Mr Tilt thinks of getting a new PC..

Mercury_Tilt

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Mercury_Tilt

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RuggieBear

Are you fully aware of all the "Don't Buy Dell" posts you'll probably get

dell are a pain to mod and add on to...

Ciaran500

If your looking for a cutting edge pc stay away from dell.

You will be better off the build your own if your spending €2k

Mercury_Tilt

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RuggieBear

Mercury_Tilt wrote:

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sorry i meant upgrading in general....not modding (rush of blood to the head)

But imo it looks like a pretty decent machine....especially if you don't really care about the price or the "hassle" of building your own. You could have a gander at Alienware too...

Mercury_Tilt

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RuggieBear

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well tbh, i'm probably at bit out of touch since i'm completely broke....try to avoid the tech sites and comp board as i can't afford anything anymore Perhaps better off getting more up to date knowledge from our younger richer boardsters...

The_Conductor

You may have a problem integrating your old HDDs into the system- as there really is not a lot of spare space in the case......

Yes, its a nice monitor- but you'll be spending a sizeable lump, and it not just the monitor that matters.

Also- there are driver problems with the current ATI chipset cards, on that basis would recommend going with the Geforce (even if its Radeon is arguably better hard-ware wise).

Soundcard is nice- but what speakers do you have (are you getting with the machine)?

Komplett have a rather nice configuration utility for building a PC for you. Tbh- I'd trust Komplett over and above Dell any day of the week (but do choose the DHL delivery option!!!)

Link: http://www.komplett.ie/k/cl.asp?bn=10310

Shane

Chad ghostal

tbh if it wasnt for the old hd's id say go for it,
its a nice machine, and the dell machines are very quiet,
the screens are nice, i've never seen a dead pixel (in the 10 or so new ones i've seen anyway...)

But looking at this review it doesnt look like you'll be able to get those drives in,
id say you'd be lucky to get a second drive in.

Heres the start of the review, (end of this page describes inside)
http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/reviews/5524/1/

and half way down this page is a pic of inside..
http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/reviews/5524/2/

DirtyHarry

please dont buy a dell.....its like killing your own mother. INSANE!

Anyway...i get the sense that you think ppl buy prebuilds as a cheap option. Dell shouldnt be an option if you have 2k to spend. Configure a rig (piece by piece) on komplett and see you will get the same gear roughly for less or the same price (screen included). Only thing is u wont have a warranty but u will have the trill of a self-build and know whats in your case. (not 3rd hand refurbs u find in dells)

So see what u can get otherwise. Its just 'dell' dont really cut the mustard!

abccormac

I bought an 8400 a few months ago and I'm very happy with it. I think you'll only get one more hard drive into it but other than that theres plenty of room.
The only thing you can't replace is the motherboard and power supply as standard ones won't fit.tbh if you want a new mother board, getting a new case and psu doesn't seem like such a big deal to me. Just watch out for delivery times with high end graphics cards in the system as they can slow things down alot if they are in short supply.

duridian

Here's another vote for the "Don't go to Dell" camp.
Merc, I'm assuming you are living somewhere in our capital. Do you realise how many pc building enthusiasts from Boards live in Dublin? I'm sure that even though you don't want to build the pc yourself, that if you got the components there would be plenty of people from the forums who could assemble and configure the lot for a modest fee or maybe even just for the fun of it. That way you would be getting all the advantages of a pc custom built to your own needs and without the restrictions of a 'big name brand' like Dell. Two grand would buy you something fantastic in the way of modern hardware and you could be certain of getting a system which can be adapted to your needs, just as an example there isn't a snowflake's chance in hell you will be able to fit three extra hard drives into a Dell Dimension.

DirtyHarry

damn right, duridian.....id build it for free! I built two rigs for two mates last week! All in a weeks work!

damnyanks

Maybe also worth taking into consideration hard drive cases. If you can't put them in internally do it externally through USB?

I think its anice machine not too sure about value been a while since I went pricing. But generally Dell are average price / slightly more expensive for "good" machines.

Stephen

Komplett will now build the machine for you as well if you want. No idea how their prices compare to Dell's, especially given that monitor though.

maxheadroom

how about this: http://www.jes-computer.de/product_info.php?pID=19561

You still need a monitor and probably an English language OS (and possibly keyboard), but its really good value for what you get.

