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Author Topic: Dell Computers - What's the Catch?  (Read 5394 times)

Induane

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« Reply #30 on: July 14, 2005, 07:49:25 pm »
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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John_Thazer

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« Reply #31 on: July 14, 2005, 09:11:57 pm »
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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Shadowfalcon

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« Reply #32 on: July 14, 2005, 10:17:08 pm »
3dfx is no longer in business. It was bought out by nVidia a few years ago.
« Last Edit: July 14, 2005, 10:17:43 pm by Shadowfalcon »
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derwoodly

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« Reply #33 on: July 17, 2005, 09:41:53 am »
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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Androgos

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« Reply #34 on: July 18, 2005, 02:27:11 pm »
Quote
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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Monketh

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« Reply #35 on: July 19, 2005, 03:53:10 am »
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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Typhorean

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« Reply #36 on: July 21, 2005, 11:53:01 pm »
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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fken

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« Reply #37 on: July 22, 2005, 12:53:35 am »
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  :]
..................
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)
..................

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
« Last Edit: July 22, 2005, 01:37:17 am by fken »
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superstuntguy

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« Reply #38 on: July 22, 2005, 08:12:10 am »
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.
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