-Dimension 4600
-Pentium 4 2.8GHZ 800MHZ FSB Hyper Threading
-512MB 400MHZ DDR RAM
-Geforce FX 5200 128MB
-DVD-ROM/CD-RW Combo Drive
-10/100 intel integrated ethernet
-Integrated 5.1 ( i have bose mediamate speakers now, so i got no speak. option)
-80GB 7200RPM HDD
-Dell UltraSharp 1800FP (18.1" flat screen viewable)!!!!


I'm excited!!!!!!

In all seriousness, I don't know what people’s fascination w/ Dell PCs are. I'm sorry to hear that you had a bad experience w/ your custom built PC, and your new system specs are nice to say the least, but why is Dell the best PC manufacturer known to man? It would be nice to have a comprehensive warranty, but in many cases components don't fail while the system is still under warranty.

You said your video card failed after 2 years? That’s sad and all, but a new video card that would kill a 2-year-old one can be bought for $49.99 at any retail store. When you buy a pre-manufactured PC, you are buying into a system with a minimal power supply, limited upgradability (PCI slots come to mind...), a BIOS that doesn't allow tweaking along with other cost cutting measures. All that you are really buying is the name on the case.

I hope your system works out for you, but for my money, I still can't think of a convincing reason to buy a Dell or any other pre-manufactured PC.

--On a side note, I know 2 people in my dorm who experience warm boot problems with their Dell PCs on a daily basis - both P4 biased, both made within the past year. In my experience, this is almost always caused by a poor power supply (could also be a poor motherboard design, but I don't know what OEM supplies Dell's boards.) Having to unplug the PC every time you want to start it gets kind of old after a while.....

You can pretty much cut the dell price in half by building the machine yourself. You may beat many of the specs too.

Really depends, but recently it's not been my experience that Dells are horrendously overpriced (unless you tack on the options, then they really stick it to you).
My biggest beef with them has been their deliberate incompatibility fiascos, like switching the power pins on the PSU and motherboard connector, which basically will fry any other board you put in there.

They like to brag about their support, but it's just the same crap as everyone else.
Got a problem? Reformat, but first hang up so that your call does not exceed 5 minutes.
They will replace your components if they think it's a problem, but so will Gateway and everyone else on the planet.



I wouldnt get real excited about an FX5200 non-ultra, which could very well have an atrocious 64 bit memory bus that will completely kill performance of the already anemic GPU, but I play too many games for my own good.

Well, if I had about $400 to blow, I'd go out and buy a Radeon 9800 XT or an Nvidia 5950 Ultra biased card, but even a 5200 series card will play most of today’s games w/ ease (well, maybe not at 1280*1024*32bit w/ 8x FSAA ) . For my money, I would have gone with an ATI 9700 non-pro or Nvidia 5800 non-ultra, but Dell doesn't really give you 1000 choices when it comes to video cards - I've looked before.

Rant: Since I only play games about 5 times a year, I'm still running a Geforce 2 GTS - even so, I can still play Max Payne 2 at 1024*768*32bit color with no stuttering (prob around 30fps....) Other games that still run fine are Unreal II and Warcraft 3 (my brother used to use my computer for gaming.) Just an FYI.....

I would pay a substantial amount of money to see a 5200 with a 64 bit RAM interface run FarCry at 1280 with playable framerates even without any anistropic filtering at all.



The GeForce 2 GTS has a 128bit bus, which counts for a whole lot if you're stuck with a 64 bit memory bus on a video card, like, say, most 5200 nu owners.

edited for clarification

my highest end video card out of the 4 or 5 I am using or have as spare parts are 64 MB cards that have probelms with Half Life. No complaints here though as I have played something like 10 minutes of 'game time' in the past year or so; audio equipment and work are a much more important use to me.

And I would never touch a Dell system after working with a friends here. I did help setup my father's new Gateway system (for his office) last weekend and that was decent after removing Musicmatch,AOL 9, Realplayer basic, Napster 2.0, games, and some other crap on there. Also installed Kerio firewall, OpenOffice, AVG antivirus, foobar, and some other free apps on there.

Any item, made by any manufacturer will have a multitude of people moaning and groaning about it.

sublimelouie: You continue to be excited! Yes, you could have saved yourself some dosh, but who cares? Whilst these other people are sat about trying to save their penny's or spending hours pluging bits and bobs in, you are enjoying actually using the thing, or maybe you've finished using it, and are doing something sociable!

Yes, time is to be valued one heck of a lot more than money.

And thus, you've summed up all the pickup truck industry zeal0try in one simple line. ("Ford is better!" "No, Dodge/GMC/??? is!")