New PC help?

[Pileyrei]

Hi all

I'm sorry to bother people with yet another "check out my specs" thread.

My Dell 8250 Dimension is 6 years old.
It's time for an upgrade.

I'm not saying money is no object but I want to treat myself to something that won't need upgrading for years and will handle new games for at least a few years to come!

Please can you look at the specs below and post your comments. There are some very strong technical people on these forums and so I'd value your opinions too. Naturally I want UT3 to run on the highest settings with no hitches

My potential new PC:

************************************************** ********
Dell XPS 720
Intel® Core™ 2 Quad-Core Q6600 processor (2.40GHz, 1066MHz, 8MB cache)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - English
4096MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [4x1024]
500GB Serial ATA RAID 0 Stripe [2x250GB 7200rpm drives with DataBurst™ cache]
SINGLE 768MB nVidia® GeForce® 8800 GTX graphics card
************************************************** ********

My only concern is that I've read about vista not doing too well with the above mentioned video card. Should I be worried?

Comments welcome.

Greetz.
Piley

[Fleck]

Looks like a bang slam system except for I'm an AMD guy.

I'm 100% sure that they are not going to leave their flagship video card crippled. Just wait a little bit and the drivers will bring out the performance.

[UndeadRoadkill]

I say build one from scratch so you won't have to deal with lame Dell proprietary junk, and you can upgrade in the future one component at a time, or as much as your wallet can handle.

[oldkawman1]

Forget Dell

Your much better off buying name brand components instead of cheap made for Dell parts. Get a real high quality ATX mid tower aluminum case, a real big 750 or 850 watt power supply, name brand motherboard, and name brand video card. You will save at least $500 or more even if you pay someone to build it for you. Then you can reuse your XP.

Then years later you can always upgrade the parts inside and still have the case and power supply. You can then sell the old name brand parts on ebay and recoupe a part of your upgrade cost. With a Dell, all you can do is recycle it.They have no used value.

[UT4EVER]

I just built a system exactly like that but with quality parts sans the 8800gtx for about $1K. so with the vid card, you're looking at around $1.5K

I bet that dell is around $3K?

not that there's anything wrong with dell...you get the standard 3 year in-home service and no one can say that even with the most expensive part they built by themself...

[zhevox]

use a 8800 640 gts in SLI instead, it would only cost you about $100 more a GTX =$450-500
a gts@ 1 piece=$350-$400
or around 550-600 in SLI..save some money...it'll worth it
and performance would be around .75x better than a singe piece of GTX

[Pileyrei]

Looks like a bang slam system except for I'm an AMD guy.

I'm 100% sure that they are not going to leave their flagship video card crippled. Just wait a little bit and the drivers will bring out the performance.

Yup. Call me lazy but I'm happy to pay a little extra for conveince.
Appreciate your feedback.

Piley

[Pileyrei]

Your much better off buying name brand components instead of cheap made for Dell parts. Get a real high quality ATX mid tower aluminum case, a real big 750 or 850 watt power supply, name brand motherboard, and name brand video card. You will save at least $500 or more even if you pay someone to build it for you. Then you can reuse your XP.

Then years later you can always upgrade the parts inside and still have the case and power supply. You can then sell the old name brand parts on ebay and recoupe a part of your upgrade cost. With a Dell, all you can do is recycle it.They have no used value.

I recently burnt myself with a Dell upgrade. Long story short>>>my Radeon Pro 9700 died. I upgraded to a Radeon X1950 Pro.......but...I also had to upgrade my psu as my 8250 couldn't power the new vid card. Ouch! Wasn't too expensive but was annoying enough.

So, you'd think I learn

BUT, the Dell XPS 720 I mentioned looks uber sweet and if i don't have to upgrade for a good 2-3 years I'm genuinely happy.

I value your post because what you say is 100% true. I'm just **** when it comes to building your own system.

Appreciate your feedback.

Piley

*EDIT* Just re-read your post. You make some excellent points. A buddy pointed me to www.scan.co.uk for custom made pc's *(I'm in the UK). I'm not aware of other "places" to get something like that done. You got me thinking now.......

[Pileyrei]

I just built a system exactly like that but with quality parts sans the 8800gtx for about $1K. so with the vid card, you're looking at around $1.5K

I bet that Dell is around $3K?

not that there's anything wrong with dell...you get the standard 3 year in-home service and no one can say that even with the most expensive part they built by themself...

Hi

Appreciate your feedback too
FYI - Full system quote: £1390 (I'm in London, UK) which includes warranty,etc.

Piley

[Brutal]

lol i wish i had the $ to buy that

[Pileyrei]

lol i wish i had the $ to buy that

It's an early Xmas present to myself

But I want to make sure I get it right.
Don't want to fork out for a machine only to find some stupid compatability issue (or something like that)!!

Greetz
Piley

[Pileyrei]

Thanks for the comments so far all.

Piley

[Pileyrei]

UPDATE:

I'm not going with the Dell XPS system.

Instead, I'm sourcing the parts and getting it built at www.scan.co.uk for roughly the same price.

My greatest concern is the video card. I don't see the point spending £480 on an Nvidia card!!! I'm torn between the Nvidia card shown below in my new pc specs or a 1GB HIS HD 2900 XT PCI-E(x16) 512Bit 400MHz GDDR4, GPU 743MHz CrossFire 2xDVI/HDTV Retail Boxed (link: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Produ...oductID=664336)

I've checked over some bench mark tests for various games and decided on an Nvidia card. I would appreciate hearing back from anyone has has the card and has run the demo, IE does it run well on high settings.

My new pc to be ordered! (unless someone can see a problem here)

Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 32Bit
Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad-Core Q6600 G0 SLACR, 95W, S775, 2.40 GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 8MB Cache
Memory 4GB RAM: CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, 4-4-4-12, DHX
Video Card Nvidia 320MB XFX 8800GTS XT, PCI-E (x16), Mem 1700MHz, GPU 560MHz, 96 Streams, 2x Dual Link DVI/HDTV

What do you think? Will the above run UT3 uber smooth? Plus any other game I try for the next year or two? Do I go with the Nvidia card or the ATI one shown at the top.

Greetz
Piley

[Brutal]

Did you check newegg ? or is that place better ?

[Pileyrei]

Did you check neweeg ? or is that place better ?

Sorry dude...neweeg??

Im in the UK if that makes a difference?

Piley