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get more ram!!

i don't do the whole desktop pc thing anymore - i just buy laptops I move around too much.

You do need to be aware that you will invalidate any warranty by taking the side off your puter.

I will repeat for those who missed it... Dell is one of the very few companies that actually encourages you to pop open the case and upgrade...

it depends what you use the system for. If you dont want to do grapically intensive things, then you dont need a card. But you will pretty much be unable to play any game that came out in the last 2 years.

You do need to be aware that you will invalidate any warranty by taking the side off your puter. If you really dont use graphics much at all, you would be advised to buy a decent size external hard disk and leave the innards of your puter well alone.

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

Wow.

(tops off at 1000--no thanks, I'd rather have another PC)

Try 2700

<<< needs at least a terabite. Get a few more drives. and a nice big 21.5 LCD

3D makes nice cards, but I'll stick with the 9800 and not blow 500 bucks or more on an Oxygen (tops off at 1000--no thanks, I'd rather have another PC). To a certain point, the human eye won't be able to tell differences in txture/sharpness/contrast. It's analagous to getting a 3.6 A.W. laptop---the human eye can't tell the difference between, like, 60+ fps or something, and the thing'll be outdated in a year.

Last edited by Cup_of_Lifenoodles at 19-Dec-2004 14:56

[link=ATI]http://shop.ati.com/searchresults.asp?dept_id=17" style="COLOR: #FFFF00[/link]...meh

[link=nVidia]http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce6.html" style="COLOR: #FFFF00[/link]...meh

and for my personal favorite, the card that smokes all the others combined... [link=Oxygen.]http://www.3dlabs.com/products/family.asp?fami=9" style="COLOR: #FFFF00[/link] Granted, 640MB might be a touch too much for the average gamer

Yes, you can disable integrated graphics allowing you to use another card, and dEll is one company that acually encourages you to pop open the case and upgrade.

anybody got any links to these great and almighty graphics cards? BTW, how would i change from integrated to a card as integrated I believe is on the motherboard...

Last edited by Daniel at 18-Dec-2004 13:39

Way to go dude! We got a Dell about 6 months ago...couldn't be happier

Ew, integrated. <---(has an nvidia, not in much better shape, but still, INTEGRATED).

Lords of EQ would probably be fine on that PC, but the textures will look a bit out of whack. Try getting a nice radeon 9*** after christmas markdown .

Last edited by Cup_of_Lifenoodles at 18-Dec-2004 11:59

man, i got a 40gb drive in my laptop and its barely full. (actually, i'm only using 10gb of it - 3gb in the sims2, and 4gb in my photos - and that is just from ONE shoot!)

my previous laptop had 20 gigs and i rarely filled it to half capacity!!

jeez, what on earth do you do?? My photo editing doesn't take up that much!

and get rid of that graphics card - one of my main points when buying a computer is the graphics card, my laptop has an nvidia geforce 4 in it - its only 64mb, but its for a laptop I don't need anything more than that It plays my games just fine

Integrated graphics cards bug me to no end - thats why i avoid desktops when they have that....

Last edited by meriadoc at 18-Dec-2004 11:33

If you're going to upgrade, definately let it be that graphics card!!

And the processor!!

And get XP Pro!!

The ram will probably be fine, being as it's DDR2, but you can never have enough...

If you use up 80gb, you shouldn't have a computer.

Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 900

Oh dear!

And I'd get a bigger HD if I was you, 80g is never enough!! Lol, I have 240g and it's nearly full, need another 160g drive!.

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

Yes, most definately get more RAM. I've got 768MB currently, but when I upgrade my board I'll have 2 more slots, so I'm bumping up my total to 2.25GB (1x256MB 2x512MB 1x1024MB).

Then again, it all depends on what you do on yer computer. When I'm working on my website, I generally will run FlashMX, DreamweaverMX, Photoshop 7.0, and a browser all at the same time...this uses most of my RAM with just these four aps...then there's running the OS (WinXP), and anything else I may be doing. I've run out of RAM too many times (even when playing games), it gets really annoying when that happens and you have to exit some program that you're trying to do something in, and you have to keep opening and closing various ones to do various things...

You should probably see if you've got another slot to put some more RAM in....if not you might want to replace what you have with 512MB chips...or replace the entire board and get more slots (it would probably be cheaper and better anyway), and then get more RAM

Conrgats!

We got another Dell for the boys for Xmas. Unfortunately I don't have the vocabulary to relate all the particulars. You people who are really into computers use alot of numbers and letters that are meaningless to me.

Now I'm the only one with an old, slow pc with no sound card. And I like it that way. No one but me ever gets on my computer because it frustrates the suffins out of them.

Mike

Last edited by Mike R at 17-Dec-2004 23:53

Dell 4700 wicked awesome P.C.
System Specs:
512MB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 400MHz (2x256M)
80GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
Pentium® 4 Processor 530 with HT Technology (3.00GHz, 800 FSB)
Single Drive: 48x CD-RW Drive
17 in E173FP Flat Panel Display
2 year warranty and at home service, 24x7 tech support
Windows XP home edition
Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 900 (I have a question for some tech geeks on this)

Is that graphics system good enough to play lords of everquest? I bought that stupid game and my current computer wasn't cool enough to handle the graphics...

This new baby is set to be shipped on the 28th.

Yes, most definately get more RAM. I've got 768MB currently, but when I upgrade my board I'll have 2 more slots, so I'm bumping up my total to 2.25GB (1x256MB 2x512MB 1x1024MB).

why not just get 2x1024 instead of mixing and matching like that? you're better off with matching the sticks of ram than having a patchwork ram like you're describing here. you're just putting more work on your computer by mixing and matching your ram and if you were running windows it might not like that


daniel, you need to check the specs on the games you want to play against the specs of your video card. most of the time an integrated card will let you change the amount of memory for games and such, but this will eat into your system memory. if you have a place near you that sells used equipment, you can get a really nice price on a slightly used video card that will do the job without having to drop down $100+ on a new one.

---

"That's the trouble with political jokes in this country... they get elected!" -- Dave Lippman

I'm not sure Dell do, according to their terms and conditions, they do not cover

Use of components or software not supplied by Dell.

Servicing not authorised by Dell.

from the Dell servicing terms and conditions. They also do not cover damage caused by components installed by unauthorised people in their CompleteCare package.

I dont know any computer company that actively endorses upgrades performed by their clients, every computer place I know makes that a warranty/service agreement terminator.

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

The only reason I'm mixing and matching everything is because I'm just putting all of my spare parts into the computer, and setting it up so it uses the best parts first (fastest and largest), and if it runs out it'll use my extras. I'll have the 1024mb in the 1st slot, the 2 512's in the 2nd and 3rd slots, and the 256mb in the 4th slot just to have if I ever fill up the rest (it's better to have something slow down a bit when it's near breaking point than a having a program crash in the middle of a large operation due to loss of memory (like DirectorMX did today at school).

Speaking of upgrading everything....I'm getting a new motherboard for myself for Christmas It's got 2xSATA ports, onboard 5.1 surround, the works