New computer...

2006-03-31 19:50:39

#1

mizzy[st]: Member; +0|6633

I am purchasing a new computer pretty soon to be able to play BF2 a lot better and faster...I am looking at the Dell XPS 400 with these specs:

XPS 400: Pentium® D Processor 940 with Dual Core Technology (3.20GHz, 800FSB)
Operating System: Genuine Windows® XP Media Center 2005 Edition
Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz- 4DIMMs
Monitor: 19 inch E196FP Analog Flat Panel
Video Cards: 256MB Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX
Hard Drives: DataSafe 500GB (Includes main hard drive plus a hidden reserve hard drive)
CD or DVD Drive: Dual Drives: 48x CD-RW Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/ double layer write capable
Sound: Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeMusic (D), w/Dolby® Digital 5.1
Speakers: Dell A525 30 Watt 2.1 Stereo Speakers with Subwoofer
Anti-Virus/Security: Suite (Pre-installed) PC-cillin Internet Security: AntiVirus, Firewall, Spyware removal 15-months

There is more included but thats just non sence stuff.....

ANYway, is this a good computer to play BF2 on and still use as a good daily computer for the rest of the family? is there anything else in this package that you would change (and I mean change as in what dell has because im not getting anything else and replacing anything) thanks for the help!!!!

2006-03-31 20:14:19

#2

Neoburn_1035: Medic!!!!!!!; +27|6860|OP, KS

It should work just fine, however I am not sure about 2 gigs of ram. I know people that have had trouble running that much ram. 1.5 gigs runs great that is what our whole clan runs

2006-03-31 20:24:39

#3

superjohnyo: Member; +0|6708|Texas

2 gigs should work fine?

2006-04-01 03:19:38

#4

-_{MoW}_-Assasin: Member; +13|6760|Australia

1. Why Intel?
2. Why Windows Media Center Edition?
3. What kind of gay brand is Datasafe?
4. Why buy and X-Fi and only have 30 watt 2.1 speakers?

Last edited by -_{MoW}_-Assasin (2006-04-04 00:52:36)

2006-04-01 14:43:42

#5

Maj.Do: Member; +85|6783|good old CA

^1, isnt it dell, they dont sale intel
2. ur right
3. dontknow what ur talking about'
4. your right

and5. how come my email is banned from oc forums? i wasnt a member before and when i try to registar it says ive been banned?

2006-04-01 16:19:36

#6

mcminty: Moderating your content for the Australian Govt.; +879|6753|Sydney, Australia

Maj.Do wrote:
^1, isnt it dell, they dont sale intel

My Dell 8300 has an Intel 875P chipset...

2006-04-01 18:20:08

#7

BellusEndus: Make love not war; +59|6655|Edinburg

Should run pretty sweet but I'd suggest 3 things:
Media Center edition is designed for "living room" PCs, you might come accross problems when trying to run BF2 or any day to day pc app, I'd try and get XP Pro instead (having said that I have no experience with MCE so correct me if im wrong)
The datasafe hard drive sounds like media hype more than anything usefull, im sure it works but if its cheaper and you have atleast a small knowledge of drive partitions etc. go for two seperate drives (assuming its cheaper)
For playing games and music go for a 5.1 surround, it'll be worth it! depending on the price go for some creative speakers instead, you can a decent 5.1 or 7.1 set for under 100 bucks, or go for some dell 5.1s if your after convienience with shipping

As for 2GB RAM i dont know, only run 1GB myself, but i'd guess if its 2 1GB sticks in dual channel it'll run pretty sweet.

2006-04-01 19:34:12

#8

Maj.Do: Member; +85|6783|good old CA

mcminty wrote:
Maj.Do wrote:
^1, isnt it dell, they dont sale intel
My Dell 8300 has an Intel 875P chipset...

crap i meant amd

2006-04-15 00:56:03

#9

Hacial: 404 - Not Found; +107|6651

My suggestion:

Processor: AMD athlon 64 X2 3800+ (dual-core) ~ 315 €
Motherboard: Abit KN8 ~ 80 €
Case: Antec p150 ~ 160 €
RAM: 2 X 1 GB (No kingston!) ~ 170 €
Harddrive: Western Digital Caviar 160 GB ~ 70 €
LG DVD-ROM ~ 20 €
Graphic card: Asus GeForce 7900 ~ 310 €
Monitor: BenQ FP91G+ 19" ~ 300 €

The prices are from my country so I don't know how much it cost in your country... Anyway in my country this is very good PC if we look at it's price & performance, and it has enough of power to play games and it can be easily upgraded.

