ankermann-pc.de PC offers

N1all

While wandering around the web looking for a gaming PC on a budget (this forum has been really useful btw ), I came across http://ankermann-pc.shops4ecommerce.de/shop/

Along with building custom PCs to your spec they have pre-configured "offer" PC's on their front page. This one caught my eye:

Spec:
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 4x 2.4GHz
Gigabyte GA-G31M-S2L, G31 (dual PC2-6400U DDR2)
NVidia GeForce 9500GT
4GB KINGSTON RAM DDR2 | PC6400 | 800MHz
500GB SATA-2 HDD
6 Channel Audio Realtek ALC662
LG GH22LS30 DVD-RW Super Multi Lightscribe
DSL Ready 10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN
52 in 1 Cardreader
Xilence LGA CPU cooler
Code-Com 600Watt A-DIS Power

€445

As far as I know, a spec like that can't be gotten anywhere else for that kind of money. I already have a monitor/keyboard/mouse, but would need to buy a new OS (vista home premium 64-bit english is €97 from ankermann)

My questions are:

-Is this a good machine for gaming? (I want to play sim-racing games mostly, which have relatively low system requirements, but I would like to be able to play mainstream games as well, e.g halo, crysis)

-I've read both good and experiences of ankermann, including dkane's horror story, but is it worth risking? ( They offer C.O.D so there's no financial risk as such, only the risk of frustration!)

-Do they assemble the PC and install the OS for you?

-Is it worth upgrading the graphics card to a 9600 (+€35) or even 9800 (+€70) to "future-proof" the computer somewhat?

Thanks in advance,
Niall.

vibe666

is there an english translation of the page or did you just find your own way in german?

N1all

Yes, there is a pretty shaky English translation on their website, go to ankermann-pc.com and you'll be greeted with a map of Europe with flags on the countries they deliver to. Click on the Irish flag and you get the site in English, prices in euro and delivery charges to Ireland

daveharnett

N1all wrote: »

-Is this a good machine for gaming? (I want to play sim-racing games mostly, which have relatively low system requirements, but I would like to be able to play mainstream games as well, e.g halo, crysis)

-Is it worth upgrading the graphics card to a 9600 (+€35) or even 9800 (+€70) to "future-proof" the computer somewhat?

The graphics card is a little weak to consider it a 'gaming machine'. That said, it will play games. Forget about crysis, but it will play most graphics intensive games at low-medium settings.

There is no such thing as a future proof graphics card. The offer looks pretty well suited to your needs for a good price - that's about as much as one can hope for.

jonny72

I know several who have bought ankermann pc's they are very good value..

Upgrade the graphics card though, its okay but too weak for crysis etc.

Graphics cards offer wildly different performance even though the numbers sound the same, I mean a 9600gt can be twice as fast as the 9500gt, read reviews to find out, proper reviews.

If you want to spend a bit extra.. get the
ORE-2-DUO 2x3,17Ghz E8500/NVIDIA GeForce 9800GT 4069MB/750G
It has a decent motherboard
This chip can be overclocked so this pc would last you a long time..
Also those harddrives are very silent and fast
9800GT will be fine for most modern games including crysis

steamjetjoe

Yeah go for a build from ankermann. I recently got a new pc from them & it took just a little over a week to deliver. No probs so far.

jayteecork

I went for 84720 499.00 Euro 1 K 499.00 Euro CORE-2-DUO 2x3,00Ghz E8400/GeForce 9800GTX+ 512MB/500GB/2GB
88820 29.00 Euro 1 K 29.00 Euro Upgrade 2GB RAM Kingston PC800

---

plus shipping costs totalling: 29 Euro
BruttoTotal: 557.00 Euro incl. 19% Sales Tax

I hear the 9800GTX is one of the cards out there right now for the price.
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/xfx_9800gtx/14.htm

Also i went for the Dual Core as I hear quad cores are wasted right now on most programs.
Excellent reviews of the processor here:
http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B00116SLYY/ref=sr_1_1_cm_cr_acr_img?_encoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

2GB extra RAM for €29 was a no brainer.

jonny72

jayteecork wrote: »

I went for 84720 499.00 Euro 1 K 499.00 Euro CORE-2-DUO 2x3,00Ghz E8400/GeForce 9800GTX+ 512MB/500GB/2GB
88820 29.00 Euro 1 K 29.00 Euro Upgrade 2GB RAM Kingston PC800

---

plus shipping costs totalling: 29 Euro
BruttoTotal: 557.00 Euro incl. 19% Sales Tax

I hear the 9800GTX is one of the cards out there right now for the price.
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/xfx_9800gtx/14.htm

Also i went for the Dual Core as I hear quad cores are wasted right now on most programs.
Excellent reviews of the processor here:
http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B00116SLYY/ref=sr_1_1_cm_cr_acr_img?_encoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

2GB extra RAM for €29 was a no brainer.

