The Student Room Group

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Chaz_Hack_Rabbit
You might be able to save money by not getting MS office from Dell - I think Office 2003 is much better than 2007 - and you'll save quite a bit of money, especially if you have an NUS card (there's a site on the offers section of the NUSonline website that does Office 2003 PRO for about £70)...just a suggestion.



Office 2007 is much better once you are used to it. I guess you just had a play on a machine? after a few weeks using it i cant stand the older versions. Office 2007 for students is very cheap £76-£86 i would certainly choose it over the older version.
i agree with neomayemer. Office '07 is incredibly easy to use once you get used to it - the quick bar is the most awesome tool ever, and the tab thing is a brilliant idea.
Reply 2062
Base Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E4400 Processor (2.0GHz,800MHz,2MB cache)
Microsoft Operating System Genuine Windows Vista™ Business - English
Enhanced Service Packs Base Warranty - 1 Year Business Hardware Support
Monitor Dell™ 19" Value Wide Flat Panel (E198WFP) - UK/Irish
Memory 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
Hard Drive 250GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst™ cache
Video Card 256MB ATI® Radeon® X1300 PCI Express graphics card
Optical Devices 16x DVD +/- RW Drive
Keyboard Logitech™ Cordless Desktop™ EX110 - UK/Irish (QWERTY)
Mouse Mouse Included in Wireless Keyboard and Mouse option
Sound Cards Integrated 7.1 Channel High Definition Audio
13-in-1 Media Card Reader
it's one of those new vostros, and is the slimline 200 case

is this desktop from dell ok for £399.57 (delivery and VAT included)?
oh and would that radeon thing be ok to play the sims 2 with about 4 expansion packs :redface:
edit: oh and like most people nothing particularly taxing is going on with this machine, well atleast for the moment (yes its a uni pc hehe)
Thats good for the price. It will probably JUST play the sims 2 but you might want to google 'x1300 sims' or something similar to make sure.
nyxie

Why are you choosing from bussiness range?
and yes video isnt great
Reply 2065
It'll play the sims 2 fine. Yeesh. I have an x300 and its fine.
Reply 2066
UAG
Why are you choosing from buisness range?
and yes video isnt great


because it was cheaper and it was black, lol

Anyway thank you everyone!
Reply 2067
oh one other question is a 256 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT better than the raedon x1300 and by how much?
Reply 2068
nyxie
oh one other question is a 256 MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT better than the raedon x1300 and by how much?


The 8600 GT is far better :smile: however IMO it isnt worth the extra £100 asked for by dell
Reply 2069
righto thanks... so should i upgrade the card myself (meaning I get someone else :rolleyes: ) if I realised I needed a better graphics card?

(sorry for all the Qs I just dont know what I'm doing)
Reply 2070
if you only intend playing the sims 2 the x1300 is way above what is recommended so you won't be needing a new graphics card :smile: if you meed a better graphics card at a later date then you cam upgrade it yourself :smile:
I'm not looking to buy a new one, but planning on updating my current bit of kit.

Current Specs

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 3.06GHz
RAM: 512Mb
Graphics: 256Mb GeForce 7600 GS
Storage: 80Gb internal harddrive + 160Gb external harddrive


My plans were to replace the CPU with a dual-core processor (something fairly cheap but hopefully still quite a bit better than what I already have) and upgrade to 1 or 2Gb of RAM. While I'm capable of looking for these things myself, there are a few things I could do with a bit of help with.

First off, a lot of my games are installed on and played from the external harddrive (except a select few, such as Stalker, because they run like **** on the external HDD), however in the past couple of months I've been experiencing a problem with a few games running off the internal drive, such as Stalker and Oblivion, namely that after playing them for a little while (a seemingly random time for Stalker, but rarely more than 15 minutes for Oblivion) the game will freeze or the computer will restart because the CPU is overheating :frown: The CPU is not overclocked and I don't really want to underclock it as the games don't run too brilliantly as it is. My uneducated guess is pointing me in the direction of wanting to buy a new fan which would hopefully keep the damn thing cool (I used SpeedFan ages ago and it was recording the temperature (while idle) at ~70-75°C :s:)
Second, I've read that dual-core processors aren't supported in many games, so having one instead of my current P4 could theoretically be a waste of money as it wouldn't improve the performance of my games at all (and could actually be worse :eek:)


So:

Am I right to buy a dual core processor for gaming?

