Can you beat this system?

[colincliff]

I am looking for a compact pc and came up with this below (sadly no quad core option)

Nice small case, 22" screen, powerful core2duo. Based on the Vostro 200 Slim Tower which i think looks good in black.

• Base:Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6850 processor (3.00GHz, 1333MHz, 4MB cache)
• Microsoft Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista® Business - English
• Monitor: Dell™ 22" Black Wide Flat Panel (E228WFP)
• Memory: 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
  
• Hard Drive: 320GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA/100 Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst™ cache
• Video Card: Integrated Intel® Graphic Media Accelerator X3100

price: £662 inc vat and delivery

Can anyone find a better system with monitor for a similar price? I would prefer not to use Dell as i have no ideas what their mobo's are like - but it seems hard to beat that price,

any ideas?

[staffsMike]

Save us the trouble of speccing it ourself and post the price

[joshwa]

I've got the Vostro 200 Mini Tower - dual core 2ghz - the board is fine (nothing spectacular, no overclocking options, but pretty decent - stable) - the onboard graphics are a bit poor - I'd upgrade the graphics if I were you. (Mine came with the X1300 which is pretty decent / or rather decent enough). The board will not take quad core chips - I know I've tried The PSU is decent enough 300w - but there are NO molex power connectors - SATA only. It's a nice and quiet system with heaps of USB sockets. Definitely a bargain in my opinion - I paid around £417 with a 22" TFT, and 2ghz, 2gb, X1300, etc.

[WannaPiEcE]

Nice bottleneck on the integrated graphics, basically puts all the other components on their knees.
Don't even know if it has a PCIx16 slot, if it does than it has potential, if not than its no good.

[acrobat]

Nice bottleneck on the integrated graphics, basically puts all the other components on their knees.

Only in gaming and graphics stuff. And I dont think thats intended as a gaming machine.

[colincliff]

Save us the trouble of speccing it ourself and post the price

Sorry, completely forgot to add the most important bit! the price is £662 inc vat and delivery. I've edited the first post.

I agree about the graphics issue. The machine will not be for gaming as i have a 360, but i will be video editing occasionally (so perhaps will need to add a cheapish card later on?).

[colincliff]

The board will not take quad core chips - I know I've tried .

Thats a shame, i was hoping i would be able to add one at a later date. I assume it is an non-standard size? or could it take a mini-atx board?


I am now actually thinking of getting a cheaper model from dell, and upgrading the cpu if i need to.

I can get a:

• Base:Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E4400 processor (2.0GHz,800MHz,2MB cache)
• Microsoft Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista® Business - English
• Monitor: Dell™ 22" Black Wide Flat Panel (E228WFP)
• Memory: 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
• Hard Drive: 500GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA/100 Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst™ cache
• Video Card: Integrated Intel® Graphic Media Accelerator X3100

for just £462 inc vat.
I could upgrade to a E6850 from scan for £170 if i found i needed more power which would be cheaper than getting the processor installed by dell, and could sell the E4400 on (or drop it in my media centre). A graphics card for video editing would not cost much more than £40 i would guess.

[McMav]

swap the e6850 for a q6600 aswell. They are same price and the G0 stepping will do 3 Ghz easy on air.

[colincliff]

swap the e6850 for a q6600 aswell. They are same price and the G0 stepping will do 3 Ghz easy on air.

Sadly it seems that the mobo cant take quad core, otherwise i would jump on that .

[joshwa]

Thats a shame, i was hoping i would be able to add one at a later date. I assume it is an non-standard size? or could it take a mini-atx board?


I am now actually thinking of getting a cheaper model from dell, and upgrading the cpu if i need to.

I can get a:

• Base:Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E4400 processor (2.0GHz,800MHz,2MB cache)
• Microsoft Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista® Business - English
• Monitor: Dell™ 22" Black Wide Flat Panel (E228WFP)
• Memory: 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
• Hard Drive: 500GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA/100 Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst™ cache
• Video Card: Integrated Intel® Graphic Media Accelerator X3100

for just £462 inc vat.
I could upgrade to a E6850 from scan for £170 if i found i needed more power which would be cheaper than getting the processor installed by dell, and could sell the E4400 on (or drop it in my media centre). A graphics card for video editing would not cost much more than £40 i would guess.

Is that with their free delivery option?

The board in it is a micro ATX board, and the PSU is a standard ATX PSU (with 24pin connector), I've used the PSU in another system fine, so it should be possible to replace the mobo with another mATX if needed. (in the Mini Tower anyway - the Small one may be different?)

[colincliff]

Is that with their free delivery option?

Ah, i've just notices that. the free delivery is not on the two cheaper models. Just when i thought i had it all decided!

I think the best option is on the e6550 option with the 22" monitor which comes in at £527 with delivery.

I think it would still be a better option than buying the top cpu from dell, as if i upgrade i will have the benifit of the old chip to sell on or reuse.

Thats good news about the mini-atx board, hopefully it will be the same on the slim version

[staffsMike]

It's odd that it can't take a quad core.. perhaps it's because you have the 800mhz chip and so they used a motherboard to suit?

If you get the 1333mhz C2D's I don't see why it wouldn't take a q6600 :S

As far as competitors go you won't really beat that price and not many companies are doing SFF's anyway. I would say the best places to look other than dell would be fujitsu and acer for SFF's but I don't rate either of them as high as dell.

[colincliff]

Joshwa reported that it cant take quad core but i noticed that he has the 2.0ghz e4400 which is 800mhz.

I dont have amazing knowedge of mobo's but it might be that the system that comes with the 1333mhz will be slightly different and allow a quad core.

Does anyone know of any other 1333mhz mobo's that cant take quad core cpus?