9800GTX+ is a decent card, it will be good.

Quad cores are excellent for multitasking, and will be utilized more in future games, however that chip will be fine, plus you can go up to 4ghz overclock with air cooling.

2 gig of kingston ram should cost about 15 euros.

You should never read reviews or opinions on a site that sells things, such as amazon, etc.

However that PC is fine. Get down 3DMark06 and run it and see what score you get to see if it compares well with other similar computers.

jayteecork

jonny72 wrote: »

9800GTX+ is a decent card, it will be good.



2 gig of kingston ram should cost about 15 euros.

lol, didn't think you could get it that cheap.

TerrorFirmer

Well, it depends on what type of ram it was. A basic plain stick of PC4200/5300 can be gotten that cheap though, yes. 30 Euro would have bought you 2GB of quality ram with heat spreaders though, even off an Irish site, so in hindsight yeah it was probably not a great deal at all paying that much for the ram, from a European site especially. On the whole though you got a nice PC for the price, still a winner.

The extra 35 from a 9500 to 9600 is absolutely worth it for the OP, the 9500GT is abysmal in games once you pass about 1280x1024 mid-high on anything modern. It's competitor, the similarly priced Radeon 4670, is literally 5 or 6 times faster at said settings in many titles.

Norfolknway

I’ve been reading threads here about self builds and buying from abroad for a while – learning all the time - good job to all, especially the regulars.

I am going to replace my ageing dell dimension 8300(P4@3.0, 1gb ram, nvidia 5200, 120gb hdd) – couldn’t buy too many games for last while and was going to build myself but can't come near the spec of ankermann with my budget(~€650) – keeping 17” dell lcd for now until I can afford 22” or 24”.

I use pc mainly in my home office – ms office, email, internet and some gaming – I wanted something that won’t need upgrading for a while.

I am looking at buying this:CORE-2-QUAD 4x2,40Ghz Q6600/ATI HD4850 512MB /4096MB/500GB

Intel Core2Quad Q6600
ATI Radeon HD4850 512MB PCI-e 16x Card
4GB DDR2 RAM PC800 KINGSTON (2x2GB PC80
500GB SATA-2 HDD Seagate 7200rpm/32MB Cache
ASUS P5QL Pro Intel P43
LG GH22 LS15 DVD-RW LightScribe
A-Dis Ankermann Case ATX 704 Black Line "DATA DISPLAY"
600W Power Supply Super Low Noise 2. Revision

Cost: €539 + €29 delivery + €97 vista 64 = €665

I’ve priced similar spec builds with komplett €825 and hardwareversand €785 assembled.

Any opinions welcome especially from ankermann owners, here’s a few questions anyways

What are they like for noise in normal conditions? Don’t mind some when gaming

Is the vista retail or oem? Description is in german and mine is not too good – presuming its oem

Is the PSU any good? Had corsair 650w spec in other builds

Would I be better to upgrade to Samsung hdd from Maxtor?

Has anyone bought one without vat? I’m vat registered

Also saw this CORE2QUAD Q6600 / 750GB HDD / ATI 4850 512MB/ 4GB DDR2 on ebay from uk - €565 incl delivery (was cheaper few days ago with sterling) but no vista. Emailed them about vat, vista price and brands of ram, psu and hdd but they only replied that they would send vat invoice.

Thanks in advance:)

jayteecork

jonny72 wrote: »

plus you can go up to 4ghz overclock with air cooling.

.

Could you post a link for a guide on how to safely overclock the E8400, I'd be extremely grateful, googled myself but seems a little haphazard.

Sqaull20

jayteecork wrote: »

Could you post a link for a guide on how to safely overclock the E8400, I'd be extremely grateful, googled myself but seems a little haphazard.

The G31M-S2L mobo?

Firstly disable these settings under your advanced tab in the bios ( hitting ctrl+f1 in main bios screen )

C1E: disable
EIST: disable
TM2: disable

Then go over to mb intelligent tweaker

cpu host clock control: enable
pci express frequency: 100
performance enhance: standard
system memory multiplier: 2.66x (Or lowest value)

Now you can raise your fsb but do this in small steps, say every 5.Once you set a fsb save and exit.Load windows and check temps on idle.

You wont be getting much of an overclock on that mobo, about 3.6ghz max I reckon.

I would be getting this pc, because of the quad, slightly faster card and much better mobo.