Am I right to buy new fans for the CPU/GPU/whatever?

Is there anything else I could upgrade fairly cheaply that could noticeably enhance my gaming?

The most important question, any suggestions on where to get the bloody things cheap? :biggrin:

1. Yes, most new games (including Stalker) are multithreaded. Although you're probably doing to need a new motherboard and probably RAM.

2. The latter P4's ran way hotter than any other chip ever made. However, 75 on idle is still a little above what i'd expect. My bets are on your case has virtually no airflow.
Whatever the cause, buy a solid, quiet case (such as an Antec P180) and good aftermarket coolers, such as Zalmans.
If that machine was an OEM one, youre going to need a new power supply as well, expect to spend around £50.

3. Buy some hard drives. New Seagates or WD's are way faster than most externals. If you want really fast loading times buy two and RAID0 them, or look into a Raptor.

4. I usually recommend www.overclockers.co.uk for invididuals. eBuyer are cheaper, but unless you have a business account they dont really care.
Okie-doke, I'll look into all of that. Merci beaucoup :smile:
Reply 2074
A few questions;

Is it really worth buying a dual core pc now, what with Quad core already out?
DirectX10 is only avaliable for Windows Vista right?

Thanks. :3
Reply 2075
Airel
Is it really worth buying a dual core pc now, what with Quad core already out?

It depends what you want to do on the computer. Most programs and games out at the moment do not use all four cores so the increase in performance in minimal.
Airel
DirectX10 is only avaliable for Windows Vista right?

Yup
Got about 500 to spend on a new PC, I don't want to/haven't got the time, interest or knowledge to build one myself so any reccomendations for what I should be looking for at that price or any good sites to use.
I want something stable that will work nice and quickly, I need a reasonably big hard drive- my PC will mainly be used for uni work, music, internet and DVD's but maybe the odd game (nothing too top of the range or demanding though.) Any ideas, I'm pretty clueless to be honest!
Reply 2077
A friend of mine wants to build a computer (its his first one he is building himself) and i have been helping him pick which parts, his budget is around £700ish, was just wondering if this is a decent (and fairly future proof) set up. He will be using it for day to day stuff (uni work e-mail etc) and gaming.

Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "LGA775 Kentsfield" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
EVGA nForce 650i Ultra (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (122-CK-NF66-T1)
OcUK 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit
OcUK GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail
Western Digital Caviar SE16 250GB 2500KS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM
HP DVD 1035i 20x DVD±RW x12 Ram Dual Layer DVD-Writer (Black) - OEM
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK)
Thermaltake VC3000BWS Armour Jr SuperMidi Tower - Black

Total : £679.00 Including VAT and shipping

Any comments, changes etc would be helpful :smile:
Hi - I am considering to buy a Sony Vaio CR series notebook. The competing version that I am interested is Acer Aspire 4720 (the Gem) series. I did my research. Specs wise, at any price range, the technology offered by Acer seems more advanced. However, I am more concerned about things that are not so evident: 1. breakdowns and frequency of hardware problems 2. feel and style

Anyone is in procession of the Sony Vaio CR series? (Or the older Sony Vaio C series?) Also, anyone is in procession of Acer Aspire Gem series? I want to hear your experience of both laptops and reliability. :smile:
The Sony Vaio CR series can be found here: http://vaio.sony.co.uk/view/ShowProductCategory.action?site=voe_en_GB_cons&category=VN+CR+Series


Acer Gem/Chapala
http://www.acer.co.uk/chapala/en.htm

However, I do want to hear more qualitative experiences rather than stats alone...

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