2006-04-15 01:36:06

#10

Cybargs: Moderated; +2,285|6748

Hacial wrote:
My suggestion:

Processor: AMD athlon 64 X2 3800+ (dual-core) ~ 315 €
Motherboard: Abit KN8 ~ 80 €
Case: Antec p150 ~ 160 €
RAM: 2 X 1 GB (No kingston!) ~ 170 €
Harddrive: Western Digital Caviar 160 GB ~ 70 €
LG DVD-ROM ~ 20 €
Graphic card: Asus GeForce 7900 ~ 310 €
Monitor: BenQ FP91G+ 19" ~ 300 €

The prices are from my country so I don't know how much it cost in your country... Anyway in my country this is very good PC if we look at it's price & performance, and it has enough of power to play games and it can be easily upgraded.

i would get teh 250gb sata 2 16mb cache hdd, dont get asus, they are way overpriced get something like sparkle or gigabyte

https://cache.www.gametracker.com/server_info/203.46.105.23:21300/b_350_20_692108_381007_FFFFFF_000000.png

2006-04-15 04:35:37

#11

.ACB|_Cutthroat1: No place like 127.0.0.1; +76|6727|Gold Coast,QLD,Australia

sif, leadtek is the next best

2006-04-15 04:42:00

#12

Cybargs: Moderated; +2,285|6748

.ACB|_Cutthroat1 wrote:
sif, leadtek is the next best

support taiwan

buy from msi, gigabyte, sparkle or asus and i give u cookie

2006-04-15 04:48:52

#13

Shadow893: lel; +75|6724|England

BellusEndus wrote:
Should run pretty sweet but I'd suggest 3 things:
Media Center edition is designed for "living room" PCs, you might come accross problems when trying to run BF2 or any day to day pc app, I'd try and get XP Pro instead (having said that I have no experience with MCE so correct me if im wrong)

The MCE is fine for running games and stuff like that and they normally come with good graphics cards anyway to process the siganl. I have three of them, two running on 3.2Ghz ATi and the other on a 2.9Ghz Ati as well. They work perfect. As for the ram, I have 1GB in two of my machines and they work brilliantly, but the 512MB in the 2.9Ghz takes ages to run, so 1GB should be fine. I personally am hopping to upgrade to 2GB as well.

2006-04-15 04:49:27

#14

nordicfireman: Member; +7|6704

that guy that says 2g of ram is too much is crazy, there's no such thing as too much ram, 2g is excellent

2006-04-15 09:59:09

#15

unnamednewbie13: Moderator; +2,053|6803|PNW

OP

1. Windows XP should run 2GB RAM with no difficulty, and is overall a better OS than Windows MCE.
2. Either get yourself some 7.1 speakers or some good headphones. The 2.1's are a bit silly with the X-Fi.
3. That DDR2 533 memory is a bit pathetic, being outperformed by low-latency DDR 400. If you absolutely want an Intel-based Dell, I'd wait a bit and go with some DDR2 800's (at least) and an Intel Conroe processor. If you grab a 2x1GB pair for your memory, you'll have space left in your other two DIMM slots should you, for whatever reason, decide that you need 4GB of memory with 4x1GB (well, when you have an OS that can support it).
4. Save yourself some money and go with a 7900GT video card. It has just as many pipelines as a 7800GTX, and will save you some money for an upgrade to an 8800(GT?) later this year.
5. The DVD drives are fine...but no lightscribe? Blah. I like to mix and match drives in one system, so that if one brand won't work on a backup burn, the other brand might. No, I'm not a pirate hub. Yes, I hate playing patty-cake with corporations trying to get a replacement CD. While most of them are cooperative, it's just more time I have to wait before using the software again.

Of DELL and AMD:

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_i … story=8651
http://hardware.silicon.com/desktops/0, … 633,00.htm

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2006-04-15 10:00:26)

2006-04-15 11:02:03

#16

Cybargs: Moderated; +2,285|6748

ddr800 is good but ddr2 667 is good aswell... i dont think dell ships w/ ddr2 800... so get ddr2 667

2006-04-15 11:22:43

#17

unnamednewbie13: Moderator; +2,053|6803|PNW

cyborg_ninja-117 wrote:
ddr800 is good but ddr2 667 is good aswell... i dont think dell ships w/ ddr2 800... so get ddr2 667

By the time Dell starts pushing out Conroes en masse, they'll probably come with DDR2 800.

But you're right, even in their fastest XPS's, it only goes up to 667.

If you're DELLing, choose option: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 2 DIMMs

But I'll never recommend DELL over custom builds.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2006-04-15 11:23:32)

2006-04-15 16:50:57

#18

Towelly: It's A State Of Mind; +399|6622|Your attic

Two answer a few questions, if you know dell well enough you should know they don't use amd in ANYTHING
if you have half an hour or so read this.
http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content … plaint.pdf

Second the xps 400 only comes with media centre.
The speakers, tbh, spending that sort of money on your graphics then buying cheap speakers, not a good idea, go for atleast 5.1, I would suggest something from creative

http://us.creative.com/products/welcome … ;showall=1

I'm from England, but from what I know newegg.com is quite a good place to buy anything computer wise, so go along there, good set of speakers for around $70 if I'm right, that way the x-fi (very very good imho) would be complemented well.

