Just bought the Dell Vostro 460 Mini Tower - bare bones. Had a few ???

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
S

senile

Distinguished
Jan 30, 2011
14
0
18,510
I just ordered the Dell [Sandy Bridge i5-2400] Vostro 460 Mini Tower w/18" LCD for $534.80.

New! Vostro 460 Mini Tower

Regular price $924.00, w/coupon $534.80

Intel® CoreTM Sandy Bridge i5 2400 (3.1GHz/6MB cache)
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64 Bit, English - Upgraded from 32 Bit
Dell 18.5inch E1910H Flat Panel Black Monitor Vostro
2GB3 Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz
Intel HD Graphics 2000 Vostro
500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive 7200RPM, 16MB Cache - Upgraded from 320GB SATA hard drive 7200RPM
Integrated 10/100/1000 Ethernet
Integrated 5.1 Channel Audio Vostro
Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + 16x (DVD+/-RW) Burner - Upgraded from Single Drive: 16X (DVD+/-RW) Burner Drive
Click to expand...
I only upgraded a few things to get the price to $899 or more to use this coupon: 070F$BF76G609Z
30% off Select Dell Vostro 460 systems $899 or more (expires 2/2/11)

I have an older NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT I was thinking of putting in for the time being. Will this work OK?

I will be ordering at least 8GB's of memory right away to throw in, giving me 10GB all together and later down the road was thinking of replacing the 2GB with another 8GB. Was thinking of ordering Crucial but someone suggested Patriot. All sound OK?

Don't really need the best sound since I will be using it mostly for Photoshop and multitasking between many programs and browsers but was wondering if I should upgrade the sound card for any reason.

Thx
 
Sort by date Sort by votes

What Graphics card would work best with the i5 2400? Someone suggested the HD 5770 would be a good fit.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Any graphics card will work with the i5 2400 but your 350W PSU will be the bottleneck. Essentially your only choices are HD 5770 and GTS 450. You didn't say you were gaming. For GPU assisted computing, nVidia CUDA would probably be the better choice.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote

I never got into gaming too much on a PC just because of the cost of having to upgrade always. I left the gaming up to my Xbox at the time and now Xbox 360/PS3.

Which card would be best if I did want to game a little but first and foremost be a workhorse? And how do people even decide on a manufacture of said graphic cards? There's so many!?

Thx for your help by the way.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
There are only 2 GPU designers left. nVidia and ATI. Then there are lots of manufacturer's that take the GPU and make a final product by choosing what kind of outputs to include, cooling system, etc. I prefer dual slot cards that guarantee some of the hot air created by the video card is exhausted outside the case instead of circulating inside the case until the CPU or PSU fan picks it up.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Were you upgrading the RAM from Dell as a part of the final/shipped build? Or are you adding in the RAM after you get the system?

I ask because it sounds like you're going to install the RAM yourself. If this is the case, then be aware that mixing RAM isn't the best idea. For the photo editing (especially using Photoshop), you will indeed need more RAM, but I suggest you buy identical DIMMs.

For example: 2 kits of 2x4GB will get you 16GB.

Mixing RAM often results in poor performance as the best case scenario. The more likely scenarios would be instability, meaning that while you may load into Windows, you would likely run into BSOD after BSOD. Even worse, some mixtures of RAM will cause boot failures, meaning you may not be able to even get into BIOS, because you won't see a dispaly on the monitor.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I was about to order a 460 as well, then the Intel flat hit. Now, the 460 no longer shows up on Dell's website (nor the Sandy Bridge equipped XPS 8300). Has Dell changed their ship date to you?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


I'm in Canada and I ordered a 460 on the 27th of january. I'm surprised that they took it down from their site. On the other hand my estimated ship date hasn't change from when I first placed the order
 
Upvote 0 Downvote

I would look into the Intel defect a little, and get Dell to assure you that your PC won't have the defective component. I can't imagine they would knowingly stick a MoBo in that had a well publicized problem, but I'd want them to acknowledge they know what you're talking about, and took steps to make sure your system is going to be problem-free.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Yea I looked into the intel problem and gave Dell a call. Dell is fully aware of the issue and told me that they have yet to come up with a solution to the problem. As of now Dell has stopped production of all their 2nd generation core systems
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
OK, got my Vostro 460 in yesterday and looking to order the RAM and video card.

The best rated RAM on newegg is the G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL for $85. Is this good or is their better for a hopefully better price. I would like to get 16GB right away.

I'm still confused on what video card to get. I was chatting with a Dell support person and he said the HD 5770 and GTS 450 would not work with the power supply I have.

He said a few cards that would work would be the ATI Radeon HD 5450, ATI Radeon HD 5670, NVIDIA GeForce GT420, NVIDIA GeForce GTX460.

I was leaning toward the nVidia since they all have the CUDA feature from what I was told. After doing a little research I find the GTX 400 serious has freezing issues http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=176132

Any suggestions?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Glad I read your post as I was planning on the same thing. I would hope Dell wouldn't ship computers with that buggy of a card in them, since they're going tick customers off and spend more money on RMAs. In reading some of the posts in that thread, it looks like the card doesn't like some of the slightly older MoBos, and I'm guessing that since the MoBo for the SB processor is new, the card wouldn't cause the consistent problem mentioned.

What's your impression of the computer otherwise? Noise, build quality, etc?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


I'm happy with it. It's whisper quiet, though I do have my older NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT in at the moment until I decide on a new video card (still looking for suggestions), so I hear a little fan noise from the older card.

The build quality seems good, no complaints so far. I went ahead and picked up 2 - G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Desktop Memory Model F3-10600CL9D-8GBNT from Newegg for a total of 16GB RAM. Recognized it right away. Works fast and flawless.

Installing the video card was a little trickier. At first Dell support and I thought there was an issue with the motherboard. From Dells info on installing video cards, it should have recognized it without having to disable the onboard video card in the bios. It didn’t. I then looked in the bios to disable the onboard video card but the only thing I could find regarding anything to do with the video card was ‘Intel Multiple Monitor Feature’ found under Graphics Configuration. I didn’t find this option or even think this would be the answer for some time. Not even the Dell support knew this would be the answer but I changed it to [Auto] and the video card finally was recognized.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


This is the psu I have in the Vostro 460. Maybe this will tell you what you want to know.

E0GZF
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Thanks Senile,

Seems to me I read the case is tool-less, so I assume the case is easy to pop open and work in? Is there just one USB header on the MoBo?

As
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Yes, the case is easy to pop open and work on with two hand tightened screws on the back. Not sure what a USB header is but there are 4 USB ports on the back and 4 on the front. Not sure why they put so many on the front. I would rather have 8 on the back and one maybe two on the front, so I ordered a 4 port USB PCI-Express X1 Card.

Edit: I did a Google search for USB header and I believe there are five altogether with two free. I guess I didn't need to order a USB PCI-E X1 card after all. See image.

k6mGe
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom