PlaneShift
Fan Area => The Hydlaa Plaza => Topic started by: Moogie on July 12, 2005, 09:59:07 am
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Hiya folks,
Both me and my dad own computers, and usually when mine gets old, it\'s passed on to him, while I get the next new one. That way we don\'t have to be buying two comps every time these ones get old, and my dad doesn\'t usually need grand-spanking performance anyway.
Today the discussion of Dell computers came up. They\'re always advertised with loads of RAM and big LCD monitors and great processor speeds... but at as little as ?399? A top-notch computer that is not a Dell costs anywhere from ?1500 to ?3000 from the shops here these days.
Dell are the only company, who I\'ve seen so far, that do these \'offers\'. There has got to be some sort of catch. You don\'t get exactly the same computer for up to ?1000 less than somewhere else- it just doesn\'t work that way.
Our budget isn\'t big, so please, I don\'t want to hear about \"Alienware are the best\" etc, because I know, they\'re also incredibly expensive. :P And in all honesty, building a computer myself would not go well either.
It\'s either a Dell, or another shop-sold brand. The only thing I\'m interested in really is knowing what this catch is.
Anybody know? Thanks for any replies :)
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Truthfully I dont know a whole lot about computers, not nearly as much as many of the people here, but I do know that I would not buy anything with a Celeron processor in it. Many of the cheap new Dell have them in them and they do not perform nearly as well. Dell usually has good deals though and okay payment plans. But if you dont have a lot of money you should most likely stay away from the flat screens as well. On mine it was $300 extra. Well I hope that I helped you a little :).
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The catch is... they are pieces of crap. Dell give the customers nice specs, but that dosnt mean the actual computers will run faster at all. For example- they give you lots of RAM, but then instead of giving you a graphics card they just give you shared graphics. (Which for someone like you, a graphic designer, i gather would be very bad). Or the computer is really good, but it has bad Cooling, so it never runs at full capacity. Or they\'re simply just not built to last. Dell can give cheap prices because it makes everything itself, but it also cuts cornors in places to make it cheaper as well. Also, if you run linux, from my experience nothing on a Dell will work with it. (:P the people in the Why i love Linux thread will attest to that..). But, i mean, the big factor here is price. They are very cheap. But you get what you pay for. For example i saw an article recently that bench-marked different workstations. The Dell workstation had twice as much RAM as all the others, and a better processor, but still came out middle-lower in all the Benchmarks. Why? Bad cooling, skimping on the parts that most people dont know about.
I mean, if you\'re on a budget, i\'d advise you to go for Dell. I bought a laptop from them, and although it isnt great, it was cheap, and it works. And a laptop has more things to consider- battery life, etc. So I cant imagine a desktop with good specs would be that bad. But just make sure you get one that doesnt use shared graphics.
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Heya..
It\'s hard to tell what the catch is when I don\'t know exactly what the \"package\" includes (yeah, I am too lazy to google/seek for them, sry) ;) but usually these kind of cheap packages tend to have everything integrated in the cheap MoBos in them. The performance of these integrated componets aren\'t so good and they are the cheapest available..
So I suggest that check out what components/chips these Dell\'s have inside and maybe search some reviews etc. about them. After all a computer is the only the sum of components :)
-Khorus
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Actually, the little known catch is that they eat your soul. It happens slowly, over time. But it will happen. Muhahahahahaaaa!!!!
*ahem*
What Ram said.
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Without further adoo, a former Dell owner:
Prety much what ramlambmoo said is right but I\'ll be more specific.
Unless you purchase one of dells \'uber\' buisiness models you will get an all in one board. the all in one board is bad since your sound and grafics run through your CPU and not their own co-processor (or whatever the hell it is called).
Second they usually stick you with a bottom of the line cooling system. Now you could just do like me and build a case out of wire and put those nifty squirle cage fans over and next to it but it seems to be extra work for nothing if you are not into case customization in the first place.
Thirdly they load all kinds of background software that is supposed to keep you \"up to date\" but I can only say reminds me of Homers Illiad, if you get my drift. (the battle of Troy *hint *hint)
Lastly they are a computer with a planned life span. The company does not intend them to last more than two years and though my older ones have made it four or even five. I have yet to see a newer model that I trusted with that kind of time frame.
Basicly they are an office computer. Three years tops and most office complexes are replacing their equipment anyway so why make a computer that goes longer? Why include great cooling? Most office complexes are air conditioned. Why include top notch grafics and sound? Word, Excell and PowerPoint don\'t need them in the slightest.
I think I covered all my gripes.
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Originally posted by Moogie
They\'re always advertised with loads of RAM and big LCD monitors and great processor speeds... but at as little as ?399?
Dell systems are \"customizable\". For example there is the Dimension 9100 series which is the \"Latest MultiMedia Technology for High End Performance\" and it\'s advertized as from ?549 for a Pentium D up to 3.2GHz, up to 4GB RAM, PCI Express Graphics up to 256MB ATI Radeon X850 XT PLatinum Editon, up to 1000GB SATA HD, etc.
Actually, a system with these top specs costs ?2500-3000+, depending on other options you select. For ?549 you get a good business system but not the \"Latest MultiMedia Technology for High End Performance\" and only 1 year warranty.
Dell prices may be cheaper at times because Dell is the number 1 PC maker so it\'s easier for them to get deals from suppliers and the like, so they might double your RAM for \"free\" or include a \"free\" printer (which you will end up paying for anyway when buying ink cartridges).
If you\'re not afraid of refurbished systems, checkout Dell Outlet (http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/default.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=dfo). There are some good bargains.
The Computer Shopper (http://www.computershopper.co.uk/) magazine recommends the ?1099 Dell Dimension 5000 (Part code PPUK5-D04507R) (Intel Pentium 4 550 3.4GHz HT, 1GB RAM, 250GB hard disk, 256MB nVidia 6800 graphics, DVD+/-RW DL and DVD ROM drives, 19\" LCD.). It\'s got a BTX case (which has better airflow) so this ought to solve the heat problems the other posters mentionned. If you\'ve got a tight budget they recommend the ?599 MESH Matrix Vector Blast but with only a 1024*768 15\" LCD it probably won\'t suit you.
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Well I\'ve noticed they never mention anything about a graphics card and they have tiny hard drives too.
Try going custom you can actually save money with it.
My comp cost me under 400 bucks like a year and 1/2 ago and it\'s pretty good.
120Gig HD
2.2 GHz
256Mb ATI Radeon 9200SE graphics card
512MB DDR Ram
Try reusing parts from your old comp that you may not nessicarily need a new one of. Like a case, floppy drive, etc.
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there is a dell around here somewhere, its about 1/2 a year old maybe a bit more from what im used to it compares quite well. the catch as someone said earlier is the graphics card. and maybe you might want to make some other random changes.
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also you needs more speakers then what you get with one.
Editation! 8o i\'ve been bad, stupid reply button looked so apealing.
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I find the cheapest option is custom build the PC by yourself..That\'s what I do all the time...:P
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...they are crap, well at least the one\'s you get for ?399. Dell can make a good quality computer, but they cost as much as the others you will find. Of course, since you are a graphic designer Moogie, I suggest you switch to the good side (i.e. get a mac since they are so amazingly great at graphics design) but you probably don\'t like the way they work if you haven\'t switched already, which is ok, I respect that. If a PC you are after, I suggest an HP or build a custom one.
My thoughts, good luck in whatever you choose to do,
Xirius
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Personaly, i have a 512 mb ram , 2.7 ghz , 80 g harddrive, comp with an NVIDIA GeForce 440. Its an HP, and i average about 50-80 fps in the plaza, and 200+ in oja. i need more ram.
How much does 1 gig of ram cost?
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Originally posted by dragonfire999
Personaly, i have a 512 mb ram , 2.7 ghz , 80 g harddrive, comp with an NVIDIA GeForce 440. Its an HP, and i average about 50-80 fps in the plaza, and 200+ in oja. i need more ram.
How much does 1 gig of ram cost?
You have LESS ghz than me and the same ram, less hard drive and better fps? *Blames her internet*
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*hugs 100mb/s connection*
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My advice when it comes to dells, is to get their mid-range models. the cheapo ones have the problems stated above, but I find the $800 - $1000 ones run quite nice. They give good deals because they buy parts in uber bulk and get WinXP very cheaply from Micro$oft. BUT GET A DEDICATED GRAPHICS CARD! Or (please don\'t flame me!) look into getting an emachines desktop. low priced and sport some nice specs. My laptop is an emachings, and i love it.