1.5GB of RAM better then 2?? ermm, I'll just leave that one for the mathmaticians among you.

Datasafe is as somone said a bit of a media thing, maybe in the future but not now, unless it's cheaper then by all means sure.

.ACB|_Cutthroat1 wrote:
sif, leadtek is the next best

You damm right there WinFast PX7800 GTX TDH MyVIVO Extreme 512MB kicks alot of ass

cyborg_ninja-117 wrote:
support taiwain

buy from msi, gigabyte, sparkle or asus and i give u cookie

I want my cookie!!!! Asus mobo's are alot better then most people give them credit for

Edit: P.s I agree with last poster, I would always go for homebuild over anything, but for some people it's not really an option.

Last edited by Towelly (2006-04-15 16:52:33)

2006-04-16 03:15:32

#19

.ACB|_Cutthroat1: No place like 127.0.0.1; +76|6727|Gold Coast,QLD,Australia

lol ninja in my comp i have no components from those brands, rofl

2006-04-16 03:21:21

#20

stryyker: bad touch; +1,682|6751|California

Hacial wrote:
My suggestion:

Processor: AMD athlon 64 X2 3800+ (dual-core) ~ 315 €
Motherboard: Abit KN8 ~ 80 €
Case: Antec p150 ~ 160 €
RAM: 2 X 1 GB (No kingston!) ~ 170 €
Harddrive: Western Digital Caviar 160 GB ~ 70 €
LG DVD-ROM ~ 20 €
Graphic card: Asus GeForce 7900 ~ 310 €
Monitor: BenQ FP91G+ 19" ~ 300 €

The prices are from my country so I don't know how much it cost in your country... Anyway in my country this is very good PC if we look at it's price & performance, and it has enough of power to play games and it can be easily upgraded.

+1

OR BETTER YET.

Intel has its new Conroe series coming out, which is the FX-60, but so much better

some rather new Conroe clocks

https://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e382/ticongeroga/conroe8nv.jpg

Last edited by stryyker (2006-04-16 03:22:28)

2006-04-16 03:41:56

#21

Cybargs: Moderated; +2,285|6748

.ACB|_Cutthroat1 wrote:
lol ninja in my comp i have no components from those brands, rofl

i shall go back to aus and get kick ur ass in teh crown jupiter hotel...

well msi and asus have best boards, but vid card i think gigabyte pwns

Last edited by cyborg_ninja-117 (2006-04-16 03:54:19)

2006-04-16 04:44:52

#22

.ACB|_Cutthroat1: No place like 127.0.0.1; +76|6727|Gold Coast,QLD,Australia

ummmm no on the gigabyte thingeh, Asus>BFG>Leadtek>Gigabyte

2006-04-16 04:51:34

#23

Cybargs: Moderated; +2,285|6748

.ACB|_Cutthroat1 wrote:
ummmm no on the gigabyte thingeh, Asus>BFG>Leadtek>Gigabyte

lol then i wont go to kick ur ass lol, asus is still taiwanese

2006-04-16 10:54:41

#24

bigelectricat: Member; +3|6723

Neoburn_1035 wrote:
It should work just fine, however I am not sure about 2 gigs of ram. I know people that have had trouble running that much ram. 1.5 gigs runs great that is what our whole clan runs

dont go with this suggestion. it will disable dual channel mode on your intel based computer. you must maintain a matched pair to enable dual channel mode memory. as far as i know, nobody makes a pair of 750mb ram sticks to make 1.5gig total. dual channel makes a big difference on intel based processors.

2006-04-16 12:32:19

#25

unnamednewbie13: Moderator; +2,053|6803|PNW

stryyker wrote:
OR BETTER YET.

Intel has its new Conroe series coming out, which is the FX-60, but so much better

The Conroe isn't the FX-60. They're different CPUs.

Towelly wrote:
Second the xps 400 only comes with media centre.

While that's true, it won't stop you from installing a copy of XP Pro.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2006-04-16 12:34:23)

BF2S Forums New computer...

Maj.Do wrote:

mcminty wrote:

Maj.Do wrote:

Hacial wrote:

.ACB|_Cutthroat1 wrote:

BellusEndus wrote:

cyborg_ninja-117 wrote:

.ACB|_Cutthroat1 wrote:

cyborg_ninja-117 wrote:

Hacial wrote:

.ACB|_Cutthroat1 wrote:

.ACB|_Cutthroat1 wrote:

Neoburn_1035 wrote:

stryyker wrote:

Towelly wrote:

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