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#1
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Dell?
I'm way out of touch on the hardware side of things, and although it
probably wouldn't take long to bring myself up to date, I'm considering a prebuilt (all my previous systems are home built). I never seem to get the noise:temperature ratio quite right with the fans, and really, I'm not a hardcore gamer and so long as I could play the odd fairly new game (and, say, Everquest 2) occasionally, I'm happy! Plus it would be quite neat to actually get an OS and warranty for once! I've read a tonne of reports of different places, and to be honest I'm considering a Dell. Are they actually any good for home systems? The Inspiron 531 DT - http://configure.euro.dell.com/dells...hs&~ck=expbuy3 - looks reasonable, but as I say I'm out of touch. Anyone have any thoughts or experiences to share? Would be greatly appreciated! |
#2
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Dell?
"Ten Minutes" wrote in message ... I'm way out of touch on the hardware side of things, and although it probably wouldn't take long to bring myself up to date, I'm considering a prebuilt (all my previous systems are home built). I never seem to get the noise:temperature ratio quite right with the fans, and really, I'm not a hardcore gamer and so long as I could play the odd fairly new game (and, say, Everquest 2) occasionally, I'm happy! Plus it would be quite neat to actually get an OS and warranty for once! I've read a tonne of reports of different places, and to be honest I'm considering a Dell. Are they actually any good for home systems? The Inspiron 531 DT - http://configure.euro.dell.com/dells...hs&~ck=expbuy3 - looks reasonable, but as I say I'm out of touch. Anyone have any thoughts or experiences to share? Would be greatly appreciated! I practically gave up building machines bascially because dell do just fine machines pretty cheaply - the difference between sourcing your own parts and buying a dell is now so small its hardly worth the bother. I even use one myself now and wouldn't hesitate to get another. They are reliable and very quiet machines generally. Support if you need it is horrendous - indian call centre staff with scripts and bad english. Easy to upgrade. I would go for it if I were you. g. |
#3
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Dell?
A copy of the review that I posted onto alt.sys.pc-clone.dell recently:
DELL Inspiron 530 desktop review My 8 week delayed Inspiron 531 replacement arrived yesterday in the form of a Inspiron 530 desktop with Intel E6550, 2Gb DDR2 667Mhz, 320Gb HDD, DVD writer and Intel integrated graphics. Upon unpacking it I realised that it is a lot lighter and smaller than its Dimension predecessor, though rather attractive in silver and white. No supporting structure that you can use to lift it though. The media card reader, audio and USB sockets are neatly hidden away behind a sliding front cover. Installing Windows Vista Home Premium was no problem. The BIOS set-up is back to the AMI/Phoenix style which doesn't seem to be as informative. The Intel SATA RAID Bios still does not support RAID 0 Stripe just RAID 1 Mirror. The system certainly seemed very responsive and benchmarked well. My older version of Sisoft Sandra failed to reveal the exact chipset but as the FSB was shown to be 1,328MHz and with Intel integrated graphics I suspect a G33 variant. The memory bandwidth was the fastest I'd ever seen at over 5,500Mb/s. The single Western Digital hard disk also did well at 67Mb/s bandwidth. Opening the case by undoing the two screws (!) to remove the flimsy side panel reveals a few surprises. First there is not a single piece of green plastic to be seen in this ATX format case. Yes we are back to retaining screws and ATX awkwardness and airflows. There are two large 90mm fans one on the CPU and the other fitted closely to it exhausting to the rear. The system seems whisper quiet though, so DELL design engineers have done a good job here. The hard drive is mounted with four screws horizontally on its edge with room for another to be placed next to it. There is also room for an extra optical drive. The next surprise was the clearly marked Foxconn motherboard. The chipset heat sink clearly show this. Upgrading the memory to 3Gb practical limit for any Windows 32-bit operating system was difficult as it seemed to require more than usual pressure to get the 2x512Mb DIMMs to click into place. When I tried to insert my nVidia 8600GTS graphics card after removing and replacing the screwed, rather fiddly, expansion slot retaining plate there was another problem. The 300W power supply does not have any four-pin Molex power connectors at all! So it is impossible to connect the extra PCI-Express power supply to the card. It does seem to run well enough though on the slot power alone. There are just two free PCI expansion slots. In conclusion, though I sure I will sell plenty of these stylish, silver desktop systems, it will definitely be upgrade and repair these on the workbench rather that on my knees under the desk. The DELL Vostro 200 seems to be exactly similar in a more attractive (to me) glossy black colour scheme. And the equivalent configurations are cheaper too. "Ten Minutes" wrote in message ... I'm way out of touch on the hardware side of things, and although it probably wouldn't take long to bring myself up to date, I'm considering a prebuilt (all my previous systems are home built). I never seem to get the noise:temperature ratio quite right with the fans, and really, I'm not a hardcore gamer and so long as I could play the odd fairly new game (and, say, Everquest 2) occasionally, I'm happy! Plus it would be quite neat to actually get an OS and warranty for once! I've read a tonne of reports of different places, and to be honest I'm considering a Dell. Are they actually any good for home systems? The Inspiron 531 DT - http://configure.euro.dell.com/dells...hs&~ck=expbuy3 - looks reasonable, but as I say I'm out of touch. Anyone have any thoughts or experiences to share? Would be greatly appreciated! |
#4
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Dell?
"Jonathan Eales" wrote in message
... A copy of the review that I posted onto alt.sys.pc-clone.dell recently: DELL Inspiron 530 desktop review snip Thanks Jon, that looks really useful - the exact PC I'm now looking at, it seems! A couple of questions though - firstly, have you any idea how it would fare with games? Say, the new Tomb Raider or something. Also, do you just sell these on, or do you use one yourself? If so, how have you found it after using it for a while? Cheers! |
#5
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Dell?
I generally sell them on, but not before I check each new model out first
before I recommend them to my customers. This particular one was to replace my own demo/test/games system in that I added an extra 1Gb memory and an nVidia 8600GTS graphics card. It plays the new demanding Bioshock game quite well, not to the very highest levels of detail, anti-aliasing, special visual effects etc. at 1280x 1024, but the game works well all the same. I'm sure that I will be able to live with it in the long term, it is just the suspicion that these are not as good as the model they replaced. I trust that this all makes sense. "Ten Minutes" wrote in message ... "Jonathan Eales" wrote in message ... A copy of the review that I posted onto alt.sys.pc-clone.dell recently: DELL Inspiron 530 desktop review snip Thanks Jon, that looks really useful - the exact PC I'm now looking at, it seems! A couple of questions though - firstly, have you any idea how it would fare with games? Say, the new Tomb Raider or something. Also, do you just sell these on, or do you use one yourself? If so, how have you found it after using it for a while? Cheers! |
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