Advice please on low cost family system

Johnny Storm

Hi,

A good friend of mine wants to buy a computer for family use. This includes surfing, his kids playing games and not much else. My friend has no interest in the technical aspects of computing. (in fact less than zero interest in anything technical). He just wants something that works.
Low-cost is important but he doesnt want second-hand and has no legacy parts.

I'm thinking he should get a Dell 4600 (2.8G Pentium, 1 year warrenty, 512MB DDR333, 128MB GeForce FX5200, 17inch "value" CRT, 160GB drive, 48XDVD/CDRW drive, basic speakers, integrated sound)
All of the above for €693

How does this sound? any suggestions would be really appreciated. Please bear in mind the cost aspect.

For an additional €133 he could get a 128MB 9800Pro

Flame on!

Khannie

There was an ad on TV last night for a €599 dell PC. 94 euro can come in handy around christmas time

Check www.dell.ie/tv

IMO, someone who needs a computer like that, could get by on a machine worth close to zero money. A p2 233 with 64megs of ram and an 8 gig hard drive running win98 should do the trick.

I'm serious!

I gave one to a friend about six months ago for general use (browsing, word processing, etc), and she says it's perfect.

If only you could buy machines like that new.

maxheadroom

The first question is "what's his budget"? As in, whats the maximum he will pay, and whats the maximum he'd like to pay (they're quite often different figures )

I'd advise he gets it from a big manufacturer, mainly for the support / peace of mind aspect (because you said he's not into the tech side of things). Unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot of choice in the Irish market. Take a trip to PC World and see what they have in and around his budget. Dell will probably nd up the better deal though.

koneko

If his kids are going to be playing games, they'll probably want to get stuff like movie-tie-in games like the new Incredibles game. He'll need a "decent" ish graphics card to play those type of things. With a really low spec graphics card the games won't run while and the kids will just be whiney.

If they're not playing games, something really low spec will do the job for just browsing and word processing.

egan007

I would advise going for a calculator over a dell anyday
You can be sure that you will spent at least 5-6 hours over the next few months trying to deal with their terrible customer service when their cheap parts break.

Johnny Storm

maxheadroom wrote:

The first question is "what's his budget"? As in, whats the maximum he will pay, and whats the maximum he'd like to pay (they're quite often different figures )

QUOTE]
Thanks for all your replies.

I dont have a figure for his budget but I know he needs to keep it cheap.

As regards games, yes his kids do want to play games (specifically so far The Sims) - does anyone know how the GeForce FX5200 would perform with the Sims? - we're just looking for an acceptible level of performance here - no need for state of the art.

pickarooney

Anything slow-moving like The Sims should be no hassle with the gfx card you quote above. In fact anything short of Doom 3 or Half-Life 2 (not really for kiddiewinks) will run fine.

Johnny Storm

Khannie wrote:

There was an ad on TV last night for a €599 dell PC. 94 euro can come in handy around christmas time

Check www.dell.ie/tv

IMO, someone who needs a computer like that, could get by on a machine worth close to zero money. A p2 233 with 64megs of ram and an 8 gig hard drive running win98 should do the trick.

I'm serious!

I gave one to a friend about six months ago for general use (browsing, word processing, etc), and she says it's perfect.

If only you could buy machines like that new.

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately that Dell has no AGP slot which pretty much rules it out from the playing games point of view. I agree with you that a second hand PC updated with maybe a newer graphics card would be the best value but my buddy is a bit technophobic and wants a new one.

skywalker

Khannie wrote:

There was an ad on TV last night for a €599 dell PC. 94 euro can come in handy around christmas time

you'll probly find their the same(one with and one without vat)

would the general consensus be when looking for a machine around 600 bills that dell are the way to go over a homebuild? ive never built such a low spec machine but will be soon for someone.

koneko

As regards games, yes his kids do want to play games (specifically so far The Sims) - does anyone know how the GeForce FX5200 would perform with the Sims? - we're just looking for an acceptible level of performance here - no need for state of the art.

The Sims will run fine, but The Sims 2 won't (it actually needs a fairly decent spec system and half way decent graphics).
Might run some other games alright, but you'd have to turn down the resolution and detail.

maxheadroom

skywalker wrote:

would the general consensus be when looking for a machine around 600 bills that dell are the way to go over a homebuild? ive never built such a low spec machine but will be soon for someone.

