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Hey! Thanks for your advice, folks. Fallout that was also the reassurance I was looking for; the cheaper version will also be a much bigger improvment on this current pc - unstable 4gb hard drive, pentium II, 64mb RAM. And running XP on it wasn't a good move either! Slooooww to the point of "lets make a cup of tea while we wait"

I think XP pro was another £140 extra so I'll have to pass on that for now

Thanks a lot

you can do networking with XP home - you just don't have all the networking flexibility that you do with pro.

get more memory. Believe me, I do ALOT of image editing, and 256mb ram just isn't enough.

Course, I'm looking at getting a mac in the somewhat near future anyway.

update is, I sat tight and waited, then I missed that offer!! Not to worry, they come round in cycles, so waiting to see what the next one is (current one includes a free printer, but when the cartridges cost £20/$35USD thats no good to me).

so any update on the new computer?

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

I would also recommend staying away from XP home if at all possible. I've heard a lot of stories and have a fair amount of personal experiences with the problems it creates. XP Pro would probably be the way to go. 2000 is also a very stable platform, though not as user friendly.

]:|XP ]:| home ]:| ]:| ]:|....

Crashes every time I use it for sorting pics....

^_^
*Proud member of the Committee for Sig Line Restoration*

Any of those computers would suit your needs, and would definately be much better than what you have now.

I really don't like XP either. I'd either get a UNIX operating system, Win98 (WinME crashes a lot and is worse than XP IME), or XP Pro (Pro is MUCH better than Home). If you REALLY must go with XP Home, get XP Service Pack 2.

Personally, I'd build the computer myself...but if you don't have a lot of experience with computer building/repairing I wouldn't reccommend doing it yourself. You could possibly have a friend do it if you don't know how. You can generally save about 50%+ when you build it yourself

HTH

I agree with moondog. XP Pro edition with SP1 (service pack 1) is much better. Home edition wont let you run some programs, you cannot do networking and its really not worth the price.

Also, if you really want a cheap computer, you can always ask someone/computer store to build one for you. For example:

Intel Pentium 4 1.7GHz (socket 478)
Gigabyte GA-8VM533 P4 VIA FSB533 Motherboard (on board grafix)
Windows XP Pro Editon with SP1
512MB Dual Channel DDR333 (2x256MB)
WD 40gb HDD 7200rpm
48X DVD/CDRW Combo Drive
SB Live 5.1 Sound Card
17" Monitor, Speakers, Keyboard, Mouse

Would suit your needs and would be much cheaper.
My sister is using a similar system to the above and it works like a dream.

i wouldn't get XP ... it is the most vulnerable windows program to viruses ........ stick with 98 or millenium issue or something!

6x2x2 - Firemouth and Oscar Tank
30+ royal pythons.

Back in the game after 4 years out ..

If I want a pc just for surfing, music cd burning and a bit of WP'ing, no game playing or anything like that, is this system sufficient for my needs, and at £300 (new price), is it an excellent/good/ok/average/poor price?!

Intel® Celeron® D processor 330 (2.66GHz, 533FSB, 256k cache)
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition, Microsoft® Works 7.0 - English
256MB Dual Channel DDR333
40GB (7,200 rpm) IDE Hard Drive
48X DVD/CDRW Combo Drive
17" Monitor
Speakers, Keyboard, Modem
No sound card. (Does this matter/mean that there is no sound output?!?!?!?!?!? Can be added)

x



Last edited by Malaikah at 02-Oct-2004 16:57

one more thing on top of what they said: if possible you should try to get xp pro instead of xp home edition. pro is *MUCH* better and can handle more than home can.

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

try to find out what motherboard they use in this setup, when you know that it is fairly easy to find out whether it contains an integrated soundcard or not. If it does, then just pick the cheaper setup. The soundblaster live is a nice card, but unnecessary if you're not planning on playing games or watching movies from your pc.

There is no video card listed either, which makes me think they are both integrated right onto the motherboard. This is just fine for what you plan to do with it. The video/sound cards share memory with the rest of the computer, and with DDR, that'll be no issue.

The difference with your comparison mainly lies in bus speed and cacheing capability. Bus speed is how fast your computer talks to itself between the various components on the motherboard. You will notice faster and more streamlined performance with a higher bus speed, but for what you are doing, the slower one will be fine. However if you plan on processing some intense photos or doing anything digial photo wise, you'll have better, smoother and faster reaction with the higher bus speed board. A cache is data your processor stores from a recent application so it can bring it up faster rather than having to look for it again and bring it up. In your application, i doubt you'll notice much of a differenc. Also, the dual channel memory will provide faster access to things stored on the chips, but again, for what you are looking for, the cheaper model will suffice quite nicely.

So, I've compared prices with the next spec down... Can you tell me please if you think I would notice much difference in their performance, bearing in mind the basic things I use the pc for..?

PC1: £347 ($625USD)
Intel® Celeron® D processor 330 (2.66GHz, 533FSB, 256k cache)
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition SP2, Microsoft® Works 7.0
256MB Dual Channel DDR333 (2x128MB)
40GB (7,200 rpm) IDE Hard Drive
48X DVD/CDRW Combo Drive
Creative Labs SB Live 5.1 Sound Card
17" Monitor, Speakers, Keyboard, Mouse

PC2: £302 ($544USD)
Intel® Celeron® Processor (2.6GHz, 128K cache, 400MHz FSB)
Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition SP2, Microsoft® Works 7.0
256MB Single Channel DDR (1x256MB)
40GB (7,200 rpm) IDE Hard Drive
48X DVD/CDRW Combo Drive
17" Monitor, Speakers, Keyboard, Mouse



Last edited by Malaikah at 02-Oct-2004 18:42

It says in the 'extra detail' - "A sound card is an essential part of your computer's multimedia system" - so how can they sell one without it! Seems pretty obligatory to me, so thats another £30 ($63). What about the poor people who buy without realising and then get a pc with no sound output, surely a basic feature to have in a basic package?!?!?!?!

Cheers Moondog, it would be just for dialup, and works out at $540USD. Oh yes, and I use the computer for my digital photographs, viewing/storing/editing.

What about the soundcard?

x





Last edited by Malaikah at 02-Oct-2004 17:52

that should be sufficient for what you need (in fact more than sufficient) depending on how you connect to the internet. if you have broadband (cable, dsl) you will want a network interface card (nic) capable of ethernet, but otherwise that looks like a good system. and nicely priced as well if my conversion rate is correct (about $470-ish US?) for a complete new system with monitor, you can't do much better than that

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