Kenjd

I bought a PC from Ankermann about a year ago and its still going strong. No complaints. So did 4 other people I know and all had good experiences.
I got an nVidia 8800GT, it wasn't the "official" card but a Chinese made card with the same chipset. Ah well, it does exactly the same job.

jonny72

jayteecork wrote: »

Could you post a link for a guide on how to safely overclock the E8400, I'd be extremely grateful, googled myself but seems a little haphazard.

Overclocking is always a bit tricky, but Squall has given you the info below. You wouldn't need to overclock this chip for a long time, games don't really need more than 3.0ghz core2duo at the moment..

jonny72

Norfolknway wrote: »

I’ve been reading threads here about self builds and buying from abroad for a while – learning all the time - good job to all, especially the regulars.

I am going to replace my ageing dell dimension 8300(P4@3.0, 1gb ram, nvidia 5200, 120gb hdd) – couldn’t buy too many games for last while and was going to build myself but can't come near the spec of ankermann with my budget(~€650) – keeping 17” dell lcd for now until I can afford 22” or 24”.

I use pc mainly in my home office – ms office, email, internet and some gaming – I wanted something that won’t need upgrading for a while.

I am looking at buying this:CORE-2-QUAD 4x2,40Ghz Q6600/ATI HD4850 512MB /4096MB/500GB

Intel Core2Quad Q6600
ATI Radeon HD4850 512MB PCI-e 16x Card
4GB DDR2 RAM PC800 KINGSTON (2x2GB PC80
500GB SATA-2 HDD Seagate 7200rpm/32MB Cache
ASUS P5QL Pro Intel P43
LG GH22 LS15 DVD-RW LightScribe
A-Dis Ankermann Case ATX 704 Black Line "DATA DISPLAY"
600W Power Supply Super Low Noise 2. Revision

Cost: €539 + €29 delivery + €97 vista 64 = €665

I’ve priced similar spec builds with komplett €825 and hardwareversand €785 assembled.

Any opinions welcome especially from ankermann owners, here’s a few questions anyways

What are they like for noise in normal conditions? Don’t mind some when gaming

Is the vista retail or oem? Description is in german and mine is not too good – presuming its oem

Is the PSU any good? Had corsair 650w spec in other builds

Would I be better to upgrade to Samsung hdd from Maxtor?

Has anyone bought one without vat? I’m vat registered

Also saw this CORE2QUAD Q6600 / 750GB HDD / ATI 4850 512MB/ 4GB DDR2 on ebay from uk - €565 incl delivery (was cheaper few days ago with sterling) but no vista. Emailed them about vat, vista price and brands of ram, psu and hdd but they only replied that they would send vat invoice.

Thanks in advance:)

The sterling is gaining ground on the Euro, not at parity anymore, so no real UK deals..

The PSU's in ankermann PC's are generally v cheap things, but my friend has one and it runs fine, might be quite inefficient compared to a quality PSU like corsair though.

Have you tried tinkering with the PC configurator on ankermann? some of the prices are very weird, e.g. +35 euros for a 750 gig drive.. +60 euros for a 9800GT.. +9 euros for 2 gigs of kingston.. its just they have the base unit quite highly priced which is weird.. but there are some freakishly cheap addons

Grandmasha_Yoda

While reading through this thread and studying the Ankermann site, I noticed that the Q6600 2.4 Ghz had a FSB speed of 1066 Mhz while the Core Duo E8500 3.14 Ghz has a FSB of 1333 Mhz.

Question is would the gap make much of a difference in operating and gaming terms?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

jayteecork

jonny72 wrote: »

Overclocking is always a bit tricky, but Squall has given you the info below. You wouldn't need to overclock this chip for a long time, games don't really need more than 3.0ghz core2duo at the moment..

Would overclocking increase the speed of video encoding much?
AVI to DVD?

To be honest knowing me the computer would melt if I went at it tryng to overclock so I think I might leave it.

CakeJumperer

Grandmasha_Yoda wrote: »

While reading through this thread and studying the Ankermann site, I noticed that the Q6600 2.4 Ghz had a FSB speed of 1066 Mhz while the Core Duo E8500 3.14 Ghz has a FSB of 1333 Mhz.

Question is would the gap make much of a difference in operating and gaming terms?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

The quad will outperform the dual core in GTA4 and probably general system tasks aswell. For most other games the E8500 will be better but with either you will be most likely GPU bottlenecked as coding a game to not run on full settings with a quad would be suicide.

Jayteecork: There's TONS of reviews and video's out their of overclocking cpu's and one thing that nearly all of them do is test video encoding. Use a program like HWmonitor and see what temps your cpu reaches while encoding video. Then you'll know whether you have room to OC wothout shelling out on a new cooling setup.

jayteecork

Ok it's been 2 weeks since I ordered with Ankermann and nothing, I'm getting a little worried.

