£300-£400 Pre-Built Systems.

[Stewart]

£300-£400 to spend, pre-built (Dell, Time, Tiny, etc) system; base unit, monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc. Office type rig, needs to be able to run Windows, Word, surf the net, play the odd mp3, etc.

Recomendations?

To start things off:

Time Machine 3200.

Specification:

* Processor : Intel® Celeron® D 320 Processor
* Operating System : Microsoft® Windows XP Home
* Memory : 256MB DDR RAM (1x 256MB)
* Hard Disk : 80GB 7200 RPM ATA-100 Drive
* Optical 1 : CD-Rw Re-Writer / DVD-ROM Combo Drive
* Graphics : 32MB Integrated Graphics
* Modem : Dedicated high speed Supanet optimised 56K modem
* Internet Access : Supanet Internet Access Preloaded
* Monitor : 17" Flat SVGA CRT Monitor
* Network : 10/100 Ethernet Port for Home Networking

* Card Reader : Multi-Format Card Reader & Writer
* Sound : 6 Channel Sound Onboard
* Keyboard etc. : Multimedia Keyboard, Wheel Mouse & Stereo Speakers
* Ports etc. : 1.44MB Floppy Drive, USB2.0 Ports x4, Parallel & Standard Ports
* Case : Micro ATX Tower Case with 5 Drive Bays
* Software 1 : Microsoft® Works Version 7
* Software 2 : Microsoft® Office XP - 60 Day Trial
* Software 3 : Cyberlink PowerDVD Software Suite
* Software 4 : PowerSuite XP1
* Model : S1127

£365.

[da_ging]

ive used 1 that was of pretty identical spec to the 1 above and it was painfully slow m8

assuming it has to be a branded ready to go machine i cant see you getting anything above a low celly or sempron sckt A

[nichomach]

And of those, the Sempron is the way to go; Celeron Ds are painfully weak; you're far better going with, say, a SoA AthlonXP than a Celeron D. Also, bluntly, I think an XP system specced with less than 512MB is likely to perform poorly at best, compounding the weakness of the Celeron.

PM on the way.

edit: No it isn't, sorry, saw one at the Dell Outlet that would have come in inc VAT at £408, but it went in seconds

Is £400 your absolute upper limit? If not, I've just mailed you a spec from Dell for £435 which ought to do.

Intel® Pentium® 4 processor (2.80GHz, 533fsb, 1MB cache)
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition SP2 - English
512MB Dual Channel DDR333 (2x256MB)
Dell QuietKey Keyboard
Dell E773p 17" (16.0 VIS) Value CRT Monitor
80GB IDE (7,200rpm) Hard Drive
No Floppy Drive Required
Dell PS/2 Scroll Mouse
Dell v92 Data/Fax modem
48X DVD/CDRW Combo Drive
Dell A215 speakers
Microsoft® Works 7.0 - English
Enhanced Service Packs 1 Year CAR
No Installation Service Selected
No Security Subscription
Dell Picture Studio - Photo Album Standard (60 Day Trial)
Dell Picture Studio - Paint Shop Pro 8.0 (60 Day Trial)

[shiato storm]

...with no agp slot i bet!
a dell classic

[Destroyer^]

yeah 3 of my mates brought a dell pc and they dint have any agp slots and to which i luahged at becuase i got mine from a small pc shop in town which the people there dont try to rip u off =p tht was before i knew how2 build my own rig which i do now well i know how2 put the cpu and thermal paste hs and fan etc on but never done it myself =p also is it hard to setup SATa drives or is it just like IDe where u need to setup a master/slave

[nichomach]

...with no agp slot i bet!
a dell classic

Which is of course TERRIBLE, because word-processing's REALLY going to require that they upgrade to a 6800GT...

Ye gods; read the spec.

Office type rig, needs to be able to run Windows, Word, surf the net, play the odd mp3, etc.

[nichomach]

yeah 3 of my mates brought a dell pc and they dint have any agp slots and to which i luahged at becuase i got mine from a small pc shop in town which the people there dont try to rip u off =p tht was before i knew how2 build my own rig which i do now well i know how2 put the cpu and thermal paste hs and fan etc on but never done it myself =p also is it hard to setup SATa drives or is it just like IDe where u need to setup a master/slave

Yes, but your mates probably wanted to run games on them; they bought the wrong machines for what they wanted. There's plenty of Dells WITH AGP slots (and for that matter PCIe slots), and if your mates had phoned and explained what they wanted, they would have been sold a more appropriate system.

Setting up a machine with an SATA drive is easy, you just plug the drive in. You may need a floppy with the SATA controller drivers during Windows setup; press F6 for additional storage controllers when prompted and feed in the floppy.

[Stewart]

Thanks for the mail mate, I'm lost when it comes to specing office systems but can spec and build a gaming rig in 7.4 minutes.

Anyway, is this better: Word, MP3s, Net Surfing and the like remember.

- AMD Athlon Sempron 2800+ Retail CPU
- AMD Approved Heatsink
- 512MB GeIL PC2700 DDR Memory
- Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 80GB 2MB Cache Hard Drive
- 52X CD-ROM
- 3 1/2 Inch Floppy Drive
- On-Board 2D/3D Graphics
- On-Board AC'97 Audio
- Integrated 10/100Mbps LAN
- 165W PSU

Celey kicked out, Sempron 2800+ and 512mb of RAM instead of the dodgy 256.

[nichomach]

That'll be MORE than adequate for that sort of usage; assuming a broadband connection, they'll be using the built-in ethernet, presumably. No rewriteable drive, but that's the only weakness I can see off the bat.

[Allen]

Couple of quid extra for 8MB cache on the hard drive for better performance all round maybe? Also, what make is the CPU?

[Stewart]

So, second spec much better yes? Are cellys really that crap that they haven't got the muscle for office work?

[Howard]

So, second spec much better yes? Are cellys really that crap that they haven't got the muscle for office work?

If our school computers are anything to go by, yes.

[Thorsson]

They're OK for Word Processing (providing you stick to words)...

If you want to do any sort of picture editing, spreadsheet, powe******, etc. then I wouldn't want to be running, I mean walking it.

[Thorsson]

Why did r p o i n t get ***ed?

[Stewart]

******

[Stewart]

Hmm yeah, strange.