New PC for Photography

Covey

I finally gave up my Pc last night. I've thousands of unprocessed images due to the PC being Sh**te.

So I spec'ed what I wanted (Photography only PC) and new it wouldn't be cheap, future proofing and all that, logged on to Dell and bloody hell € 3100. I was shocked.

Then a friend sent me a link to PC Specialist ( www.pcspecialist.co.uk) which I've since found out are very highly regarded, and lo and behold for the same spec around 1000 Quid including delivery to ROI.

Thats a whopping 50% saving.

Thought I'd give the heads up

T.

magicbastarder

was the dell an XPS?

5uspect

That seems like an awful lot for a Dell. There's serious deals to be had there.
Especially if you follow this thread.
Also if you spec up a basic enough machine you can get extra memory and storage to pad it out from a third party and save a bit too.

magicbastarder

i was just at the dell site, and maxed out a dimension 9200 on processor (Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6700 Processor (2.66GHz,1066MHz,4MB cache)), RAM (4GB), display (Dell™ 24" UltraSharp™ Wide Aspect Digital/Analogue Flat Panel (2407FPW)), and storage(1TB),but not video card, you wouldn't need it, nor a physics card, and it came to €2.4k.

that must be some machine you're building.

m_stan

Why not get a Mac Mini ? If you get the mini with a 1.83ghz Intel Core Duo, 2gigs RAM, 160 Gig serial ATA, wireless keyboard and mouse it comes in at Eur 1,381 inc vat. Since you already have a monitor from your pc you wont need one of those.

311

I got a pc from dell a couple of weeks ago and it's grand.
The price so far for it is 920.
It cost me 770 euro for a
1.86 6320 Duo core 4MB CACHE
1GB RAM 667MHZ
20" Ultrasharp monitor
320GB Hard drive.
Bluetooth K & M.

Then I bought 2GB ram from crucial along with a X1300 card for 150.

If you look around ,you'll find the technology in the ati cards is better suited to photography and media colours.

I'm happy with the machine ,it runs vista smoothly.

thebaz

magicbastarder wrote:

that must be some machine you're building.

agree -- i got pc from dell for 650 , 17in ultra sharp monitor, dual processor, 1 gb ram, dedicated video card -- all in a tidy box -- it was seriously cheaper than anywhere else -- and Dell's service seams to have improved , since they were knocked off the no. 1 spot -- happy dell customer

mathias

There are plenty of suppliers that will give you a full spec ( top of the range for everything ) PC for less than 1.5K.

No way is any PC worth more than that , no matter what the spec is.

Dell are great at catching people in for cheap entry level PC's and then absolutly hammering you for upgrades.

If you have the knowhow then building your own is always the way to go , I maxed out the spec on a new PC , including an Apple display and it came in at 1475.
( Core2 duo processor , 2GB ram , Auzentech soundcard , Apple 20 inch cinema display , 500GB hard drive , DVD writer , Vista OEM , 8800 graphics )

Otherwise , Companies like Komplett will build it for you for not much more.
3 grand for a PC is madness I tells ya , madness !!

Rojo

My computer sucks and freezes any time I'm editing photos... I'm gonna save up for one of those Aldi computers... May not be the coolest, but they seem awesome!

5uspect

Aren't the Targa (Targus?) laptops that Aldi do just re branded Toshibas?
Rojo, how much RAM do you have? Maybe a cheap memory upgrade might sort you out.

Rojo

yeah I say that's my main prob.. Only got 512 hahaha

Covey

magicbastarder wrote:

i was just at the dell site, and maxed out a dimension 9200 on processor (Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6700 Processor (2.66GHz,1066MHz,4MB cache)), RAM (4GB), display (Dell™ 24" UltraSharp™ Wide Aspect Digital/Analogue Flat Panel (2407FPW)), and storage(1TB),but not video card, you wouldn't need it, nor a physics card, and it came to €2.4k.

that must be some machine you're building.

That was the exact spec. Everthing else was the cheapest possible option. No software except O/S.

This morning it was 3144. Maybe Dell are reading this ...Eh.:(

Covey

It gets even more interesting.

I still get the price I got this morning. However, I got the estimate for home use. If I get the exact same spec under businness use (incl VAT) it's 1100 cheaper.

Is that a rip off or what??

T.

Paulw

Business machines are ALWAYS a lot more expensive. It's more due to the business support (24hr on-site support) costs. The hardware is generally the very same.

Always better to buy a home machine.

5uspect

Yep, the business support is great if you use Dell in work and you don't personally pay for it! As regards the home support, it can take them a while to get going but if you complain enough they will jump pretty high.

For example, a friend of mine bought a lappy about 8 months ago. Right from the start anything video related froze it. (Seemed like a busted GPU straight away)
Called Dell, all they said was format and reinstall (they always say this, feckers).
Anyway after persistent calls they agreed to take the machine back and install a new mobo (integrated graphics). Went back and the techs only replaced the fan as it was "blocked" and assumed that would fix it. Obviously they didn't test it and the problem wasn't fixed. After a very angry phone call they send out a techy and he replaced the mobo, the DVD drive, the fans and memory all here in the office in front of my mate. (the techy said that this was unusual but goes to show what happens when you kick up a fuss).

Machine is going perfect since.

magicbastarder

i used to work for the company which did the field support for dell.
some of the **** customers would be told by the guys on the phones was priceless.

5uspect

We had a guy here who's DVD burner was acting dodgy. Support told him that the registry was corrupted and sh should reinstall windows. We opened the case reconnected the IDE ribbon and hey presto!

magicbastarder

i once had a guy who had been on to dell, his computer was makig an unholy racket. the dell support guy said, jeez, sounds like your hard drive is ****ed, we'll try a low level format, probably won't help, but it's worth a try. the customer said 'but i've nothing backed up', and was told that given the amount of noise his hard drive was making, it was probably on its last legs anyway. format didn't help, so i ended up out there the next day with a new drive. it was the PSU fan making the noise.