BloodBath

Priced a good system for just over 2000. Self build though.

www.jescomputer.de

18293 TFT 19" BenQ FP937s analog/digital 387.00 EUR
14324 Creative SB Audigy 2 ZS Retail 89.99 EUR
19315 GEH Thermaltake Soprano silber+Window 85.00 EUR
17643 Netzteil be quiet! 450W Black 2 Lüfter 79.99 EUR
18604 CPU AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Winchester Box 285.00 EUR
18984 Kühler Multisockel ZALMAN CNPS-7700-Cu 49.00 EUR
17741 DDR PC400 1GB Corsair TWINX1024-3200XL 269.96 EUR
15962 HDD SATA 200GB Western Digital WD2000JD 105.91 EUR
19075 DVDR IDE NEC ND-3520A Dual beige bulk 69.00 EUR
17123 DVD IDE LG GDR-8163B 16x52x beige bulk 22.94 EUR

www.overclock.co.uk

Sapphire ATi Radeon X850 Pro PCI-Express 256Mb DDR3 Full Retail Boxed 438 EUR
DFI LANPARTY UT nF4 Ultra-D AMD Athlon 64 Socket 939 Motherboard 159 EUR

Total
2042 EUR exc delivery.

If that Dell is working out at £1500 then it's a good price. I don't see how it's so cheap with 2gb's of ram though.


BloodBath

stevenmu

Just to balance out the dell naysayers, they are very good as hassle free pcs if you can't be arsed to build your own and are willing to spend the extra for the brand name and warranty. They're also generally very easy to upgrade, apart from motherboard/psu. They're extremly well designed inside, they have some very clever ways of making drives and pci cards etc very easy to put in, and they're put together well so everything is neat and tidy and easy to work around.

The_Conductor

stevenmu wrote:

Just to balance out the dell naysayers, they are very good as hassle free pcs if you can't be arsed to build your own and are willing to spend the extra for the brand name and warranty. They're also generally very easy to upgrade, apart from motherboard/psu. They're extremly well designed inside, they have some very clever ways of making drives and pci cards etc very easy to put in, and they're put together well so everything is neat and tidy and easy to work around.

I beg to differ.

The case is crampled- with extremely limited room for the insertion of either additional 3.5" or 5.25" devices.
The number of PCI slots is insufficient.
The PCI-Express slot if used further reduces the PCI slots available to you (through overhang) as does the AGP slot (the heatsink on the GPU protrudes too far).
The PCI-Express slot is, further, only 1 speed.
The motherboard chipsets are inevitably Intel- which means limited to non-existant room for o/c'ing (if you're a gamer).
Supplied monitor, while robust, has mediocre response times.
Support, if required, is bloody terrible.

In short- do not touch with proverbial barge pole.......
T

Mercury_Tilt

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Mercury_Tilt

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Mercury_Tilt

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Mercury_Tilt

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The_Conductor

Mercury_Tilt wrote:

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Does wonders for your post count

In all seriousness- think the changes you made mean you end up with a far better machine than your previous proposal, even if I do have issues with Dell (including having been an employee for a brief but bruising spell.....)

The monitor you've wrangled out of her, is pretty decent, it retails at almost Euro 375 on its own! Picture quality is good along with general ruggedness (don't ask.....) Response time is a bit high at 20ms, but the additional 4 USB 2.0 ports on the monitor are good news, as you had a slight drought of them...

Fingers crossed that this posts, I've been having even worse probs than you

Much better purchase than the previous one. Further slight adjustment that I would recommend- add a second optical drive- a high speed DVD/CD ROM (errr..... for the purposes of streaming from one device to the other..... there, that didn't sound too much like piracy, did it?)

S.

Ciaran500

Doesn't the first one you picked out (the 8400) have a much better graphics card?

Mercury_Tilt

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Ciaran500

Never got the raedon fad?

The lest generation of graphics card was dominated by Raedons, they outperformed Nvidia on every level and currently have the fastest card out on the market (the X850 PE) which is only beaten by two Nvidia cards in SLI.

Mercury_Tilt

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Ciaran500

TBH I can never understand people like you who have complete brand loyalty.

Everything you like about Nvidia is available from ATI. But everyone to their own.

po0k

It's a drivers thing.

I'll be the first to say that ATI have got the hardware side nailed down, but their driver teams really need to get their act together and sort out OpenGL support in windows and Linux along with stability.

Mercury_Tilt

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Ciaran500

Mercury_Tilt wrote:

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You know you made the right choice

The ATI OpenGL are not that bad, just a little slower than Nvidia.

I've only had trouble with C.O.D. single player. Multiplayer and demo worked fine though

BloodBath

**** all games ae being mad in open gl these days o I wouldn't worry about it anyway. That's a top rig for that price. I'd be very surprised if you manage to get the 2gb's of ram @ that price.


BloodBath

Mercury_Tilt

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Ciaran500

I would not be noticably faster but it does mean you have some ram slots free if you want to upgrade in the futre.