OT - Looking for a new computer

Thermodyne · #1 June 18th, 2005, 09:59 PM

Dell will give you the most bang for the buck. Building your own would allow you to custom fit it to your specific needs. But unless you are going ultra high end, it will cost more than a dell of the same speed.

733 is slow by the standards of today, 2.8 GHz being the minimum for an office system at the moment. 3.2GHz is about the minimum for a gaming system. If you like AMD then substitute the performance rating for GHz and you will be close. If you build your own, AMD will give you a little more performance for the buck spent.

What are you looking to do with the system?

Suicide Junkie · #2 June 18th, 2005, 10:17 PM

For an office system, you don't need more than 400Mhz, win95, and 64 megs of ram for smooth operation.

Presuming, of course, that you don't lump in gaming above solitare in "office work". And of course, since SE4 runs fine on that system, it is sufficient for a gaming rig as well.

With a decent video card, win98, 700Mhz and a bit more ram, its also good for SE5, and thus is good as a gaming rig well into the next 5 years.

Thermodyne · #3 June 18th, 2005, 11:28 PM

Quote:

Suicide Junkie said:
For an office system, you don't need more than 400Mhz, win95, and 64 megs of ram for smooth operation.

Presuming, of course, that you don't lump in gaming above solitare in "office work". And of course, since SE4 runs fine on that system, it is sufficient for a gaming rig as well.

With a decent video card, win98, 700Mhz and a bit more ram, its also good for SE5, and thus is good as a gaming rig well into the next 5 years.

Not so my friend. Just got done with an office03 deployment to 600 systems. A) It won�t run on 9x. And since 9x is not getting any new security patches it is no longer considered secure. B) The legacy 2K systems which are 733/128, 1.4GHz/128, and 1.8GHz/128 are not reliable in day to day use with office03. The problem is with the onboard video grabbing a large piece of system ram. This does not leave enough for the users to run multiple windows and carry the load from the AV/Firewall/Antispyware package. We had a mix of Office 97, 2000, XP and 03, and were having all kinds of security issues with access and excel on shared resources. Now we only have XP and 03, but there are still security issues, just not so many as before. We no longer have any 9x systems with the exception of a couple of systems used by blind users, and this is only because of a snafu with the way we were ordering adaptive workstation. We were not letting enough venders bid on them according to the purchasing rules. As soon as these systems are gone, WINs and NetBIOS goes away with them. NetBIOS is required by 9x, but is also no longer considered secure. The minimum system we order now is 2.8GHz with 512megs of ram. I just got the CADD specs for the next year, 3.2GHz, 2Gig�s of Ram and a 256meg Quadro/Fire class Vid card.

From an administration point of view, 98 is a resource hog and a security nightmare. They can�t be administered from the datacenter with GP, and we no longer have to bodies to send out to each system. Users/and malicious third parties can�t be restricted from installing software on them. And anyone can log on locally. This makes 9x worthless in any office that has any proprietary data on their systems. Realistically, a 9x box is nothing more than a glorified typewriter in a modern office.

Suicide Junkie · #4 June 19th, 2005, 12:20 PM

"Just got done with an office03 deployment to 600 systems."

Office 2003? Have there been ANY useful improvements to word and excel since they were numbered by version instead of by year? Not really...

Thermodyne · #5 June 19th, 2005, 01:34 PM

Way to many to list actually. 03 is by far more secure. Access and Excel are much improved and a week with Outlook 03 and you'll never want to go back to an older version. Take a look at the Office 03 web site.

kerensky · #6 June 19th, 2005, 04:04 PM

The computer doesn't need dusting, it just doesn't work right. I use my computer for just about everything from gaming to office programs, so it does need to be pretty versatile. I have looked at dells and did like them, but some of my friends said that they aren't very good. i've never had one so I don't know anything about them.

Thermodyne · #7 June 19th, 2005, 05:16 PM

We have about 400 of them. The SX260's are't very good. But the SX 280's are great and the GX series are really good. When you log onto the Dell site, go to the small business page.

Fyron · #8 June 19th, 2005, 10:00 PM

Quote:

Thermodyne said:
Dell will give you the most bang for the buck. Building your own would allow you to custom fit it to your specific needs. But unless you are going ultra high end, it will cost more than a dell of the same speed.

I disagree. Every system I have custom built for the last 3 years, including many on the low end, has cost less than half of equivalent Dell PCs. I always bring a Dell catalogue to computer fairs for a good laugh.

Thermodyne · #9 June 19th, 2005, 10:35 PM

Cataloge price includes software, pull that off and you'll get a lower price. I never push consumer lines from anyone, always go to the business part of the site.

Caduceus · #10 June 24th, 2005, 05:23 PM

I bought a few books, read a lot on the internet, and built a AMD 3700+ system from the ground up with quality components for about $1400. (Which I know is too much for a lot of people around here.)

I wanted quality parts which had warranties and built it in a quality case - Antec P160
1 gig of RAM
Radeon X800 XL
DVD+R
On-board sound with an Asus Motherboard
WinXP Pro SP2
Zalman fan

I had to replace my Compaq, purchased in 1999, 700 Mhz <256megs of RAM, Win98. It was starting to have recurrent errors that we couldn't solve.

Overall the build went smoothly and I had noone standing over my shoulder helping. A great learning experience for me.