A little help on a PC purchase

[stompy]

My family's decided that it's time to upgrade our PC, but our knowledge of PC hardware is not so great. So I've come to the Escapist forums for some help.

Basically, I just want some feedback on this Dell PC I wanna buy. It's gotta handle slightly old games, like Half-life 2, and also be great for everyday use.

The specs are below:
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad Processor Q6600
Windows Vista(R) Home Premium
Dell 24" Entry (E248WFP) Wide Screen Flat Panel LCD Monitor (ANA, DVI)
4GB (4X1GB) NECC Dual Channel DDR2 667MHz SDRAM Memory
320GB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive with Native Command Queuing
256MB PCIe(TM)x16 NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) 8600GT w/TV-Out & Dual DVI
The final price (with other things, such as keyboard and mouse) comes to a total of AUS$1,927.20

Thanks in advance for those who take the time to answer my question.

 

[Gigantor]

A quick mental calculation says that 1927 AUS is roughly...£855. Given You're getting the 24" screen with that that's not too bad. But But But, whilst an 8600GT will probably be fairly happy with HL2, if you shop around you can get 8800GT which is just plain awesomeness. Everything else looks fine, (if you have your heart set on getting a Dell), but maybe you should consider bumping that graphics card up a bit. Maybe it's just personal preference though. Best of British luck to ya'.

 

[KurtNiisan]

Overall specs on that off-the-shelf Dell is fine but like Gigantor said change the graphics card.

 

[GrowlersAtSea]

Two things that stand out...

Vista 32 bit or 64? If it's 32 bit then you won't be using all 4 gigs of Ram. Cutting it down to 2 or 3 gigs would probably help bring the cost down a bit.

Also, if you can at all spare it, you really should go for an 8800GT over the 8600GT. The 8800GT is a great card at a very good price and will really allow you to breeze through old games but also give very good performance on new games and upcoming games. It really is worth considering, since you'll be running at pretty high resolutions with that size monitor. The 8600GT isn't an outright bad card, and will handle HalfLife 2 great, but you're looking at an awfully big investment, so should try to get your money's worth.

I would suggest a custom integrator over Dell, they can offer better deals usually, but I have no idea what reputable companies are down there and you have to be careful when throwing around that kind of money on a machine. So Dell's probably a safe bet.

Good luck with your purchase. Hopefully some other people here can help more.

 

[Frapple]

I'd get a 512mb 8800GT, shaders and textures are getting increasingly big, and 256mb on a 24" won't go very far.

 

[Xen Monkey]

Rather then reiterate what everyone else has said (32 bit Vista cannot use 4GB Ram; worth getting a better graphics card and such)

Do you need a 24" monitor? For sure it's great for gaming, but it is the part where you say it should be suitable for "everyday use." I take it you mean surfing the internet, word processing etc? Such a large monitor can be a bit overwhelming.

This is just a personal opinion, but it is my experience. I have a 22" monitor which is fantastic for gaming, watching films, TV etc. It is even ok for surfing the internet a little bit. However, I've found that if I am doing actual work, it is much easier to plug in my old monitor (15" iirc).

Of course, since you say you are upgrading it is likely you may have a smaller, more managable screen, so this may not be an issue.


Another thing is it might be worth waiting. the NVIDIA cards will be out soon I think (a case of weeks not months), which might have a dramatic effect on costs. It is also advisable to get an 8800 (GT I think is best value at the moment). Now or later.


Incidentally, when one buys from DELL, is the warranty voided if you upgrade it yourself?
Anyone know?

 

[Terramax]

Ok, first. NO DELL!

I second that. Seriously. I too have bought Dell PCs and laptops and I've really regretted it.

 

[Metonym]

NO DELL!!!

(this is very important)

 

[Easykill]

Just get this.

http://h20435.www2.hp.com/#/home/

 

[raankh]

Or get a Wii instead

More seriously though, I'd recommend PC6400 Ram (800 MHz) and a Dual Core CPU instead; that would leave some money to upgrade the graphics card to a Geforce 8800GT 512 card. With some other options that should be near enough the same price.

Honestly, the HD3850 might be a better buy than the 8600GT.

I very much recommend a RAID 0 setup for average users, the performance gain adequately makes up for any data reliability issues; those won't become a problem for an average home user.

Two silent smaller disks in RAID 0 makes for an excellent system partition, at very low cost.

Of course, this assumes you're comfortable with building a system yourself. If not, there are usually shops that build custom configurations that should have these kinds of setups, seeing as it's in line with recommendations from major hardware sites like tomshardware and anandtech.

 

[Xen Monkey]

I very much recommend a RAID 0 setup for average users, the performance gain adequately makes up for any data reliability issues; those won't become a problem for an average home user.

Two silent smaller disks in RAID 0 makes for an excellent system partition, at very low cost.

I never been convinced by the usefulness of RAID. It was always seemed like an expensive (and unreliable) data storage solution to me.

I might get around to doing it someday. But I've haven't heard a particuarly strong argument for it yet.

 

[shadow skill]

Meh Raid only becomes truly useful for people when you start talking about raid 5, 6, or you want to do some combination of striping and parity. It's easier just to generate backups of data rather than bothering with raid 1 (Mirroring.) as it is.