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You could argue that it's partially my fault for not knowing exactly what I was getting in a computer before buying. But that's kind of the point: you can't just assume that if Dell is selling parts, they'll be decent parts, any more than you can assume the same of New Egg. For some parts, Dell won't tell you what they're selling though--notably including the motherboard and power supply. You might be able to get an answer if you go out of your way to contact a person rather than digging through the web site, but you'd still have to really know your stuff to know what that answer means. Though really, it's largely because I got burned last time that I'm reading up on what to get this time. The choice between Intel and AMD in a processor is largely a question of how much you want to pay. Sure, a 3.33 GHz Core 2 Duo is a lot faster than a 3 GHz Athlon II, but it also costs more than twice as much. Once Lynnfield is released next week, it will basically be a matter of, if you're willing to spend at least $300 for a processor and motherboard (added together), get an Intel (that's what Core i5 with a low-end motherboard will cost), and if less than that, get an AMD unless Intel cuts prices on their Core 2 line considerably. I add the motherboard in because motherboards for Intel's Nehalem architecture (which includes Lynnfield) are more expensive than motherboards for AMD processors. For video cards, ATI knows that their next generation of cards is out soon, and cut prices a little while ago to try to clear inventory on their previous generation. For a while, that meant you'd get a better deal from ATI than Nvidia except at the high end, but Nvidia has since cut prices to match, so you can go either way at the moment and get a good deal. The basic rough equivalences (in both price and performance) are: ATI Radeon 4850 <-> Nvidia GeForce GTS 250 If you're not willing to spend $100 on a video card to get the first of those, it's not much of a gaming computer, though you could perhaps get by with something lower end. If you're willing to spend a lot more than the $200 for the last of the three, you'll get a lot better value by waiting for ATI's next line of cards. As for when Nvidia's next line of cards is out, there's a lot of conflicting rumors out there, but they may or may not be generally available at retail by the end of the year. |
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Originally posted by dreamer05
Folks seem to be forgetting this . I have an old Dell pentium 3.2 with a gt 7600 and 2 GB ram that my wife likes and won't part with...yet. We have had only one problem with it...dvd went down. Two days later a tech from Dell showed up and replaced the part ( still had 3 months on a 2 year home fix plan) Buy the warrantee if you don't want to work on it. Dell is a good choice for a non-tech person. Check Alienware to if you want...owned by Dell but more oriented towards gamers. On memory. Check the memory speed on your old system. It is likely the memory in your old system is a 667. Even if its the same type (DDR2?) it would cause your new 800 memory to sync to it..all will run at 667. That said, memory is cheap...and not needed from what you have said you are looking for. GL I also build systems and spent 12 years in the complex sys group with IBM. Just not a tech snob. |
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Originally posted by dreamer05
In that case, upgrade to 4 gb ram (800 mhz) and a 260 GTX. Then you should be able to run everything for the next few years with good settings. That should still be in the right pricerange, anything better and you will go up a lot. And don't order one with Vista, W7 or XP both performs a lot better without being harder to use. The good thing with companies like Dell, compaq and HP is that they replace anything that breaks. The bad thing is that you have to check what they are giving you closely, they like to use cheap components. |
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Actually, now that I check prices, the Nvidia cards are more expensive than I thought they were. You could just go here and pick a card based on what you want to pay: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-graphics-card,2387.html Some people talk about bad ATI drivers, but that seems to mostly be based on people who had trouble with ATI cards several years ago, not recently, other than people having trouble getting a card of either brand to work on Linux. An ATI card will support DirectX 10.1, while an Nvidia one won't (Nvidia does support DirectX 10). That only matters if you want to play one of the few games that uses DirectX 10.1. An Nvidia card supports PhysX, while an ATI one won't. That also only matters if you want to play one of the few games that supports PhysX hardware acceleration (which could actually be called hardware deceleration, since it will make it slower than if you were to turn off the PhysX graphical effects). |
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Well look what you've gotten yourself into here... Here's your problem, even at your price range, the options you could get by building your own computer are infinitely better than when buying from a company like dell. However, since you're quite sure you do not wnat to build we'll just have to rule that out. It was mentioned before that dell isnt all it used to be, and i find myself agreeing with that. While I cant personally state whether or not their service has gone down hill, I can say that their systems are extremely over priced. As for their service... well http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15338/1/ . Take a look at that. Regardless, i believe it was Quizzical that said it really isnt a good time to buy a new computer, and agian i must agree completely. In fact I would recomend against it. However, since you are not lookign at building your own computer this isnt as much of an issue for your. You could wait for the upcommign releases, but it would likely be months before they were widely available in Dell systems. Even then they would be consentrated in teh high end systems and would cost a fortune to add as an upgrade option. Now I realise that I havent really given any constructive advise in this post, but if you do really ant to get teh best bang for your buck then you may want to open yourself to the possibility of buying a computer from other retailers as well. What ever teh case may be, let us know on this forum, and give us a max price. im sure lots of us guys will be happy to run around the net tracking down teh best deal for whatever your price is. |
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Heres what I ended up getting:
Hard Drive - 500GB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache Seems like more than enough for my purpose. And they are doing free shipping. And the company I work for gets a discount at Dell too. I think I'll be highly satisfied.