After 1 week I emailed them asking for a tracking number for UPS and they told me they'd give to me on the date of dispatch.

Last night(2 weeks later) I emailed them asking when can I expect the item to be dispatched and they've yet to reply.

Could someone who've ordered with Ankermann tell me how lont they usually take?

A friend of mine ordered around the same time and he's heard nothing from them either.
I checked their ebay shop and they've only 1 negative feedback score in 12 months.

Still, 2 weeks and hearing nothing about the status of the order is slightly worrying.

Effluo

Yeah their customer support is either brill or pretty dodge!

I had a bit of a problem with my order and the first 4 e-mails were responded to within 24 hours(even over the weekend) but then they didn't respond to my last one for over a week...

I've heared it usually takes three weeks for delivery...

jayteecork

Effluo wrote: »

Yeah their customer support is either brill or pretty dodge!

I had a bit of a problem with my order and the first 4 e-mails were responded to within 24 hours(even over the weekend) but then they didn't respond to my last one for over a week...

I've heared it usually takes three weeks for delivery...

Sent them another email, this sort of thing is very annoying. says on their website all orders dispatced in 3-5 days or we will contact you.

Do the credit card companies cover this sort of thing in the event of a dispute?

Effluo

It's the price you pay for getting the cheapest deals.

Their value is quite amazing i'm getting their Q6700, ATI 4850 offer. Cheaper by at least 100 euro than anywhere else!

jayteecork

Effluo wrote: »

It's the price you pay for getting the cheapest deals.

Their value is quite amazing i'm getting their Q6700, ATI 4850 offer. Cheaper by at least 100 euro than anywhere else!

When did you order?

lindtee

Got an email from Ankermann this morning saying they're waiting on a part(oldest excuse in the book) which will arrive today or tomorrow.

EDIT: this is jayteecork by the way on my sister's account.

Effluo

jayteecork wrote: »

When did you order?

The order hasn't been finalised yet (my fault)

jayteecork

Nice my computer has finally been shipped - it's amazing what threatening to contact your credit card company does to speed up your order.

Got the UPS number and all - just arrived in Frankfurt.

Gavio101

I ordered a PC from them, a very expensive one and they sent me a PC that had the wrong standard of PSU. I asked them to send me a new PSU and after 4 weeks they sent me a adapater because the cable on the power supply was the wrong type for my mother board.

That means they didnt even bother to turn it on before sending it to me. Once the cable finally arrived it still didnt work, im guessing because the power supply looks like its home made. At that point I gave up and told them to organise a return, about 40 emails, 3 replys and another 4-6 weeks later I get a return address and UPS invoice.

Ive now been waiting for over a week for them to give me my money back as UPS has informed me that the PC has been returned. How the f**k are they still in business. They are rude, they dont respond to emails and when I asked them why they cant even bother to email me I got a response saying they are soooo busy that some of their customers get forgotten about.

Mother fu**ing RAGEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

Solitaire

We are aware of Ankermann's sub-par reputation, and tend to dissuade people from getting stuff there simply so they can avoid major headaches when things go wrong.

That said, no retailer nor e-tailer is perfect and you didn't need to necro a 13-month-old thread to say what you did, especially when there is a Retailer Discussion Thread among the stickies.

Gavio101

Im pretty mad right now so im posting every where I can find that has anything to do with ankermann, its also thursday and im sitting at home not out so im annoyed at that too. If theres a more up to date post aobut ankermann plz direct me to it so I can get my freak on.....

Also now that ive necroed the thread, whats hardwareversand like. They are german too so im pretty scared, but they are so cheap. I cant see how I can go wrong this time cause im not idiot and I know what a computer needs to actually run unlike some idiots who think they run a computer company.

Solitaire

Gavio101 wrote: »

Im pretty mad right now so im posting every where I can find that has anything to do with ankermann, its also thursday and im sitting at home not out so im annoyed at that too. If theres a more up to date post aobut ankermann plz direct me to it so I can get my freak on.....

I hope you're not doing that in other fora or you might make other Moderators just a wee bit upset! :eek::o

Also now that ive necroed the thread, whats hardwareversand like. They are german too so im pretty scared, but they are so cheap. I cant see how I can go wrong this time cause im not idiot and I know what a computer needs to actually run unlike some idiots who think they run a computer company.

Yeah, I got back into PCs the same way (borked hardware and borked promises... ) HWVS (as we call them) are more into components than builds (although they do them, its up to you to provide a suitable spec) and are generally pretty good. They can be a bit slow at times but TBH I've had bigger delays from companies much closer to home. Oh, and they prefer bank transfers over PayPal and don't take any other payment options directly.