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I think everything has been said on the dell issue, so I might comment on HP: I loathe them. Their support is marginal, at best, and their website was, when I needed it, completely unstructured, incredibly hard to navigate and certainly not crosslinked well. It took one day to find the most basic info on a tape drive made by them, and two more days to actually find where they had hidden (yes, they seem to hide, not make available, things) the manual for it which, BTW, was crap.
As for the FPS issue: The internet connection does not have anything to do with FPS AFAICS. What will make the difference is the quality of the hard- and software and how it is configured.
For example, you can have
1) a slow motherboard chipset
2) slow RAM
3) BIOS at \"failsafe defaults\" instead of \"performance\"
4) loads of unnecessary background tasks hogging the RAM, and eating CPU cycles
5) cheap processor (Celeron vs. Pentium), which does more GHz but less work
6) bad graphics card, maybe even with shared memory
7) old drivers that slow things down
8) driver-driven \"hardware\" instead of intelligent, dedicated SPUs for sound, networking, modem, etc.
9) older / newer CPU revision that has different base clock and cache memory
etc, etc.. Subtle things like the northbrige and other mainboard components can make an insane difference nowadays.
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Dell are crappy that\'s why they are cheap. And they doesn\'t really have great
CPU and stuff, but are made on cheap crap to be cheap. There is no such thing
like \"good and cheap\" unless you are buy a bread, but it is not always...
HP are not really so expensive, recently we have got a HP server for like 1500
PLN which is very cheap, assuming you want to buy a laptop you may choose
HP too. We all, in our company run on HP and we don\'t spent so alot of cash
for them. Dell = no, I had Dell and never again...Generally I am telling everyone
to buy HP or if you are really short in cash - Toshiba.
Regards.
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Thanks for all the tips/info. :)
I don\'t think I\'ll want to switch to Mac, I need my games too much. ;)
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Actually the e-machine thing isnt\' a bad idear - if you want to go cheap, plus they seem better since they were aquired by compaq... or was it gateway? I think it was Compaq :) .
Make sure any system you buy:
Doesn\'t have the word \"Shared Memory\" in the advertisment.
Has a dedicated graphics card (these two and connected).
Has an AGP or PCI - E card slots.
To save price get a machine that uses SDRAM - its extremely cheap, and you can really load up a machine for cheap. SDRAM has worse performance than DDR or DDR2 but the performance difference between PC133 SDRAM and DDR is only a few percent, but having LOTS of ram makes a bigger difference. 512 SDRAM will beat 256 DDR any day. IF you get one with SDRAM make sure there are 4 memory bays. That way you can get at least 1GB of ram in it - which is killer awsome. Then you can get a videocard - NVIDIA cards seem to do better with their opengl 3d so it might be better to go with an NVIDIA card. Avoid anything other than:
NVIDIA
Matrox
Ati
Voodoo
Other cards are probabily not worth your money. Highly reccommend NVIDIA.
Avoid any parts you don\'t need. If you aren\'t going to use a modem, don\'t get one. The more add in cards the more system resources are consumed. A decent soundcard helps with performance too, as the less processing the CPU has to do the better. Good Sound cards do more of the processing on the card itself.
As for processor you can go with an AMD Athlon FX line as they are inexpensive, and powerful. Prices in the Athlon 64 FX rise steeply in the higher end parts of the line though.
A Celeron should be avoided, but a P4 is a good choice as well.
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Your post surprised me Moogie. I?m not sure how your currency converts to the AU$, but I find that Dell machines are somewhat expensive. Looking at laptops anyway.
My mum brought herself a Dell dimension a couple of years ago, and I wasn?t very impressed. The DVD burner included didn?t burn DVD?s, unless you brought some Asian brand that was impossible to find.
That and a few months after the warranty ran out the motherboard packed up. Which had everything on board.
They do have some pretty snazzy cases though!
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Originally posted by Induane
Avoid anything other than:
NVIDIA
Matrox
Ati
Voodoo
Other cards are probabily not worth your money. Highly reccommend NVIDIA.