Its more difficult to beat the price of a dell machine in the cheap'n'cheerful category than it is in the performance / gaming category. One reason for this is that Dell prices these machines extremely competitively (some even sell at a loss) in order to get you committed to buy. Then they try to sell a printer or a warranty or some upgrades to try and make some money on the sale. You can sometimes find it quite hard to get a dell salesman to sell you one of the cheaper machines with no extras...

The big issue here is that if the person is less techincally competent then they'll probably need more support. And, as frustrating as Dell's tech support is, it can be more reassuring to have a company look after it rather than having to wait for your mate who put it together to have some spare time to sort it out.

egan007 wrote:

I would advise going for a calculator over a dell anyday
You can be sure that you will spent at least 5-6 hours over the next few months trying to deal with their terrible customer service when their cheap parts break.

That's a little harsh. Yes, Dell's support could (should?) be better. But the parts they use are the same parts you'd buy to make the machine yourself (except the mobos which are custom built, but all use intel chipsets). For example: Seagate / Hitachi Hard Disks, Samsung / Micron memory, Sony / Phillips DVD drives. Its a myth that Dell use lower grade components - it wouldn't be worth it to them in terms of number of returned units. They wouldn't last long in business sales if it were true either.

Dempsey

Have a look at Dell's lowest spec machine that includes a AGP Slot, what does that cost?

maxheadroom

Dempsey wrote:

Have a look at Dell's lowest spec machine that includes a AGP Slot, what does that cost?

I'd probably reccommend the Dimension 4700 with integrated graphics and an aftermarket graphics card upgrade when needed. Mainly because its an 800Mhz FSB system and because it has a PCI Express slot instead of an AGP one.

EDIT: €699 including delivery and a "free" printer.

Johnny Storm

Dempsey wrote:

Have a look at Dell's lowest spec machine that includes a AGP Slot, what does that cost?

Thanks for your input, its appreciated

Waht you are suggesting is pretty much what I ment to do in my original post "I'm thinking he should get a Dell 4600 (2.8G Pentium, 1 year warrenty, 512MB DDR333, 128MB GeForce FX5200, 17inch "value" CRT, 160GB drive, 48XDVD/CDRW drive, basic speakers, integrated sound)
All of the above for €693"

Johnny Storm

maxheadroom wrote:

I'd probably reccommend the Dimension 4700 with integrated graphics and an aftermarket graphics card upgrade when needed. Mainly because its an 800Mhz FSB system and because it has a PCI Express slot instead of an AGP one.

EDIT: €699 including delivery and a "free" printer.

Good suggestion. Thanks. Per the Dell website that would cost €790 including a X300SE card. It does seem a good bit more future-proof.

Off-topic - its great how they offer a free printer but you have to pay €19 for the cable - LOL.

Johnny Storm

koneko wrote:

The Sims will run fine, but The Sims 2 won't (it actually needs a fairly decent spec system and half way decent graphics).
Might run some other games alright, but you'd have to turn down the resolution and detail.

Thanks for that input.
I rang my buddy but due to his advanced lack of nerdiness he has no idea if its Sims 1 or 2. He bought it recently so I'm assuming its Sims 2. Will know more when his daughter gets out of school!
Maxheadroom has recommended a Dell 4700 which could include a pCI X300SE for €790 - how do you think that card would handle Sims 2 or indeed other such games as a 10 year old girl might like ? Or any other comments on that system?

maxheadroom

Johnny Storm wrote:

Good suggestion. Thanks. Per the Dell website that would cost €790 including a X300SE card. It does seem a good bit more future-proof.

Hmm - an X300SE card is only 65.99 on www.jes.de. I'd advise against getting the graphics card from Dell - you'd get much better value elsewhere. You could even install the Dell drivers from their website if you really wanted to...

Also, it looks like the sims 2 would be fine with the Intel "Extereme" graphics on the base system.

koneko

Actually, no

I tried The Sims 2 on a system, very fast P4, but Intel Extreme graphics. Completely unplayable it was that slow.

