Advice please on purchasing new desktop

tommy21

I would really welcome some advice from those more knowledgeable. I currently have a 2.5 year old malfunctioning (spilled milk on it!) laptop and now I have a bit of cash, looking to get a desktop. I want one that is lightning fast in all aspects of computing (except gaming as I have an Xbox for that).

I have been having a look at the dell website and the one I'm thinking of is as follows:


http://ireland.dell.com/ie/en/home/Desktops/inspiron-580/pd.aspx?refid=inspiron-580&s=dhs&cs=iedhs1&ref=dthp See the one for €569 vs. one for €669.

I'm leaning towards the second as it has a i5 chip instead of an i3 chip (see the question mark beside each processor for explanation) - I can make it better by adding
8192MB Dual Channel DDR3 1333MHz [4x2048] Memory
• 1.5TB (7200rpm) SATA Hard Drive

but this brings the price up to €759 and not sure if it is overkill for me,considering I have no interest in using it for gaming, just want lightning fast performance for every other aspect. If it will make a huge difference though, I would get the upgrade.

Then this monitor http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=ie&l=en&s=dhs&cs=iedhs1&sku=274817&~ck=dellSearch&baynote_bnrank=0&baynote_irrank=1 All really expensive this one is 249! But has to be done, been using a laptop so long that I don't even have an old CRT lying around.

So what do you think? Any suggestions welcome

indough

4 gigs of memory would be fine in my opinion. 8 is overdoing it

IrishMetalhead

please oh please do not buy from dell (biggest oem rip off known to ever) or any other oem desktop manufacturer for that matter because having one custom built for you is always cheaper and is always better quality.
just check out the "we'll build your pc for you" thread (http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056197599) to see who's in your area willing to build one for you and i'll spec you out a pc in the morning that is alot better than that dell at the same price

tommy21

Hey IRishmetal head that sounds great, but surely one of the reasons for buying from a registered business is the recourse (though some may be guilty of fighting it every step of the way when a customer has a problem) - what happens if something should go wrong and I need some comeback?

brownej

I have that monitor and I'm not sure that I can recommend it.

The stand is not height adjustable. The stand is fixed and there's no Vesa mounts on the monitor to change it. The stand also gets in the way of plugging in the cables (very annoying), but you only have to worry about that once while setting it up.
There are no speakers in it. Dell do sell a "soundbar" that clips onto the monitor but it's pretty crap.
The webcam is ok but not great, it will only make medium quality skype calls. I've bought a separate wecam for mine.
The microphones in the monitor are good though.
The 2 USB ports are on the back and are not convenient for plugging memory sticks into. I only use mine for connecting the mouse and keyboard.
The screen is very glossy so I wouldn't put it near the window if I were you. Lots of reflections.

Saying all that the high resolution of the screen is very good and once I calibrated mine it was excellent for photo editing. It also has VGA, HDMI and DVI ports on it so it's got every connection covered.

tommy21

brownej wrote: »

I have that monitor and I'm not sure that I can recommend it.

The stand is not height adjustable. The stand is fixed and there's no Vesa mounts on the monitor to change it. The stand also gets in the way of plugging in the cables (very annoying), but you only have to worry about that once while setting it up.
There are no speakers in it. Dell do sell a "soundbar" that clips onto the monitor but it's pretty crap.
The webcam is ok but not great, it will only make medium quality skype calls. I've bought a separate wecam for mine.
The microphones in the monitor are good though.
The 2 USB ports are on the back and are not convenient for plugging memory sticks into. I only use mine for connecting the mouse and keyboard.
The screen is very glossy so I wouldn't put it near the window if I were you. Lots of reflections.

Saying all that the high resolution of the screen is very good and once I calibrated mine it was excellent for photo editing. It also has VGA, HDMI and DVI ports on it so it's got every connection covered.

Thanks nice to hear feedback from someone who owns one. YEah in retrospect I think I will get the screen elsewhere, even argos have something similar for half the price!

IrishMetalhead

actually you get a better warrenty service with most component companys than you do with dell plus hwvs is a ligit registered and also offer a brilliant rma service and best off unlike dell they never try to fight you from sending anything back because in all honesty dell are a bunch of crooks i say 90% of the people in PC B&U will agree with me.

Hers a much better PC for under €700 with a newer and faster i5 (trust dell to be still offering the old ones) and a 2TB HDD including the build and software service.

CPU: Intel Core i5-2300 - €154.77
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=41227&agid=1617

Motherboard: Asus P8P67 LE - €116.61
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=43854&agid=1601

RAM: 4GB GEIL Value Plus - €37.69
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=38487&agid=1192

Graphics Card: 1GB Sapphire Radeon HD5450 - €34.33
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=31392&agid=1004

HDD: 2TB Samsung Spinpoint F4 EcoGreen - €71.39
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=38561&agid=1284

Disc Drive: Sony NEC Optiarc AD-7260S DV+RW - €15.79
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=36860&agid=699

Case: CoolerMaster Elite 330 - €33.60
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=39172&agid=631
(Altho you should choose out your own case for personal taste reasons)

PSU: Super-Flower Amazon 450W - €40.38
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=30074&agid=1627

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit - €86.95
http://www3.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=29180&agid=185

Build Service - €20

OS and Software Installation - €34.99

Shipping - €30

Total - €676.50

So you should atleast consider the option and do abit of research on warrenty service if your still unsure plus if you can find somewhere in your area to put it together for you you can save €54.99 off the total

IrishMetalhead

BTW that monitor is also over priced
heres a slightly larger led backlight monitor for alot less by LG

http://komplett.ie/Komplett/product/ZKB_01COM/16_MONITOR/03_MONITOR/productdetails/80000078/LG_E2350V_WN_LCD_display_TFT_LED_backlight_/E2350V_WN/default.aspx

free shipping and all

tommy21

IrishMetalhead wrote: »

BTW that monitor is also over priced
heres a slightly larger led backlight monitor for alot less by LG

http://komplett.ie/Komplett/product/ZKB_01COM/16_MONITOR/03_MONITOR/productdetails/80000078/LG_E2350V_WN_LCD_display_TFT_LED_backlight_/E2350V_WN/default.aspx

free shipping and all

Stupid question prob but what is hwvs?

The monitor is sweet! Cheers for link

Monotype

HWVS
= www.hardwareversand.de

Tigger

hi

i need a desktop for office work just needs to be fast and be able to handle photoshop and ms publisher as well as normal officy stuff

what should i spec out and if i get HWVS to build it wht happens if there's an issue

seyeM

Here's a nice cheap spec from hardwareversand that would be ideal for general use, office work & photoshop.

Includes: 21.5" HD monitor, Windows 7 64bit, 4 gigs Ram, AMD quad core, discrete graphics.
I have hardware assembly included for €20, but imo them charging €35 for setting the PC to boot from the dvd drive and installing windows is ridiculous, it can easily be done by the owner.

Including delivery it's under €600




Out of curiosity I specced an almost identical PC from Dell, here's the result:



€999.......Cost €110 euros to go from 2gigs to 4 gigs of ram, complete rip off.

Tigger

thanks very much