Subject: Computer Purchasing Help

My pa (not the finnish footy team) has asked me to check out this PC to see if it is good value for money. I, however, am more of a computer retard than he realises. I don't wish to disillusion the chap, so I'd like some input from you guys, if you wouldn't mind. The "1024MB RAM" is particularly boggling. What's standard? What's good?

Ideally he wants it from a high street store, as he wants to pick it up next time he's in the UK in a few weeks time. Not sure why he doesn't trust delivery or whatever. I'll ask him.

TIA gents.

It's not too bad, the graphics card is sh*t. Standard memory these days is 2 gig. Comes with monitor which is decent.

Decent that it comes with monitor that is :P

So it's deficient in memory and graphics card? He's not going to be doing games on it...internets and editing home movies. Hopefully I won't happen across those whilst browsing on my PC.

Just if it is running vista it is a little silly to have a low power graphics card.

Ah, I see.

I wouldn't worry; you wouldn't recognise him with his mask on anyway.

also core 2 duo etc are better cpus than the amd

For a similar price, dell can do a better system. That is a close to high street shopping as delivery gets :)

PROCESSOR Intel® Viiv™ Core™ 2 Duo E4400 Processor (2.0GHz,800MHz,2MB cache) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - English edit
MONITOR Dell™ 19" Silver Wide Flat Panel (SE198WFP) - UK/Irish edit
MEMORY 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024] edit
HARD DRIVE 320GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA/100 Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst™ cache edit
GRAPHICS CARD 256MB nVidia™ GeForce 8600GT graphics card edit
OPTICAL DRIVE 16x DVD +/- RW Drive edit
KEYBOARD Logitech™ Cordless Desktop™ EX110 - UK/Irish (QWERTY) edit
MOUSE Mouse Included in Wireless Keyboard and Mouse option edit
Accessories
SOUND SOFTWARE Integrated 7.1 Channel High Definition Audio edit
SPEAKERS Dell™ A225 Speakers edit
FLOPPY/MEDIA DRIVES 19-in-1 Media Card Reader edit
MODEMS No Modem edit
MICROSOFT SOFTWARE Microsoft® Works 8.0 - English edit
Services & Software
HARDWARE SUPPORT 1 Year Base Warranty - Collect & Return


That is approx 575 quid with delivery included, and that graphics card does directx 10
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I mentioned Dell to him and he seemed intent on going to pissy world. I'll have words.

DEll are shit, our computer fell apart twice in the first couple of months

I build me own these days, but i've had 3 computers from dell before and never had a problem. Still got one going after 5 years.

My firm bought 10 business systems from Dell, had no problems in the 12 months they've been installed. I guess you got unlucky kipper ?

I agree - I get about 100 a year from Dell and very rarely have a problem with them.

As a comparison here is what my current pc would cost today (ish)

Computer Case - approx £70
620W Top PSU - approx £110
Quad core cpu - approx £170
Futureproof motherboard (45nm cpu +ddr3) - approx £80
4 gig ddr2 800 mhz ram - approx £75
2x250 gig Hard drive (16MB cache) - 1x 500 = approx £70
Nvidia 8800GTS 640mb - approx £250
22" widescreen monitor - approx £150
dual layer lightscribe dvd drive - approx £18
Mouse + keyboard - approx £30
Speakers + subwoofer - approx £75

Total = approx £1100

People keep warning me away from Vista at the moment, apparently its got lots of problems.....