Johnny Storm

koneko wrote:

Actually, no

I tried The Sims 2 on a system, very fast P4, but Intel Extreme graphics. Completely unplayable it was that slow.

This is all very helpful stuff. Thank you all.
Does anyone know what would be a good value for money card to run Sims 2?

MrPinK

I don't think it's worth skimping on the graphics. Generally, people like this expect to buy a PC and have it last 4 or 5 years. The graphics card will almost certainly be the first component to become out-of-date. Not of problem for computer people that can upgrade their systems themselves, but if you can't then getting a PC upgraded is quite costly. Better to spend that little extra now and get an extra 6-12 months out of the gfx card, imho.

Johnny Storm

MrPinK wrote:

I don't think it's worth skimping on the graphics. Generally, people like this expect to buy a PC and have it last 4 or 5 years. The graphics card will almost certainly be the first component to become out-of-date. Not of problem for computer people that can upgrade their systems themselves, but if you can't then getting a PC upgraded is quite costly. Better to spend that little extra now and get an extra 6-12 months out of the gfx card, imho.

I agree with you.
Any specific board you would recommend?

pickarooney

I imagine he'll get annoyed if you try to explain to him how spending more money will save him in the long run, he sounds like the type who wants all for nowt. I'd just give him three options - low middle and high spec and let him pick, for better or worse.

Stugots

I recently upgraded a PC for a friend's kid specifically to enable Sims 2. The starting spec was Win '98, 64Mb, 600MHz PII, 6Gb HD, no graphics card. I upgraded to Win XP, 256Mb, 80Gb HD, Sparkle Geforce4 MX4000 64MB PCI. Total cost was under 300 (memory has free, harvested from a dead PC).

End result: Sims 2 works fine, and this graphics card only cost 70 at Marx Computers.

Regarding Dell, I heard that they are not supporting AGP going forward, so you would probably need to source a PCI graphics card like I did if not buying it from them. I have had a very positive experience with Dell to date. I've bought six PCs off them in the last two years. Never had to call their tech support. They called me once to arrange an onsite PSU change due to a recall. I always choose the shortest warranty to save money.

Capt'n Midnight

maxheadroom wrote:

But the parts they use are the same parts you'd buy to make the machine yourself (except the mobos which are custom built, but all use intel chipsets). For example: Seagate / Hitachi Hard Disks, Samsung / Micron memory, Sony / Phillips DVD drives. Its a myth that Dell use lower grade components - it wouldn't be worth it to them in terms of number of returned units. They wouldn't last long in business sales if it were true either.

Not sure now but they used to use lower spec versions of certain cards, cheaper because you didn't get the full retail kit and manuals and freebies, unless you were looking for a certain feature on the card then it wasn't a problem. If they have the money to buy a Dell then it's beats them asking you to fix it,

Totally agree with suggesting high/mid/low options for them to make thier decision. Any time people have asked me about PC's you litterly have to force them to admit that they want to run games on it - kinda important since the level of game you play determine the spec of the PC. If they don't have boradband then it's kinda hard to find a PC too slow to handle a 56Kb stream of data and for all spreadsheet/word processing apps , people don't type any faster now than when IBM launched the 4.77MHz PC ...

As for future proofing, let them know that they may want to change it in 18 months / 3 years / 5 years time so no point in overspending. (in 5 years the newest pc will be about 10 times as fast as their one)

Johnny Storm

Just to let you know how it turned out: my buddy today ordered a Dell 4700 with 512K Ram, 2.8Hz Pentium, X800SE graphics card and 15inch flat screen for i think it was 1188 yoyos incl VAT and delivery. He and all the family are very happy (- well...so far!)

Your opinions and info were all very helpful. Thanks.

Syth

Regarding Dell, I have heard not nice things about what they do with motherboards. Basically the copy of WinXP you get with one of their PCs will ask the motherboard for a serial number (or someothersuch number). If that number isn't what was coded into it, then it won't work. So your upgrade options are limited.

Maybe a bit late now...

Bob_Hoskins

whatever you do - stay clear of the FX5200. It is a piece of crap. More trouble than its worth - although it did let me play Doom3 for a while before entering the void of infinite loops :rolleyes: