Chief Dick Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 (edited) Looking to upgrade at home. I don't do much: email, internet, some photo stuff for the kids, some video presentations from time to time. Nothing really fancy. The kids play some on-line games but nothing too intense. Found this deal at Dell: Inspiron 560 Inspiron 560 Minitower w/ Black Bezel Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64Bit, English Processors Intel® Pentium® dual-core E6700(3.20GHz,2MB L2,1066MHz) Memory 8GB DDR3 SDRAM - 4 DIMMs Keyboard Dell USB Entry Keyboard Monitor Dell IN1930 18.5-inch HD Monitor with LED Video Card Nvidia® Geforce® G405 G405 Hard Drive 1TB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™ Floppy Drive Dell 19 in 1 Media Card Reader Mouse Dell USB Optical Mouse Network Card Integrated 10/100/1000 Ethernet Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader Optical Drives 16X DVD+/-RW Drive Sound Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio Microsoft® Office Starter: reduced-functionality Word & Excel w/ ads. Recovery Tools Recovery DVD for Windows® 7 Home Premium OS, 64bit, English Speakers Dell AY410 Multimedia Speaker System All of this for $570. Free shipping. I'm guessing this is probably more than I'll ever need. Any thoughts? I can buy the Office full version for cheap through the kids school. Edited October 14, 2011 by Chief Dick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tosberg34 Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 Looks good to me if that's all you're going to do. If you can upgrade the processor I would do that, though. The Pentium dual cores are pretty old and while they work just fine, you might be able to upgrade to a more modern I3 or I5 processor for a nominal amount. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delusions of grandeur Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 Looks good to me if that's all you're going to do. If you can upgrade the processor I would do that, though. The Pentium dual cores are pretty old and while they work just fine, you might be able to upgrade to a more modern I3 or I5 processor for a nominal amount. +1 The processor speed probably shouldn't be a huge issue right now, but since you can usually upgrade with Dell for not much (unless it's one of those prepackaged ones), the little bit of extra cost is definitely worth it to not have to deal with your processor being overloaded at some point. Though I only have a 4 core on my video editing PC which can handle everything I throw at it, so you don't need to get the biggest or best. Like he said the i3 or i5 should be plenty. I'm not really up to date on my PC pricing, but have gotten a lot of deals from slickdeals.net. If you go there, they should have some deals, and usually also have Dell coupons that may work on that order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocknrobn26 Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 (edited) Any reason why you don't want a laptop? I'll never buy another tower. Takes too much real estate and ties me down. For around the same price, maybe a little more you can get an I5 quad core. Just one example... Upgrading the ram is pretty cheap and easy and you can always add a monitor and a key board fairly cheap. Just a different take. ETA: Oops...that;s a dual core. Originally I thought all I5-I7 were quads. Sorry. Edited October 14, 2011 by rocknrobn26 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chief Dick Posted October 14, 2011 Author Share Posted October 14, 2011 (edited) Looks good to me if that's all you're going to do. If you can upgrade the processor I would do that, though. The Pentium dual cores are pretty old and while they work just fine, you might be able to upgrade to a more modern I3 or I5 processor for a nominal amount. Looks like I can get this one: Inspiron 620 ST Inspiron 620 Slimtower w/ Black Bezel Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64Bit, English Processors Intel® Core™ i5-2320 processor(6MB Cache, 3.0GHz) Memory 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 2 DIMMS Keyboard Dell USB Entry Keyboard Monitor Dell IN2030M 20-inch HD Monitor with LED Video Card AMD Radeon HD 6450 1GB DDR3 Hard Drive 1TB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™ 1TBS Floppy Drive Integrated 8 in 1 Media Card Reader Mouse Dell USB Optical Mouse Network Card Standard USB 2.0 + 10/100/1000 Ethernet Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader Optical Drives 16X DVD+/-RW Drive Sound Integrated 5.1 IS Wireless Dell Wireless 1502 (802.11n) WLAN half mini-Card Office Productivity Software (Pre-Installed) Microsoft® Office Starter: reduced-functionality Word & Excel w/ ads. No PowerPoint or Outlook Service 2 Year Basic Support Recovery Tools Recovery DVD for Windows® 7 Home Premium OS, 64bit, English Speakers Dell AY410 Multimedia Speaker System Cost on this one is $774. So for another $204 I get the better processor, a bigger monitor, and a couple of other items like an 8 in 1 Media Card Reader and a Wireless WLAN mini-card, whatever the hell that is. Sounds like a deal. Is this more in line with what you're thinking? Edited October 14, 2011 by Chief Dick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chief Dick Posted October 14, 2011 Author Share Posted October 14, 2011 Any reason why you don't want a laptop?I'll never buy another tower. Takes too much real estate and ties me down. For around the same price, maybe a little more you can get an I5 quad core. Just one example... Upgrading the ram is pretty cheap and easy and you can always add a monitor and a key board fairly cheap. Just a different take. ETA: Oops...that;s a dual core. Originally I thought all I5-I7 were quads. Sorry. I've thought long and hard about this. We both do a fair amount of work at home, and I'm not comfortable using a laptop all the time. Plus, the kids are going to be using this a lot as they get older, and I'm thinking something that is stationary that they can't carry around would probably be better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tosberg34 Posted October 14, 2011 Share Posted October 14, 2011 (edited) Looks like I can get this one: Inspiron 620 ST Inspiron 620 Slimtower w/ Black Bezel Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64Bit, English Processors Intel® Core™ i5-2320 processor(6MB Cache, 3.0GHz) Memory 8GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 2 DIMMS Keyboard Dell USB Entry Keyboard Monitor Dell IN2030M 20-inch HD Monitor with LED Video Card AMD Radeon HD 6450 1GB DDR3 Hard Drive 1TB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™ 1TBS Floppy Drive Integrated 8 in 1 Media Card Reader Mouse Dell USB Optical Mouse Network Card Standard USB 2.0 + 10/100/1000 Ethernet Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader Optical Drives 16X DVD+/-RW Drive Sound Integrated 5.1 IS Wireless Dell Wireless 1502 (802.11n) WLAN half mini-Card Office Productivity Software (Pre-Installed) Microsoft® Office Starter: reduced-functionality Word & Excel w/ ads. No PowerPoint or Outlook Service 2 Year Basic Support Recovery Tools Recovery DVD for Windows® 7 Home Premium OS, 64bit, English Speakers Dell AY410 Multimedia Speaker System Cost on this one is $774. So for another $204 I get the better processor, a bigger monitor, and a couple of other items like an 8 in 1 Media Card Reader and a Wireless WLAN mini-card, whatever the hell that is. Sounds like a deal. Is this more in line with what you're thinking? This one is definitely better. I think you'll be happy as the Core I5 is a great processor and you'll certainly appreciate the more real estate the larger monitor gives you. I feel much better about this one. My rule of thumb for PCs is spec out what you want and then go one step better. I've gone the cheap PC/Laptop route before and I'm almost NEVER satisfied with them and always end up kicking myself in the a$$ for not spending a few extra dollars and getting a much better machine. BTW: the wireless mini card is just a wireless network adapter. Nothing special other than you can connect to a wireless network instead of going wired if you want. Edited October 14, 2011 by tosberg34 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chief Dick Posted October 14, 2011 Author Share Posted October 14, 2011 I'm not really up to date on my PC pricing, but have gotten a lot of deals from slickdeals.net. If you go there, they should have some deals, and usually also have Dell coupons that may work on that order. I'll go check them out. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chief Dick Posted October 15, 2011 Author Share Posted October 15, 2011 This one is definitely better. I think you'll be happy as the Core I5 is a great processor and you'll certainly appreciate the more real estate the larger monitor gives you. I feel much better about this one. My rule of thumb for PCs is spec out what you want and then go one step better. I've gone the cheap PC/Laptop route before and I'm almost NEVER satisfied with them and always end up kicking myself in the a$$ for not spending a few extra dollars and getting a much better machine. BTW: the wireless mini card is just a wireless network adapter. Nothing special other than you can connect to a wireless network instead of going wired if you want. Thanks for the info. I'll probably pull the trigger on this one in the next day or two. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chief Dick Posted November 26, 2011 Author Share Posted November 26, 2011 So I ended up waiting for the Black Friday deals, and ended up with this one: XPS 8300 Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium Processors Intel® Core™ i7-2600 processor(8MB Cache, 3.4GHz) Memory 8GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 4 DIMMs Keyboard Dell Consumer Multimedia Keyboard Monitor Dell IN2030M 20-inch HD Monitor with LED Video Card AMD Radeon™ HD 6450 1GB DDR3 Hard Drive 1TB Performance RAID 0 (2 x 500GB SATA 3Gb/s 7200 RPM HDDs) Mouse Dell Laser Mouse Network Card Standard USB 2.0 + 10/100/1000 Ethernet Modem No Dial Up Modem Option TBU Adobe® Acrobat® Reader Optical Drive Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability Sound THX® TruStudio PC™ Speakers No speakers Wireless Dell 1501 Wireless-N PCIe Card Office Productivity Software (Pre-Installed) Microsoft® Office Home and Student 2010 Security Software McAfee SecurityCenter, 15-Months Ended up paying $878 + tax. Figured I'd go with the faster processor, better sound card. Also comes with MS Office, which I would have had to pay extra on the other deal. I didn't get their speakers, since I figured I can get some better ones here locally. So at the end of the day, I spend about an extra $100. Pretty happy with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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