new pc

[bigrandydavid]

old bessie is just about to pop her clogs (thats my veteran pc to the rest of you) so its time to take the plunge and buy a new system
i was looking at the best and cheapest options.
could some one point me in a direction please
i hear that dell are excellent vfm

 

[jimbo]

Hi BRD

There's no doubt that Dell PCs are quality machines and have been for sometime. Of course, these days, there are so many suppliers in the market, the choice is not easy. I think Dell, compared with, say, Mesh are a bit overpriced and,of course, stick rigidly to Intel Pentium processors whereas Athlon XPs are every bit as good but cheaper. As I'm located in the South East, Mesh suited me because they are based in North London. Dell's outlets are spread around and their support telephone lines are now based in India, having previously been in Ireland.

It all depends on your requirements of course. Do you have a particular spec in mind. I suppose a judgement on vfm can't really be made without that in mind.

 

[bigrandydavid]

yep you`re right jimbo i should be more specific with what i mean by vfm

speed is probably top of my list, followed by memory capacity although I won`t really be using it for any major projects, just word and xl for the most part.

the problem i have at the moment is that my work pc is the dogs wotsits but my home pc is absolutely pants to the point where i can barely stand using it. its got 808Mb of memory and only 120 of thats free. i installed norton anti virus, noron clean sweep and yahoo mesenger last week and the darn thing virtually sized up so i uninstalled them all again

oh by the way `er indoors says its got to be silver! women!

 

[jimbo]

Silver? Hmmm, I don't know of too many silver cases. Dell PCs are sort of black with some silver bits on and Mesh are beige mainly. I've seen plenty of silver laptops although I believe some silver PCs in PC World.

When you say 808 Mb of memory I guess you are talking hard drive storage space rather than RAM (memory) as 808Mb for the latter would be more than enough. To be honest you don't need a very fast processor speed for word and excel so a 2Gb processor would be ample and they are about entry level these days. A 30-40Gb hard drive should be more than enough and 256 Mb of DDR memory (RAM). Obviously you get on the internet quite a bit and the access speed is governed by the speed of your connection. A 56k dial-up is pretty slow these days whereas a braodband connection is fast and can mask shortcomings in many PCs.

Anyway for what I mentioned above you could get a good spec PC, even with a DVD and a CD writer and a 17" monitor for around six to seven hundred quid. Even less if you don't need the DVD. Perhaps that will give you something to go on.

Maybe you could get a Mesh and wrap it in silver foil. ;)

 

[drag0nfly_69uk]

do you mean a can of silver car touch up spray can from halford?

 

[lee32uk]

Why not build your own pc.Much cheaper and you get the spec you want, and you can build it all in a silver case

 

[bigrandydavid]

Originally posted by lee32uk
Why not build your own pc.

don`t know where to start really.

i guess you mean buying all the items separately from a wholesaler rather than in a package from PC World.

how much cheaper would that make it??
eg.ASDA have a deal on at the mo for a pc with monitor, printer, digi camera and loads of educational software @ £699. Can`t remember the spec but that would be a typical average price for a fairly decent set up.

 

[jimbo]

I don't believe building a PC using the components of a Mesh or similar would be MUCH cheaper, if cheaper at all. I've just pulled the following off the Mesh site and, no, I don't work for them but I'm just using an example from what is one of the top companys.

When building a PC you have to remember that you need to buy a copy of the Windows operating system and in BRD's case Word and Excel. For the home user who isn't used to buying separate parts and putting them all together, I believe this system or others of a similar spec will do a good job for sometime to come.


AMD Athlon XP 2000+
Latest Technology Motherboard
256Mb High Performance 266MHz PC2100 DDR
60Gb Ultra Fast with 2Mb Buffer (7200rpm)
17" Digital Colour 0.26mm Dot Pitch (16" VIS)
Advanced 3D Graphics Acceleration (on-board)
DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive
Soundblaster Compatible Multi channel Audio
Creative Soundblaster SBS250 Speakers
Integrated 10/100 Ethernet Adaptor
Internal 56Kbps voice/fax/data modem
MESH 3 Year On-Site Warranty
MS WorksSuite 2003 + Pinnacle Studio 8 SE
Standard Features which include Logitech internet keyboard and optical mouse plus Winows XP.

[MS WorksSuite includes MS Word but not Excel]

Price? £632 including VAT and delivery.

 

[bigrandydavid]

thx for the help jimbo, i`ll let u know when i take the plunge

 

[bigrandydavid]

hello all, well its took me 4 months but i have finally ordered my new pc. i`m afraid my old one gave up some time ago so i`ve been using the work pc for essential items but with time constraints and obvious surfing restrictions i`ve not visited much recently.
hope everyone is well and hopefully i will be passing through much more frequently within a week or two

 

[rolfw]

Always good to see you BRD, I found an avatar that matched your signature.

