I can't believe Dell.....

Blitzkrieger

....still supply their computers with software based winmodems. Don't they realise they're ****e! Their marketing pitch was along the lines of "software based modems use less power". Saving a fraction of a penny a month really makes up for the lousiness of the modem

Should see the result of my configue & buy :
PIII 1Ghz
258 MB Rambus
64MB Gfx Card (best they offer)
56k Winmodem

Winmodem! It's like a BMW M turbo with a 75cc engine! Before you even start it up for the first time you'd have to rip out the useless modem and put in a new one!

And the price! I was trying to configure a system with good upgrade possibilities while keeping it as cheap as possible. It still ended up being 3,000! You'd pay 1,600 for the same system in England, and English prices are high. Where the hell does the extra 1,000 pounds come from? They're built in Limerick ffs.

I went to the Gateway site too. Aren't Gateway a company that was built on offering cheap, customisable systems? There was only about 24 systems to choose from on the entire site and none of 'em suited me

Karla

Yeah I agree with you about the Winmodem wholeheartedly, but it's more like buying a ferarri with square wheels! (Now, where did I hear that analogy before?)

It seems to me that you're only paying for the Ghz CPU. You could prolly buy the same system with an 800 Mhz CPU for about a grand.

Sheesh, 3 grand?!?!? There's no need to spend that much on a PC!

As for Dell, the only quarrel I'd have with them is the modem, everything else is sweet. There's plenty of room in the mini-tower for upgrades.

Why not build your own PC, try and get the parts wholesale and put it together yourself? It's bound to work out less than 3,000

Chubby

Well, 1 gz p3s are very rare but Dell is getting most of them from intel. Market price for them are really crazy, they're around 1000 irish. Also, Rambus is very expensive and not as fast as pc-133 sdram. Someone in work recently asked Dell for a ram upgrade from 256 to 512 on a high spec Dell machine with rambus. They told us it'd cost around 900 quid!!! Why are you even looking at Dell anyway?

[This message has been edited by Chubby (edited 06-08-2000).]

_CreeD_

Yup, ditch the Rambus, it's WAY too expensive, and as they said, a bit slower than Decent SDRAM on a BX board.

Be aware though that to use SDRAM on the chipset they're using (Probably I820), it'd be routed through a Memory Translator Hub, (MTH) which basically translates the protocol for SDRAM to the Rambus protocol it was built to handle. Not only is this inefficient but theres a serious bug in the chipset. Intel have offered free rambus to anyone who already got one with SDRAM.
So, don't get this one at all. Get an Athlon Thunderbird or P-III on a BX or VIA-133 Chipset board, with SDRAM.
Otherwise you're being completely ripped off.

As always, if you don't mind an hours work putting it together, I advise buying the parts from Overclockers.co.uk. You'll save a $hitload of cash, and they are a very reliable company.
I wouldn't worry too much about getting a 64mb Geforce/Geforce 2 either. 32 should be fine with any games that use texture compression (And any that really push the texture count for that amount of ram should be advanced enough to use it (Eg. Quake3))

Lump

Intel, are dropping support for rambus ram. So if you think the price is high now, wait till you try upgrade it in a few months.


/me laughs at a freidn that spent lots of money on RAMbus.

John

m1ke

Visit overclockers.co.uk
They do a AMD 700 overclocked and gaurenteed to run at 1ghz with motherboard and fan for £350. Add a case, ram etc... you'd probably put together something good for under 1g.

Blitzkrieger

I'm not actually looking at Dell - their prices are far too high. I got this one at employee prices and been very happy with it but the price is just way too high.

I was thinking of building my own PC, but I have little experiece with that It took me three hours to fit my DVD/CD-RW drive today

I'm thinking of waiting for Xmas, when all the preset PCs come out - made cheap cos they make a few thousand to the same spec. Try to find one close to what I want and Bob's your uncle.

Yossarian

Still reckon your better of building your own. You can never seem to get all the right parts in a pre-built system.

im personnaly waiting for a chipset with DDR support for either intel or amd platforms. Its likly to be a AMD solution first tho, probable not untill after christmas. isnt there another NVIDIA chip due out around then??

Stephen.

_CreeD_

Next Nvidia is due sept/oct.

Hecate

yeah just buy the lot from ocuk...

I got an athlon 650@850, abit motherboard, 192megs ram and a Geforce 2 for less than £900. And thats inclusive of vat, currency difference, shipping etc.

Gerry

I build pc's if your still interested.

Yossarian

That soon eh??
thats the NV20 is it?

any idea of spec level for it?


Stephen.

Baz_

Yeah I think a good few of the people in here could build a PC. I also think though that if you are able to install a DVD/CD-RW drive then you would be able to build a PC. All you really need is good documentation for support, and there are plenty of good sites with great documentation on stuff like that.

You also have to realise that for a pre built PC, i.e. ****ed up software-wise IMO, 3K is a lot of money

Gerry

em baz, perhaps that was a bad example to pick. Not everything is as easy as installing a cdrom/dvd rom drive. You have to know how to configure stuff as well, and those drives need little or no messing about with to work.

Blitzkrieger

Yeah - all I had to do was switch some jumpers to set it to slave and connect up the audio, power and IDE cables.

Depending on the price and what part of the country you're in I might be interested in buying a PC off you : blitzkrieger@esatclear.ie

Baz_

documentation helps, when people read it, and quite a bit too.

Blitzkrieger

Arrgghhh - simply.co.uk are at it too - winmodem as standard on all systems It's a conspiracy

I customized a system slightly better than the Dell above for 1,600 english including delivery. How can they justify that extra 1,000 pounds for a Dell system

[This message has been edited by Blitzkrieger (edited 09-08-2000).]

Shiminay

Cause they're Dell and the are the best. Simple as that.

Also, with a Dell, you're getting a 3 year warranty - that's important if you're inclined to *tinker* with things.

The best thing to do is get a friend who works in Dell (like me!) and let him/her sort ya out with a Staff price list.

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All the best,

Dav
@B^)
My page of stuff

Blitzkrieger

have that - but he's only allowed 3 systems a year and it's another two years before he has an opening

Hobbes

Your less likely to switch to another OS (ie. Linux) if you have a Winmodem as it means you have to buy a new modem. All part of the master plan.

Excelsior

you neglect to mention the electricity costs of an external modem.
THE ELECTRICITY!!!!

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It is so lonely here in my indecipherable tower of speech impedimency

_CreeD_

Hmmmm, 'Win'-modem is just a marketing term for Soft-Modem. There's no reason you couldn't get one working on a nother OS, providing some kind soul actually wrote some drivers for it...

Kali

there did: http://linmodems.org/