Dell 8100 ok?

[Guest]

I know all you system builders are going to hate me but:

I am thinking of buying a complete system from Dell with a P4 1.5GHz, 256M PC800 RAM, nVidia 64M GForce2 ULTRA, Turtle Beach sound, DVD & CD RW.

I play mostly Games, flight simulator(s) etc... Am I going to regret it?

I know I can throw parts together (as I did it for a living for years), but I can't finance (lol) parts and get stuck with a cooked machine with no warranty (I currently have the ASUS P2B-DS lemon board - tired of buying shaft me system parts). The other major factor is that I am in Canada, so there really is little choice in who I deal with. Dell, being up the street from me makes it easy to play the angry consumer who got screwed. Putting $5000 into a system is a tad scary, yet as I check prices on parts to build it myself, I get real close with no warranty at all.

I noticed the article here about the stupid Dell configs w/P4's but it didn't actually say that the box was no good if configured right ... I want to come home and play games, listen to music, watch dvd's etc without the stress that comes with finding out that plugging my printer to my computer results in 3 long beeps and a dead computer (Thanks ASUS!) and buying a new USB joystick locks up my machine (Thanks again ASUS!) and buying a new video card results in non-stop lockups (Thanks again ASUS!).

I know full well that buying something because it can be upgraded later is simple hogwash. By the time one goes to upgrade, the new parts don't work in the old box. (Thanks again ASUS!) because your old stuff really wasn't upgradable.

I have NO plans of upgrading again, so what do you think of Dell's track record?

BTW: I am not flaming ASUS as they didn't tell me to buy their best board at the time instead of doing the smart thing like buying a cheap board and a separate SCSI controller and it's not Microsoft's fault that Windows 2000 took so long to be released that it doesn't run on the ASUS board with all the ASUS design flaws that ASUS will not admit to or fix. I just have no interests in learning when I get home that my toy is now junk cause the afore mentioned problems. After all, who in their right mind would expect an industry standard HP LaserJet 5MP to work with an $700 top-of-the-line ASUS motherboard?

Any and All advice welcome. I am just tired of the computer business making used car salesmen look angelic!

 

[jclw]

Ray_in_CA:

While I build my own desktops, I have always purchased and reccomended Dell laptops. I don't have any complaints about the parts, build quality, support, or drivers. In fact when I ordered my last laptop they called me back the next day and told me that the SinglePoint keyboards were backordered and they'd just give me a free upgrade to the DualPoint if that was OK with me.

Not long ago I put up a post comparing the prices of a Dell PIII-800EB and a homebuilt PIII-800EB system. The Dell was CDN$300 cheaper and included a printer, nearly $800 worth of software, and a 3 year warranty.

On the flip side a Dell machine probably won't be overclockable.

About that P2B-DS... What revision is it? I've got a bunch of Asus boards that have been great and am thinking about getting a P2B-D rev1.06 D03 which is supposed to be much better then the early ones...

TIP: If you buy a Dell buy it under a company name if you can. You'll get better service.

- JW

 

[jclw]

BTW: Rumor has it you can return your older version P2B-xx and they will do a "hardware revision" to make it compatible with win2000.

- JW

 

[wapaaga]

look at the articale written on THG there are some bench marks there

 

[SoulReaper]

Dell prices = extortion. I could almost build 2 computers of the same specs for the same price as what dell charges. And may I ask why are you buying a P4. Have you not read the articles on it and how much it sux?

--SR

 

[Guest]

Yea, I spent the day reading all the P4 stuff here and got in the shower afterwards. Intel strikes again eh? Good future once they shrink the trace and put the FP back on the chip.

I looked at the Dell 1GHz PIII and it seems to be MUCH cheaper with the exact same configurations ...

I tried the ASUS replacement path, they will not even admit there is a problem with the board...If I could break their arm, I would obviously go that way: twin 800's will certainly outperform a 1 G and my Ultra SCSI stuff certainly beats the crap outta IDE's. Bu with no ability to ADD a current AGP card due to the crappy power regulator, there is not much I can do. I hear there is a do it yourself mod for both the USB fix and the power problem, but that will only get me to a twin 600MHz configuration, not the lucky folks who have the latest boards that will take the 800's. What burns my butt is that this is still ASUS's best & most expensive board. Putting two Kat's side by side at 800Mhz is just asking for a flaming case unless you have a OEM case. The cheaper clone cases just don't pump the air needed. Now you see my pain, I need a new case, new video, new cpu, new ram, new scsi controller, etc. By the time you add up the parts, I personally can't compete with Dell...

 

[Guest]

you should go with what ever you are happy with , if you intend to keep this PC for a long long time then the P4 may be for you but my advice is for average use always stay away from teh state of the art kit, you pay t
for all the RD when it is that new and unless you are doing some thing pretty spectacular you really don't need it.
I would suggest either a P3 or Athlon at about 900-1000mhz...

M

one of the first UK T-Bird users....

 

[flavio321]

michael dell started out like many people in this forum. he was a hobbiest who liked to build computers...although we complain about the high cost of dell, i think it is priced very well. ofcourse dell gets their hardwares for dime a dozen therefore making huge profits. i wouldn't say it's a terrible bad choice to just buy a dell but where's the fun in just buying from a retailer?
one thing you can't complain about dell is their customer service. if you are not computer-literate, this is y you would want a dell. so you can't really go wrong with dell. but i would never buy a pc from them except for a laptop.

If you can't beat 'em kill 'em
athlon "SLOTA" thunderbird 700@1050mhz