 

[bigrandydavid]

Always good to see you BRD, I found an avatar that matched your signature.

it looks like me as well lol

 

[bigrandydavid]

Christ on a bike

The more I look in to buying a PC the more confused I get. Can anyone help me!

This is the spec I put together with a local shop but they`re sooooooooooooo slooooooow i`m beginning to think they see me as a problem punter just because I don`t want their bog standard pre determined PC.

Jetway Motherboard - shops choice
Pentium 4 - 2.6 processor (i was told pentium have more history than athlon!)
17" monitor - Samsung Syncmaster - Computer Buyer recommended
512MB DDR - ADATA Double Sided DDR333 C12.5 16 CHIP - shops choice
DVD/CD Rewriter NEC IDE ND 1300A - Computer Buyer recommended
DVD Rom - Separate Drive ARTEC 16x IDE DVD DHM G48 - shops choice
80GB Hard Drive - MAXTOR HD IDE UDMA133 7200rpm - my brother said get Maxtor!
128MB Video Card - Jetway Geforce 4 - shops choice
Separate Soundcard - Creative SB Live Player 5.1 - shops choice
Speakers - Mercury 5.1 - shops choice
Firewire port - shops choice, no spec given
TV Card - Jetway PCI JW-TV878 DKI with remote - shops choice

This comes with 4 x USB2 ports, 1 x parallel port, TV Out socket, Ethernet port, floppy drive, Microsoft XP Home, 56kps modem & Cordless keyboard & mouse & 12 months Parts / 3 yrs labour RTB warranty and is working out about £1000

I want to use it for DVD copying, listening to / watching DVD`s/CD`s, hooking my camcorder up and recording tapes onto CD and then pretty much other standard things.
Questions I can`t find an answer for as follows....
Is that a balanced set up or are some bits too good/not good enough for the rest?
Am I wasting my time upgrading certain bits for a `better`make or model? Should I just save some cash and get what I`m given?
Ultimately, am I better off just going to PC World/Currys/Toys R Us and buying something off the shelf?

Cheers for any help you can offer. Here`s looking forward to buying one at some stage and passing through more often :-cheers

 

[jimbo]

Seems a bit over priced to me, brd, considering some of the stuff is ...errr...mid-range but I need a bit of time to comment sensibly. Two things that come to mind immediately are (1) Athlon processors are cheaper and faster than their P4 counterparts and every bit as reliable. (2) Ordinary 17" monitors are not a good buy these days especilly when 17/18" TFT screens, sold in systems, are really competitively priced. Another point is I think the hard drive is a bit small and you should be looking at 120Gb. Will look in tomorrow. Regards Jimbo.

 

[rolfw]

You can get that sort of setup from Dell direct BRD, but with a 17" TFT for the same sort of money. My mate bought one of their systems, similar spec and I've got to say it's a cracker.

 

[bigrandydavid]

ok, thanks, i`d appreciate your further comments jimbo.
i`m one of those irritating people who is so thorough that I won`t part with a penny until i`m 100% certain. (it took me 4 weeks to buy a digital camera!)

will companies like dell add on bits and take off bits?

and is there really any difference between one manufacturers low to mid range products and anothers or am i wasting my money by being specific about certain components.

also.... and this concerns me...if i buy from a local shop and hit problems (which in all honesty will probably be software related) can i get the help i need from online companies to sort it out?
for example, my dad bought a pc from this local place and has had several problems. he took the pc in to them and they sorted it out free of charge even though it was nothing to do with the hardware.

 

[rolfw]

Go to the Dell site and go through one of the choice menus BRD, you'll soon see whether it can provide what you want. It may not, but worth checking.

 

[bigrandydavid]

Go to the Dell site and go through one of the choice menus BRD, you'll soon see whether it can provide what you want. It may not, but worth checking.

i`ve just done that rolf and both the mesh and dell sites are giving a price of over £1000 for a system that doesn`t seem to match the spec i`ve been quoted. or is it me thats getting it all wrong! :-bash

this is doing my nut. its so bloody confusing



ive just seen this at John Lewis, what d`you reckon?

http://www.johnlewis.com/stores/product.asp?sku=230173889&str=12

 

[jimbo]

Took a look, BRD but no monitor? Will be back a little later hopefully. Sorry really busy at the mo as I've been on a hol.

 

[bigrandydavid]

Took a look, BRD but no monitor? Will be back a little later hopefully. Sorry really busy at the mo as I've been on a hol.

ok, i think i`ve settled on something but i would appreciate your opinion. i will order on Friday unless somebody advises me not to bother!

its a mesh system that was highly recommended in octobers computer buyer magazine.

http://www.meshcomputers.com/updated/review_oct03_mat2600premier.htm

its on their website as the Matrix 2600+ premier for £1039 but there is an option to take a Relysis 15" TFT monitor which brings the price down to £939.

one last question. it does all DVD rewrite options except DVD ram. Is that relevant??