[jess1973]

Hi

Just been into a small computer shop in town to get a quote as a friend said they'd probably do a better deal than Dell. Was hoping someone in the know could tell me if I'm getting a good deal or been fleeced as I had no idea what the bloke was on about. Thanks


Case: AX99
Monitor: 19" Flatscreen
Processor: 3400 + AM2
Ram: 1Gb
Hard/DR: 160Gb
M/Board: GCS 6100
Heatsink: X
CD/ROM: X
CD/RW: X
DVD/ROM: DVD/RW + - Samsung SATA
Graphics: 7300 GT
Sound: X O/B
Floppy/DD: Yes
Keyboard: Yes
Modem: X
Speakers: Yes
Mouse: Yes
Printer: D78
Scanner: X
Software: Vista Home Premium
Network: O/B
Build PC: Yes


Total Cost: £500

Thanks in advance :)

[mcbee]

What will be your main use for your computer? All the components in that build appear to be low end and would not be a lot of use for gaming. If you had a friend who could help you build a computer you could save at least £100 on that level of machine.

[jess1973]

Well my eldest uses the internet a lot for downloading songs and films. I dont think he does much in the way of games. I tend to use computers for browsing the internet and word documents. I dont mind that its not good for gaming as long as its fast. The one I have now struggles a lot and always makes horrid noises

[mcbee]

At present Dell are offering a system with a much better spec at £429 without a printer. I am not recommending Dell just giving an example. With Dell the one thing you don't do is upgrade from their basic package, upgrading is way too expensive with them.
I do think that you should be going for a better spec than you were quoted. In my opinion there are two ways to buy a computer, 1) buy the unit you need now and when an upgrade is required buy another computer or 2) buy a machine now that has potential for upgrading and upgrade when needed. The second option is much easier and cheaper for those that can build their own.

[skinnyman9000]

A similar system can be purchased from www.pcspecialist.co.uk for £444, although the monitor is a 19" widescreen, the rest of the system is practically the same.

If it is not used for gaming then i would use a motherboard with decent onboard graphics, and then buy a better processor. My mum uses Dell computers at work and they are running AMD Atlon X2 4000+ processors with 1GB of RAM and they can be slow sometimes. Although they seem to be fast enough on the internet, but they do take a while to open office documents, although that might be due to the resource hungry Office 2007 that is being used.

[jess1973]

Thanks for the response. From what I'm seeing it seems that i've gotten a standard budget deal and not an amzing deal like the guy at the shop said.

I've been browsing the net and noticed this one from pc world and it seems to be a lot better than what the quote I got

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/sto...uct&sku=040558

[skinnyman9000]

Seems like a good deal. I've just priced that system up from www.dabs.co.uk and it comes to around £450, so i guess its pretty good.

Although do bare in mind that some things will be the minimum spec, for example the HD will probably have an 8MB cache, the PSU will probably be at around 300W etc etc. But then again, it wont be doing anything major, so i would think it would be ok. Also dont get excited about it quoting the graphics card as seperate as opposed to being integrated into the motherboard, the card specified costs £21.23, lol

[jess1973]

This computer buying business is confusing! Cheers for the help though :)

I've just found this through dmxdimension.com, its a little bit more expensive but seems a lot better in terms of value. Am I right in thinking the higher the processer number E6550 then the faster the processor?

Sorry to be such a bloody hassle



PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6550 Processor (2.33GHz,1333MHz,4MB cache)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Ultimate - English
HARDWARE SUPPORT Base Warranty - 1 Year Business Hardware Support
MONITOR Dell™ 19" Value Wide Flat Panel (E198WFP) - UK/Irish
MEMORY 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
HARD DRIVE 320GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA/100 Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst™ cache
GRAPHICS CARD 256MB NVIIDA® GeForce® 8300GS Turbocache graphics card
OPTICAL DRIVE 16x DVD +/- RW Drive
KEYBOARD Dell™ Entry Quietkey USB Keyboard - UK/Irish (QWERTY)
MOUSE Dell™ 2 Button USB Scroll Optical Mouse - Black

DELL PRINTERS Dell™ All in One Printer 810 - Print,Copy and Scan
CABLES Longwell USB Printer Cable
PAPER Printer 810 INKJET Dell Photo Paper A4 30 Sheet Pack,Gen 4
Printer Driver 810 FI Printer Vista Drivers for Vostro Desktop & Notebook Systems
810 Dell™ All in One Printer 810
ACCESSORIES Logitech® QuickCam Express Plus
ACCESSORIES Belkin 8-Socket SurgeMaster with Tel/AV
SOUND SOFTWARE Integrated 7.1 Channel High Definition Audio
SPEAKERS Dell™ A225 Speakers edit
FLOPPY/MEDIA DRIVES 13-in-1 Media Card Reader
MICROSOFT SOFTWARE Microsoft® Works 8.0 - English
USB MEMORY KEYS Lexar 1GB JumpDrive FireFly Memory Key

[jess1973]

Sorry forgot: costs 563.01 incl vat

[skinnyman9000]

That system costs around £500 in individual components, but that doesnt take into account the printer, mouse or keyboard, so potentially thats a pretty good deal

[slipend]

You could build that yourself for 380ish.

[skinnyman9000]

Below prices taken from www.aria.co.uk

Basic case with power supply - £50
Gigabyte motherboard - £32
Processor - £105
Vista Ultimate OEM - £111
19” widescreen monitor - £100
2GB Corsair 667mhz Ram - £48
500GB Samsung spinpoint hard drive - £63
Graphics card isn’t listed, but i would guess at £30ish
DVD drive - £20
Then say £15 for a mouse and keyboard, so that makes the system £574.

The motherboard above is a fairly standard one, the base could probably be cheaper, but that would save you £30 max, and i doubt they would use ram slower than 667mhz, and that hard drive is one of the cheapest 500GB ones with a 16MB cache available. So i’d like to see how that system could be built for £380, considering the CPU is £100 on its own, and budget 19” monitors are £100ish, so there’s 50% of the budget gone already.

[jess1973]

Thanks for all your help skinnyman

Think I'm gonna go for the Dell one out of all I've seen.

Jess x