build or go with dell or someone?

[ricflairandy]

Having just sold my old athlon xp 2800 system, im looking for a new one. was going to just go with dell for a nice quiet pc, but after checking prices im now not so sure.

Been looking at the following, with microdirect being the chepeast for them.

Asrock 775TWINS-HDTV skt 775 ATI Radeon Express 200 1066FSB X300 VGA PCI-E SATA RAID +LAN +USB2.0 +8 ch. audio micro ATX £42.24

Intel Pentium® 4 D 805 Dual core 2x2.66GHz 533FSB LGA775 2x1MB cache Retail inc.Fan (3yr Manufacturers Warranty) £67.27

200 GB Maxtor DiamondMax Plus10 SATA2 7200rpm 8MB Cache oem £46.53

OCZ® Value Pro 1GB DDR2 PC4200 533Mhz Dual Channel Kit with Copper Heatspreader £73.09

Add a dvd writer for £23.85, wireless network card for £13 and a case for around 30 quid and total comes to £296.85


Now i have 2 probelems.

First, for that price, i can get a refurb dell for £250. http://www.mcscom.co.uk/product.php?xProd=2189&xSec=37


Is it really worth the hassle? Which brings me to my 2nd point.

The noise. This pc is going to be in the bedroom, so has to be pretty quiet. Anyone got any tips on that?

Cheers

[tinners]

For quietness would recommend Samsung Spinpoint drive over the maxtor, a Zalman CNPS9500 CPU cooler and some AcoustiFan DustPROOF fans should keep the case quiet.

If you get a Dell you could be limited with your upgrade options but obviously no issues with building it yourself.

[Pie_uk]

sound insulator. suspending the hardrives with string, seasonic PSU, enable cool and quite if going with an AMD. jobs a gooden. oh and a steel case will be quiter. antec sonata. very good choice

[harry1]

dont buy a dell dont make them rich they make dire machines.

and you can upgrade them ever. in short dont buy a dell. build one

[mart_haj86]

and you can upgrade them ever. in short dont buy a dell. build one

I dont agree with that statement whatsoever, unless you are talking about the dell PC's of about 8 years ago.

However I wouldnt buy a Dell because they are indeed built like your average Lada. (But this is coming from someone who swears by building his own PC everytime). If its just for your average home use and not too many games a Dell should be fine for you.

[MadduckUK]

so mart. and im not being condescending in the slightest because i really dont know. do Dells tend to have PCI-E slots or not? because if they do then thats a simple enough excercise to drop a descent graphics card in and away you go! gaming rig

EDIT: my little optiplex p3 at work has an AGP slot, shame its 1/2 height one.

[mart_haj86]

I think a lot of the newer dells do have PCI-E slots obviously depending on model, for example im pretty sure all of the XPS systems now have PCI-E

There are a few half height graphics cards on the market but nothing really to shout about in terms of performance.

[MadduckUK]

There are a few half height graphics cards on the market but nothing really to shout about in terms of performance.

nah i know. wouldnt wast the money on it anyways, just saying that they could have just had a few pci slots. but they did actually give a descent upgrade path even back in the P3 days


the xps is cheating a little cause its kinda made for gamers. more talking about the dimensions really.

[harry1]

tbh, i dont liike them i think they throw them out the door they go wrong just outside warranty as my brother had one. also not alot of them have enough xpansion slots, plus if you need a more powerful psu, i seem to remeber the mobo needs a special power connector..?

tbh you can always build a better pc, because you know whats in it, plus for help you can then go to any shop, i work in a pc shop and we only take dells in that have no warranty left.

another rant at dell they are only offering three months warranty with thier laptops, well some of them anyway, wtf is that about.

[DanceswithUnix]

Does anyone here think the D805 can be silent enough for bedroom use? I would have thought it would need a heatsink of nearly the same cost as upgrading to an E6300 (which of course it also an utterly better CPU all round).

Would require a slightly more expensive motherboard (eg for 50 quid)

[harry1]

i mean normaly its not the chip that makes noise lol

just buy a better hsf, that pentium d has the best value for money mayb bar an opteron for overclokability of last gen ie cheaper cpus

[DanceswithUnix]

But if you require a 3000RPM CPU fan on idle and a pair of 120mm case fans to keep the damned thing cool, then you will grow to loathe the 805 good value or not. Never owned one hence I posed that as a question, but the heat graphs I have seen in reviews would really put me off for a bedroom which are usually a quiet & cool room.

Not sure I would want that amount of heat in a micro-ATX case either (which it sounds like ricflairandy is using, unless he was just just quoting a uATC motherboard on cost grounds.)

[ricflairandy]

what is the stock cooling like for the core2duo then?

[DanceswithUnix]

The point is that, on idle, you have over 40W less power to get rid of. The same cooling will be miles quieter as it has less work to do.