latter won't be easy.

TempestSabre

Check out the Dell Outlet Store aswell and see the value of the machine they are giving you.http://outlet.dell.com/Emea_Dfo/EuDispatcher?target=SpecPage&serviceTag=ZRBV5TAL&sessionID=GvF1QXBp!326570783!305821817!1155679615288

Looks to me like they are giving you a cheaper machine, better cheap components, and worse expensive components.

TempestSabre

SickBoy wrote:

...They're not screwing you on the processor. the 3.2 you have is single core with Hyperthreading Technology where as the 2.8 has 2 physical cores and 2meg cache per core. A good deal in my opinion!

Its still slower in games. Check some benchmarks. Personally I'd live with the CPU and get a better GFX card. The GFX card will make more of a difference in games.

irlrobins

TempestSabre wrote:

The GFX card will make more of a difference in games.

I agree

SickBoy

TempestSabre wrote:

Its still slower in games. Check some benchmarks. Personally I'd live with the CPU and get a better GFX card. The GFX card will make more of a difference in games.

Be that as it may, I know what CPU I'd take given this choice..

savemejebus

regarding the replacement gfx card, you could argue with them that it is not a suitable replacement as your original card has 256mb of dedicated ram while the 7300 has much less and uses system memory.

Provide them with a list of cards from the same level eg: x800xt, x850, 7600gt etc. and whatever they suggest pay attention to exactly what they say as they could try to fob you off with a vanilla 6800 or an 'se' edition card.

TerrorFirmer

Its a better machine apart from the 7300 which you know at this stage is still awful.

Either tell them you want an equvilent card in your machine or that you want to keep the old card....

I wouldn't complain otherwise though.

TempestSabre

HavoK wrote:

Its a better machine apart from the 7300 which you know at this stage is still awful.

Either tell them you want an equvilent card in your machine or that you want to keep the old card....

I wouldn't complain otherwise though.

Is the old card AGP though?

The dual core is great for multitasking, but for applications like games that don't use that feature, a faster single core CPU will be faster. 400mhz isn't a lot in the difference though, not that its as straightforward a comparision as that.

I'd blag a better video card, and be happy with the rest.

Blazer

definititely change the card..you won't get a 7900gtx off them but push for the 7900gs...great card for the price and well able for games

SouperComputer

The graphics look a bit crap for a "gaming" machine alright.

Long term, dual core the the way to go as more and more software and games become multithreaded. In terms of peformance drop with gaming, its hard to say as some games are more dependant on GFX and others on CPU. Performance will be accecptable though with the small drop in clock speed. With this machine you can author a DVD while playing a game, rather neat.

Overall, if you can get a decent graphics card with the rig, its a good deal.

Cuddlesworth

Push for 2 1gig sticks rather than 4 512sticks.

On a side note, Dell have to replace the system with one of equal value to the time of purchase, do they not?

All net burst chips have taken a huge reduction in price and Im sure that even a 3.4ghz dual core is now much cheaper then the single core was then.

And as said above, with that gfx its not going to game to the same level.

I somehow doubt that a Conroe is an equivalent processor to P4 3.2HTT. Dell don't even offer it on their Dimension9150 which is what they're offering.

What on performance or price? Because the 6300+6400 Conroe is still cheaper then what you paid for your current chip, and are definatly better in peformance.

Buceph

krazy_8s wrote:

Push for 2 1gig sticks rather than 4 512sticks.

On a side note, Dell have to replace the system with one of equal value to the time of purchase, do they not?

All net burst chips have taken a huge reduction in price and Im sure that even a 3.4ghz dual core is now much cheaper then the single core was then.

And as said above, with that gfx its not going to game to the same level.



What on performance or price? Because the 6300+6400 Conroe is still cheaper then what you paid for your current chip, and are definatly better in peformance.

The system is about two years old. I somehow doubt that they have to replace it with a system that costs the same as what I originally paid. The thing is though, I am in no way willing to accept any part of the machine that will underperform what my current system would do.

When I told them about the graphics card this morning, they were insistent that the 7300 is better than the 6800. The seemed to base it purely on the fact that it has 256MB Ram and a higher number. :roll:

After complaining about the card they agreed to upgrade the system. I asked for an e-mail confirmation of what the new specs would be. After no e-mail by 6.30, eight hours later, I called them up. Apperently the new system was in the process of being shipped.

:mad:

I'm now waiting on a different e-mail that will address all the problems. Bastard Dell, I was a staunch supporter of them up until this.

Creamy Goodness

no point driving to bray, as the dell in bray is closed for the last 2 months at least.

drive past it everyday and there's not a single car in the carpark (this is at 9:30am too)

TerrorFirmer

The 7300 isn't a whole lot better then a 6200 or a 6400 card i.e totally inferior to the 6800. Maybe send them in a copy of benchmarks from Geforce 7 series...7300 really scrapes the bottom of the pile by a long shot.

SouperComputer

Cremo wrote:

no point driving to bray, as the dell in bray is closed for the last 2 months at least.

drive past it everyday and there's not a single car in the carpark (this is at 9:30am too)

I sit corrected so! I wasnt 100% sure on that. Post deleted

_Kaiser_

They were in the process of moving all the staff to Cherrywood (just off the N11/M50) when I left this time last year.

zilog_jones

What Dell place is there?