For a 2d artist I\'d recommend Matrox. But since she \"needs her games\" too, ATI would be the choice. Not sure if this changed lately, and nowadays reviews focus too much on the 3d performance, forgetting that there are also other criterias, but always ATI used to have sharper and generally better 2d picture than nVidia.
And I would avoid Voodoo at all cost :P
And combining TFT with on-board graphics should be against the law.
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I agree with GeorgeD :)
NVIDIA has better performance now, though ATI used to be the leader - I\'m talking bleeding edge here i.e. FX 7800
I don\'t know about the 2D part though as far as ATI vs NVIDIA
P.S. What is TFT?
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Originally posted by Induane
P.S. What is TFT?
from Google\'s define:
Thin Film Transistor - a superior type of LCD screen, also referred to as an \'active matrix display\', often used for portable computer displays - each of the screen\'s pixels is controlled by its own transistor, affording an enhanced resolution and refresh rate
So in other words: very good quality flat screen monitor/display ;)
-Khorus
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Originally posted by Moogie
It\'s either a Dell, or another shop-sold brand. The only thing I\'m interested in really is knowing what this catch is.
It\'s not Macintosh :D
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Originally posted by Moogie
...
:P And in all honesty, building a computer myself would not go well either.
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I think that build your own computer it\'s not so dificult. Sure you need to do some research, and planning but it isn\'t rocket science, i\'m building my own systems and my friend\'s all time.
PD: You also can learn lot of things in the process.
Just do it ;)
Sorry my bad english.
Salu2.
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Originally posted by Induane
Avoid anything other than:
NVIDIA
Matrox
Ati
Voodoo
Other cards are probabily not worth your money. Highly reccommend NVIDIA.
Correct me if im wrong but didn\'t voodoo go out of the whole cqard business a long time ago?
Oh and I reccomend ATI. Nvidia may have the bigger numbers but ati still out performs it.
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Thin Film Transistor - a superior type of LCD screen, also referred to as an \'active matrix display\', often used for portable computer displays - each of the screen\'s pixels is controlled by its own transistor, affording an enhanced resolution and refresh rate
Ahh Active Matrix display huh? Why didn\'t you say so? :)
Correct me if im wrong but didn\'t voodoo go out of the whole cqard business a long time ago?
No but you may hear them refered to more nowadays as 3DFX :) They tend to make cards for high end workstations and the like now.
Oh and I reccomend ATI. Nvidia may have the bigger numbers but ati still out performs it.
Some benchmarks here... (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1634781,00.asp)
I couldn\'t actually find any where ATI performed better, since mid 2002 in the benchamrk department. I will say that in easier environments ATi\'s seem to be able to squeeze out a few more fps, but the NVIDIA cards do well in rendering complex environments without taking a performance hit.
All in all though both are quite good and it is probabily a matter of personal preference and indicidual need. Both have their stregnths and weaknesses.
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I don\'t think you can really base the performance of a graphics card off of 1 game.
And, well, even if the nvidia out performs it:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814143028
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102502
Just look at the prices.
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just dont buy dells packard bell and stuff like that, cause you need to pay for the brand and all the crap they put with your comp, just go to a local dealer and pay ?50 more for him to assemble the machine
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I only posted that benchmark because it was the closest one I could find that was recent - others made NVIDIA look way better, but I thought benchmarks like that couldn\'t be really fair.
But you are right - NVIDIA is a costly investment if you go to the ultra-high end. ATI keeps their top end prices more reasonable.
Mid to low range cards are probabily pretty comparable - price and performance.
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He he he Voodoo i thought all that went caput about 8 years ago...and weren\'t they called 3DFX anyways?
And how hard is it to build your own PC...hm...you get motherboard and try to stick anything that fits there and hope that it doesn\'t break lol :D
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3dfx is no longer in business. It was bought out by nVidia a few years ago.
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If your thinking about building your own here are a few thoughts from someone who has always built his own from componets.
1) It will have to be a desktop. Never heard of building your own laptop.
2) If you can not recyclye any of your old parts it will not be cost effective to build your own. You should buy all the parts on paper before you spend real money. Check manufactures websites for drivers as well.