"God help us sinful children of Ivalice.." |
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Well Im sure those specs wll be fine for you, however I dont see a video card listed there. Just wondering what it is, because that really is teh desisive peaice of hardware. Needless to say, if you got itegrated graphics you are not going to be satisfied. |
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Originally posted by dreamer05
Sure, it looks fine except that you forgot to list the most important thing: the GFX card. Also you need to get the the specs for the PSU. Some companies, Dell included, have been very cheap with the PSU and are selling ones that don't really do the work. It depends a bit on what GFX card you ordered but less than 650W will have problems with most better cards. 550 For the little slower cards but that would mean that you would have to change PSU if you upgrade the card. Edit: 20" screen is kinda small BTW. 22" don't cost much more and will get a lot better performance. It might be better to not get the monitor from Dell but getting a Samsung 22" or 24" instead. They are the best on the market and if you look around you can find them rather cheap. The screen is one of the most important thing for your computer. It is better to use your old one for a month or 2 if you can't afford a good one right now. Monitors have dropped a lot in prices the last year and 20" is rather small today, particulary with the widescreen. If you must have a 20" don't get a widescreen. |
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I've been using a 20' monitor for years so I don't really care about that. And sorry I forgot the video card is nVidia GeForce GTS 240 1024MB
Edit: And this is not the SLI I had originally posted.
"God help us sinful children of Ivalice.." |
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Originally posted by dreamer05
No. Please don't, the 240 is a really crappy card. It is in fact so bad that they don't sell it by itself, Nvidia only sells it to companies like Dell and HP. I would even say that it is the worst card you can get into a new desktop today. At least get a 250 even though that is pretty bad too. You really should get a 260. Check this test, the 240 isn't in it but it scores long below the 250 which is rather pathetic in itself. A 8800 card would be a lot better buy than the 240 even though it is over 5 years old. Please gat a 260 GTX instead, crap, keep your old CRT monitor insted to save the money or something. |
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The 240 is a rebranded 9800GT, which is in turn a rebranded 8800GT. Nice one Nvidia. |
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Yep its a massive fail. Although it evidently works since the majority of people dont have a clue. |
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It was either that or put out an extra 375$ for the upgrade video card. That one will do just fine. Like I said, I'm still doing perfectly fine on my 3 year old computer.
"God help us sinful children of Ivalice.." |
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Good to see you didn't go ape sht. 6 cores are just around the corner and Win7 will always use all the cores. (it eliminates the need for multithreading) Be sure not to go nuts on the vid card. a single 4890 should run anything at acceptable framerates(IE over 60) Unless you play far cry 2 the 4890 will be a better card than the 260 core 216 |
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Originally posted by dreamer05 What? That is totaly insane. Just order the cheapest crap card then and buy this card lose for $180and change it yourself. Dell computers arent sealed like Compaq computers (or they werent 10 years ago when I had one) so if you need something fixed, just put the old card back into it and have it in for the warranty. The 240 is probably worse than what you have on your 3 old year computer. The architecture is 5 years old. Thats 60 years in human years. |
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Originally posted by Loke666 What? That is totaly insane. Just order the cheapest crap card then and buy this card lose for $180and change it yourself. Dell computers arent sealed like Compaq computers (or they werent 10 years ago when I had one) so if you need something fixed, just put the old card back into it and have it in for the warranty. The 240 is probably worse than what you have on your 3 old year computer. The architecture is 5 years old. Thats 60 years in human years.
There is no telling how long untill DX11 games come out. it could be a year till it is viable to get DX11 hardware. |
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Well, there are a bunch of racing games with it starting in December with Dirt 2, but the real sell is how much faster on paper the new DX11 parts are suppose to be. So even if you won't have DX11 games for a while, if you're ready to upgrade it's probably worth the wait and I expect to be adopted a lot quicker than DX10 was for many reasons. |
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