Any Good?

~~AzH~~ · August 9th, 2004

Hi all.

I've been offered a too good to miss opportunity to get a new P.C.

just how good is this? worthwhile? what would you change about it?

Make & Model: Fujitsu Siemens SCALEO T

Processor: Intel Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz HT

Memory: 512 DDR SDRAM

Max Memory: 4GB DDR SDRAM

Hard Disk: 200 GB (7200rpm)

DVD: 16x DVD

DVDRW: 4x2.4x8x16x10x40x DVD+RW+R

Card Reader: 6in1 reader supports compact Flash Card (Type I & II.), IBM Microdrive, 3.3VSmartMedia Card, Secure Digital (SD) Card, MultiMedia Card and Memory Stick.

Graphics: 256mb ATI Radeon 9600XT ViVo DVI (is this any good?)

Sound: On-board sound chip. Interfaces include one game port, speaker-out, line-in and mic-in onboard + stereo speakers.

Modem: 56.6Kbps V.90 data/fax modem.

LAN: Intergrated 10/100 network interface.

Expansion: One AGP, five PCI (three free)

IO Ports: One 9-pin serial, one parallel, six USB 2.0, two firewire IEEE1394.

Chipset: Intel i865PE

Bays: Three 5.25" (none free) and three 3.5" drive bays (one internal free).

Case: Midi tower style, ATX (500(I) x 190(w) x 445(h) mm).

Keyboard: 105-key Windows multifunction keyboard.

Mouse: Wheel mouse.

Monitor: 17" TFT Flat Screen.

Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition (pre-installed)

Browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0

Software: Micrsoft Worksuite, Nero 5.5, WinDVD, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Pinnacle Studio 9, Instant CD/DVD, 3 Year Anti-Virus Cover.

Warranty: 3 years on-site.

the total cost of this is £1063.39 ($1,957.59) (it's a government tax break/incentive offer).

i've highlighted the bits i don't understand, would anyone care to inform me what the fuck they are?

Manikthehedgehog · August 9th, 2004

Your DVDRW is a DVD rewriter drive and it looks good to me.
LAN is Local Area Network and it looks fine.
Your Video card is fine for playing games like Doom3, HL2, ect.
Your chipset is your Motherboard; it's fine.
Expansion are places to put Video cards, sound cards, ect. AGP is faster than PCI.
Bays are places to put CD/DVD Drives/Writers, floppy drives, hard drives, and media readers.
Your system looks great besides Windows XP Home... You should upgrade to Professional Edition... It's much better and doesn't crash as much...

***Smitty025*** · August 9th, 2004

Chipset: (copied from intel.com)The chipset is the heart of the PC. It connects the processor, memory and other components, and moves data throughout the system, directly affecting overall system performance.
Bays: the 5.25 bays are CD drives, HD coolers also can be placed there along with LCD displays, cooling systems, fan controllers, many other things too. the 3.25 bays are for HDs most are hidden inside the case wile one or two are visible and used for the floppy drive and/or a zip drive.
IEEE1394 is similar to USB, I believe you can run a home netork from it, but it is also used for digital camcorders and other stuff.
PCI slots are usually white and can use devices such as TV cards, LAN cards, firewire cards, etc. AGP slots are used for video cards.
You may want to upgrade your sound if you want higher quality, onboard sound chips usually arent too good.
Your video card is nice and it has VIVO. It allows you to import video through you video card and to hook up your computer to your TV
I believe that covers everything and then some

~~AzH~~ · August 9th, 2004

worth the money?

***SnuFFeh*** · August 9th, 2004

I would definately say so.

It far exceeds (sp?) my comps spec, and for only an extra £200 or so, and this is the best rig ive ever bought.

Though i have customised it, it would have been able to run most games on the highest settings straight out of the box.

So go for it Mr AzH!

I bet you get some form of support aswell because its Fujitsu-Siemens, if anything borks, you can get a replacement.

~~nameChanged~~ · August 9th, 2004

Quote:

Originally Posted by Smitty025

Chipset: (copied from intel.com)The chipset is the heart of the PC. It connects the processor, memory and other components, and moves data throughout the system, directly affecting overall system performance.
Bays: the 5.25 bays are CD drives, HD coolers also can be placed there along with LCD displays, cooling systems, fan controllers, many other things too. the 3.25 bays are for HDs most are hidden inside the case wile one or two are visible and used for the floppy drive and/or a zip drive.
IEEE1394 is similar to USB, I believe you can run a home netork from it, but it is also used for digital camcorders and other stuff.
PCI slots are usually white and can use devices such as TV cards, LAN cards, firewire cards, etc. AGP slots are used for video cards.
You may want to upgrade your sound if you want higher quality, onboard sound chips usually arent too good.
Your video card is nice and it has VIVO. It allows you to import video through you video card and to hook up your computer to your TV
I believe that covers everything and then some

IEEE1394 is the stds. body that names buses name for what Apple called Firewire & SONY calls something-link.
You are correct that some versions of this port allow faster than 10/100MB/s (400MB in theory) networking between machines.

The worth the money question on systems with TFT screens included, depends to a greater extent on the most costly components, & with a TFT in the deal you have to look in detail at what TFT you are getting (sound like a reasonable evaluation?).
You have left out the make & model of your TFT panel.
since this contributes around £300+ to the cost it will, I am arguing, impact greatly on the value offered by the system. It would be great to see a great performing panel included @ the price of course.
Whether something is of value to a person is a somewhat subjective question. I argue that best value = needs met best & best current price.
What are your sincere plans for the machines daily grind & what is the most demanding thing you are likely to want it to do? If you have no sense of what this would be, simply state the most outlandish computing tasks you feel you are likely to wish to undertake once every blue moon, but that you still wish the system to cope with.
Any concern about Home as opposed to Pro version of XP are in my experience unfounded. I move as much info etc. as any guy & work long hours (10-14) infront of my system & my XP Home based machine has been running without reboots etc. for months. Home & Pro share the same kernel, etc. As far as I understand the sig. diff. between the 2 is the ability to remotely port into XP Pro & its windows domain services networking feature set which will only come into play if you are trying to work withing a Win server installation.
Anyway I would imagine that in your case as with 99% of others - irrelevant.
What no one has mentioned is that in all honesty now is not the time to be making a large investment in hardware. As current hardware looks to be completely obsolete in 1 years time. For once you will certainly not be able to re-use migrate anything purchased now to your system upgrade one year from now.
System buses & HD buses are changing.
CPU formats are changing.
PSU requirements & cooling is changing.
We are being cajoled away from ATX std. pcs to Intels new BTX std.
We are moving from 32-bit computing to 64-bit.

Conclusion. Better to upgrade & put the money aside or pay off draining debts than to plough into guaranteed obsolete equipment. Yes all PC equipment becomes obsolete but usually you have the option to upgrade some aspects of the machine a year from now or rebuild a system around a new mobo with some of your old components.
For once the answer to: 'is now a good time to buy?' is bloody clear.
Buy now & in one year the perceived value of you system will likely be drastically lower. You will continually be reminded of this & feel like a chump.
If there is something pressing/limiting about your current system, post it & I will recommend the best/cost effective upgrade I know of.