3) Because you are using some recycled parts, some of the more state of the art features, may not work correctly. You should know your operating system well enough to get arround some of the conflicts.
4) Microsoft software will cost you your first born if you have to by the non-OEM full version.
5) You should spend a signifiacant amout of time researching all the newest hardward standards so you can make good decisions about purchases.
As a side note, several posters mentioned NVIDIA video cards. NVIDIA as far as I know does not sell video cards. They make the chips and other manufactures like Leadtek sell the compleate \"card\". Maybe some one can correct me on this one. ATI on the other hand, does both, they make the componets and sell whole cards.
I personally want to buy a new computer and and am thinking it would be better to cross over to the dark side and buy a premade one. Probably a Dell.
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Originally posted by Efflixi Aduro
Just look at the prices.
Ok, wow half the prices. ATI is the shit! or?
1. The nvidia card has 512MB (Which is very expensive to do as of yet) versus 256MB on the ATI card.
2. The nvidia card has 2 DVI outputs, the ATI only 1.
3. Nvidia comes with 15-20 features (Didn\'t bother reading them), and ati with a lot less
4. ATI is AGP; cheaper and slower
I think the BFG nvidia is more priceworthy actually
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One good thing about dell?
Some expensive software can be gotten cheap through them if you bundle it. I\'ll be reformatting my family\'s dell this week (I primarily use my computer, which was built by a local outlet.). Anywho, XP is expensive by itself, as is Word Perfect 10, as well as a handful of other programs, (Better than MsWord, IMO.) but I don\'t use them on the dell. I gave it up after I could no longer differentiate friend from resource hogger on ctrl-alt-del. We did have to buy an outside graphics card to up performance and it worked well intially. Still, Windows XP Home sucks and I am never buying a dell again.
Hm, maybe I should skip the reformat and just cannibalize the 9800, a little longer and the collective rot will make it unnoticeable.
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I really gotta agree with Iuduane...emachines are cheap, and deliver good performance. In fact, it\'s usually cheaper to get an emachine than buy the parts yourself. The down side is they use some refurbed parts...they have high standards, though, so they\'re generally stable, though they usually only last 3-5 years instead of the 5-10 of most well-maintained systems.
tigerdirect.com is a good place to check out cheap full systems.
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Moogie,
first of all be sure of what you buy. The last HP and Packard Bell Computer force you to send the computer back to their service if you wanna reinstall windows because of a serial number specific to the windows release you have...
Of course you can forget the installation of linux :D but thanks god there will certainly be a way to install the new windows Longhorn :]
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Then be sure that youll have what you are paying for. If a computer with a warranty of 1 or 2 year(s) is cheap, it means your material is created to work 1 or 2 year. (in fact its a statistic system : a defined number of pc must work after the warranty time... something like 85% its the most economical way to do but not the most moral)
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if you wanna use a good computer do like John Thazer said... but be prepared to pay a little more... its the price of the quality.
Personally Ill buy a new computer for 1200? with lcd/tft 19\" Geforce GT6600 256Mb 2xkinston Dual 512Mb (1Gb of ram) SLI and RAID Mother board AMD 64 3200+ s939 Maxtor SATA 200Gb 16x DVD recorder sound 24bits and whats very expensive a high silence ANTEC Sonata Box and the cherry on the top of the cake ... a disk reader (lol Im kidding it cost 7,5 ?)...
And Ill finally be able to be back to Yliakum !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
EDIT : advices :
- Nvidia (because of the linux drivers : never forgot - even if you swear today that windows is the best - that you must be able to have the choice the day you will need it)
- dont forget the cpu clock isnt the most important the 64bits system will be very important very soon (especially if you are a linux user ... but i know its not the reality). The 64bit releases of Windows would react differently... I wont advice you the peanuted peanut (Im old enough to censure myself) of Windows Longhorn but 64 bit is the future
- lifetime warranty mean the material will work properly (for example kinston memory)
- 1Gb memory is required
- dont forget the dvd recorder
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Actually, i find the worst about dells are that theyre not upgrade friendly. They make it hard to upgrade because they wanna make you buy a new one instead.
As well, the cooling really is bad, one fan -----1----- fan!!! for the whole thing besides power box. that one fan was the cpu and case fan.