PC Spec

[thebullettrain]

Another Aldi's offer, this time a pc at £699.99. The spec is:


Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 550 with HT Technology 3.40 GHz.
DVB-T Digital TV & FM Radio Tuner card
Dual Layer Multi Format DVD/CD Writer
Bluetooth
Graphics card with new PCI-Express x16 bus architecture
250 GB Hard disc
WLAN 54 MBit/s
9 in 1 Memory Card Reader
512 MB Memory
6x USB 2.0
2x FireWire
8-channel Intel® High Definition Audio
LAN Network Controller
56K V.9x PCI Data/Fax modem
Reddot Design Award
Microsoft Works Suite 2005

Is this anygood?

BTW them sat nav systems sold like hotcakes.

[trooper1212]

Looks pretty good to me.

I'm planning on picking one up tomorrow to go in the front room for some Half-life 2 action on the plasma
Apparently the machine is very noise on full blast though...

[Jay-Aim]

monitor?

[trooper1212]

Jay-Aim said:

monitor?

not included.

[docevi1]

I would say thats quite expensive personally, check out Mesh / Dell as thats all that will be. "PCI Express card", hmm, that reads to me thats it's a no-name card which has PCI-Express interface to it's 32MB of g'card memory.

Cynic? Me? Never!

[trooper1212]

docevi1 said:

I would say thats quite expensive personally, check out Mesh / Dell as thats all that will be. "PCI Express card", hmm, that reads to me thats it's a no-name card which has PCI-Express interface to it's 32MB of g'card memory. Cynic? Me? Never!

It's a Medion PC. The graphics card is a GeForce 6610XL - 128Mb @ 800MHz, GPU @ 400MHz.

www.theinquirer.net/?article=19792

You can't build one yourself to this spec for the money

[beano500]

trooper1212 said:

You can't build one yourself to this spec for the money

Agreed - I'm sure I've spent that much and I haven't finished yet.......for a 3.2GHz P4 system...

[docevi1]

thats fair enough then, the cynic proved wrong

[sparkythecat]

I'm looking to upgrade and posted this a couple of days ago [url]http ://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=138294&f=95&h=0[/url]
Looks like I'll be queueing at Aldi in the morning!

[pdV6]

trooper1212 said:

You can't build one yourself to this spec for the money

Big mistake to assume you ever could. "Manufacturers" get enormous economy of scale.

Us mere individuals have to shop around for the best prices and even then can't get anywhere close.

The benefit of a self build is that you get exactly the spec you're after, rather than close to it and, of course, if you've started down this road its probably because you enjoy the tinkering anyway!

[beano500]

pdV6 said:

... if you've started down this road its probably because you enjoy the tinkering anyway!

Too true I can't do anything "practical" to save my life. I certainly wouldn't entrust more than looking at a dipstick to me in the car department, for example.

But the fact that I can keep plugging things into the sad looking PC case which is sitting next to me waiting for its new PSU is purely for that moment one day when I say "ooh, look I've got it working"!!! It'll be quite a bonus if I've actually managed to connect the card reader and extra USB ports up correctly Far more fun than going shopping!

[trooper1212]

pdV6 said:

trooper1212 said: You can't build one yourself to this spec for the money Big mistake to assume you ever could. "Manufacturers" get enormous economy of scale. Us mere individuals have to shop around for the best prices and even then can't get anywhere close. The benefit of a self build is that you get exactly the spec you're after, rather than close to it and, of course, if you've started down this road its probably because you enjoy the tinkering anyway!

Yes, but it's a common comment whenever I see a pre-built machine anywhere, there is always someone saying they can build the same thing for half the price.
It's also those people who last built their own machine 3 years ago, when you could do that

This aldi pc looks to be a cracking deal if you don't have the knowledge to build your own, or like me you can no longer be arsed with all that

[sparkythecat]

At 8:20am was 1st in the queue outside Aldi this morning. (Sad isn't it?)
However, some of the 30 or so other punters in the queue that had formed behind me by 9 o'clock were going to be disappointed, as the store only had 21 units to sell.

[trooper1212]

sparkythecat said:

At 8:20am was 1st in the queue outside Aldi this morning. (Sad isn't it?) However, some of the 30 or so other punters in the queue that had formed behind me by 9 o'clock were going to be disappointed, as the store only had 21 units to sell.

Is it any good then

[Plotloss]

pdV6 said:

trooper1212 said: You can't build one yourself to this spec for the money Big mistake to assume you ever could. "Manufacturers" get enormous economy of scale. Us mere individuals have to shop around for the best prices and even then can't get anywhere close. The benefit of a self build is that you get exactly the spec you're after, rather than close to it and, of course, if you've started down this road its probably because you enjoy the tinkering anyway!

I've often wondered about this. If you buy 1000 CPU's the unit cost only goes down by about £3

So where the bloody hell is the margin?

On comparative performance you can beat Dell all day long by just sticking in a quicker Athlon.

I just cant fathom where the big drop is for volume on components, unless they are into the 100,000 order scale...

[s2gonzo]

I've got one of these, picked it up . . . .erm . . . yesterday at 6.30pm (shhh, dont tell anyone).

Its a very good machine, nice design, easy to set up including the 5.1 speaker set Aldi are selling for £24.99 (The machine is capable of 7.1 surround)
For the normal boring stuff (ie word etc) its as fast as you will ever need.
For games. . well I've only tried Joint Operations so far and it runs at "full everything" setting in high res at a whopping frame rate. So pretty pleased with that. Going to intall the flight sims this weekend and see what it can do with those, but dont think its going to have a problem

Off to get Half Life 2 sometime this weekend.

From what I understand, if you miss these machines (each store gets 25 I think) Aldi will be able to order you one in until the end of December. So speak to the manager nicely.

[robdickinson]

Havnt been able to beat the cheapest prices for kit for homebrew PC's for ages. But I can get exactly what I want for not much more money.

Often deals like this use way to integrated components or noisy systems or bad cases etc.

Tho the specs for this look fine.

[piccy mate]

I have two of Medion's offerings - a Laptop and and a Desktop - both are two years old now and not a hint of a problem on either.
You won't be dissappointed at your purchase.
Medion are a long established German PC maker - support is good as far as I know.
You'll find that PC world has now started stocking Medion as well
Piccy

>> Edited by piccy mate on Thursday 25th November 14:04

[sparkythecat]

trooper1212 said:

Is it any good then

Impressed up to now. Had a bit of a hitch - Tried to load Norton Antivirus as I've just recently renewed my subs. This caused a software conflict with the preloaded antivirus and the computer locked up.
The error message read "Windows is hibernating"

Rather than wait until spring for it to reawaken I rang the Medion helpdesk. I was impressed with the standard of service I received from them (at ordinary national call rates as well)
Soon up and running again.