New PC & w00t!!!! an unexpected bonus!!

Quorthon

Got home last night and unwrapped my shiny new pc from Dell - unfortunately I didnt have much time to do anything other than set it up as I had to go out, but setup was a breeze and everything works "out of the box".

However, I was surprised upon checking the control panel device manager to see that Ive actually got one of the new P4's, a 2.26ghz, 533 mhz bus speed version!!!!!!!! I ordered when Dell Ireland were only doing the 2.20 ghz 400mhz bus proccys so I am delighted to receive this. I was a bit sceptical about the control panel version so I lashed on Sandra to verify and its correct!! They must have run out of stock of the old ones. These babies are extremely overclockable (Gibbo of OCUK got his to 3.1ghz with standard cooling) so kudos to Dell for this.

Anyway, wont get a chance to do much until Saturday (wife is out all day ) but initial impressions are outstanding - particularly the monitor - getting a 21" is the best decision I ever made - my 17" looks like 14" beside it - the trinitron flat screen is fabulous - colours & text are vibrant and razor sharp - had a quick go with my matrix dvd and its superb. 1600 x 1200 @ 85hz = lots of screen real estate!!!

Will post full review & benches when its all fully up and running.


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PPC

Nice one.
Gibbo is a little bit of a nutter i think.
His Madonion marks are crazy.
Good luck with it.

Quorthon

yeah I wont be going for broke with it or anything - Ill just run it at standard clock for the foreseeable future - there is nothing I currently run that requires any more - its just nice to know the option is there

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Saruman

Is this the one you ordered for €3500? Nice one Dell i have to say... That much money does not seem so much any more with the new chip!

EvilGeorge

Nice one is right , you'll have to give it a good run through when you get a chance and see what its capable of, I haven't touched an intel cpu since the P5 !!!

SickBoy

Hate to be the one to tell you this but you won't be able to overclock that machine.

koneko

Dell machines are notoriously bad OC'ing.

Don't expect to get the same results as Gibbo... ever... in anything. Not only does he know what he's doing, he also can handpick and test a million different CPUs (seeing as he works for OcUK).

Quorthon

Lads,

As I said, I dont actually want to overclock it since atm with 2.26ghz, GF4 ti 4600 and 512 RDRAM I dont think I have any need to!!!! I cant think of one application that I use that will actually need extra processing speed (unless Im trying to catch up on your Seti w/u total Sickboy ).

I was just making the point that I have received something better than I ordered which is a bonus.

As regards Gibbo I am aware that he can hand pick any cpu he wants - however the results I quoted were as he stated himself, from a cpu picked at random, air cooled - lots of others have pointed out how well they clock also.


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PPC

You should be able to get a new bios off the mobo creators website.
Flash it and it should work.
I'm not sure about the board so maybe its not oc'able at all.
But as ya said you have enough power for at least the next 6months :rolleyes:

Quorthon

Originally posted by PPC
You should be able to get a new bios off the mobo creators website.
Flash it and it should work.
I'm not sure about the board so maybe its not oc'able at all.
But as ya said you have enough power for at least the next 6months :rolleyes:

hehe yes a sad, but unavoidable fact of computer buying life. Thats why Im sure I made the correct decision as regards monitor, sound etc. I had been looking at dells prices for a while and when intel announced their latest price cuts, the price of the 2.2ghz system with Dell fell by around €300 Euro. At this point I made the decision to get the 21" Trinitron monitor rather than go for a 2.4ghz proccy with a 19". I think this was a good decision - the 2.4 would have given me no discernable benefit in current apps and still would have been surpassed in a couple of months anyway. The monitor however will hopefully stay with me for many years to come.

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Gerry

That was nice of them to throw in the faster 533 bus chip.

There wasn't much point in saying this though:

"Ill just run it at standard clock for the foreseeable future - there is nothing I currently run that requires any more - its just nice to know the option is there."

Erm, you will be running it at standard clock forever, but surely you knew this when you bought it. There is no option there. Its an intel board, with a purposely limited clock generator, so a new bios isn't going to help you. ( I am aware that you don't want or need more speed right now, and you won't need more speed for an awful long time, I'm just being pedantic )

It is a very nice machine though, and good value.

SickBoy

With that beast churning out the workunits, it won't be long at all. It will be interesting to see how fast it can process a workunit.

Saruman

Whats the monitor warranty on it? Usually they only give 1 year (3 for the system box though) so i assume you upgraded it to 3 years? If not i suggest you do so.. especially on a 21" that your going to want to keep for many years to come!! I know with Gateway it was onlt £35 for a 3 year warranty so it should not be too expensive.

Quorthon

Originally posted by Gerry
That was nice of them to throw in the faster 533 bus chip.

There wasn't much point in saying this though:

"Ill just run it at standard clock for the foreseeable future - there is nothing I currently run that requires any more - its just nice to know the option is there."

Erm, you will be running it at standard clock forever, but surely you knew this when you bought it. There is no option there. Its an intel board, with a purposely limited clock generator, so a new bios isn't going to help you. ( I am aware that you don't want or need more speed right now, and you won't need more speed for an awful long time, I'm just being pedantic )

It is a very nice machine though, and good value.

hehe you are being pedantic I did know that when I bought it - as I said on a previous thread I have custom built pc's for years but have got to the stage where I dont really have the time nor inclination to do so and am prepared to pay for someone else to do it. As you said, I still think its relatively good value for the components and I should be happy for a while (at least until Doom III comes out anyway

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Quorthon

Originally posted by SickBoy
With that beast churning out the workunits, it won't be long at all. It will be interesting to see how fast it can process a workunit.

If i have time over the weekend or next week I will download the OCUK seti bench and see what it churns out. Whatever it does, its bound to be faster than my current (P3-600) time of 9-10 hrs


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EvilGeorge

OEM boards have automatic clocking from the ID of the cpu - they removed the overclocking jumpers ages ago because ppl liked to play!!

Still later down the line grab a cheap retail board and happy days!!