Dell computers!

[White Tiger]

I'm wanting to get a new computer but my dad thinks that dell computers are bad for games and he thinks they break easily so they need to be sent back but is my dad wrong?

[Nocashvalue]

no. dell suck. if you possess a friend that can build PC's, or can do it yourself, that's a much cheaper and better option.

[Tiode]

No. Dell sucks.
Get a Mac the mac will be your friend.

EDIT: Damn you Nocash

[Nocashvalue]

No. Dell sucks.
Get a Mac the mac will be your friend.

EDIT: Damn you Nocash

Seeing as he's looking for a gaming pc, macs would be shit.

[Tiode]

Seeing as he's looking for a gaming pc, macs would be shit.

Ive never had any problems.
Depends what type of games, nowadays most are compatible with a mac.

[White Tiger]

Well i only want to run two games but i need one able to run them.
I only want to spend £350 but now my dad thinks that he'll give me £50 so that i can buy £450 one so that means i have to pay £400 and i don't want to pay that much.

[Dude]

Get an Alienware one!

[White Tiger]

Never heard of it ???

[Dude]

leik t3h besterest peesees in da world

http://www.alienware.com/

[Lagmeister]

Get friend to do a self build you can get exactly what you want for less, and you should be able to get a top notch one for £450.
You dont really want alienware, they are nice, more of a status symbol for those with more money than sense.

[Lewiji]

Haha Dell

The cheap model that is always advertised doesn't even have an AGP/PCI-E slot. The next upgrade is PCI-E and costs loads for what it is.

I suggest you talk to some people about building.

[Garry2]

leik t3h besterest peesees in da world

http://www.alienware.com/


£450?

Good luck.

[Bloopo]

Build your own. Seriously. You can get exactly what you want, cheaper. You could get an Athlon 64 3000 and a GeForce 6600 for £450.

[Dude]

Haha! I was hoping someone would take that seriously :p

Just get a £300 bundle from OCUK (A64, gig of ram, skt939 mobo) Then get a £150 GC from ebay or something, I got a 9800XT for £100 which will play any game thrown at it.

Get a cheapy case too, and i'm assuming that you're not keeping your old rig, so take the disk drives out and use them. Thats what I did!

[Bloopo]

And a hard drive, a power supply, some fans...

[Meatwad]

Build one. Dells are the worst computers you will ever see.

Heres what you need for a good computer: AMD 64 Athlon 3000, Nvidia GEForce 6800

[Bloopo]

You wont be able to get a 6800 on a budget of £450...

[Meatwad]

Then get an ATI rage, 8mb piece of crap.

Don't know what to tell you, only a budget of $450 won't get you a whole lot. Just a good video card alone will cost $100.

(I can't make the pound sign, I'm in the US.)

On a budget of $450, you should go for a smaller HD. Your not going to need 80 gigs unless you constantly download stuff. Get a good fan, the cheap ones usually make a bunch of noise, though. I don't know what kind of motherboard you should use....

[Tiode]

^ Funny i can make both. £$
[/uselesspost]

[Pie R Squared]

Dell suck balls, Alienware is overpriced, Overclockers is NOT the cheapest option.

You don't need an overclocking board: £'s saved

You don't need an uber processor: Buy a Venice core 3000 in 2 weeks time

You dont need a massive graphics card budget: 6660 GT anyone?

Recycle: Wipe and defrag your existing drives, then clean install

Case: Buy one WITHOUT a PSU

PSU: Tagan

Oh and PSU: Tagan

Andy

[Bloopo]

Dell suck balls, Alienware is overpriced, Overclockers is NOT the cheapest option.

You don't need an overclocking board: £'s saved

You don't need an uber processor: Buy a Venice core 3000 in 2 weeks time

You dont need a massive graphics card budget: 6660 GT anyone?

Recycle: Wipe and defrag your existing drives, then clean install

Case: Buy one WITHOUT a PSU

PSU: Tagan

Oh and PSU: Tagan

Andy

I agree completely, although, the venice cpus may be slightly more expensive than the winnies. I bellieve they were released to day actually...

[Nocashvalue]

My 6600GT and A64 Rig cost me about £500, -Hard drive. I'm sure you could reduce the price by getting rid of a bit of ram, etc. It was a couple of months ago, so I'm sure the prices have gone down a little anyway. If you're interested, give us a PM.

[Discus]

DO NOT TOUCH DELL WITH A TEN BILLION GASQUILLION FOOT BARGE POLE.
Infact, if you want a games machine, just DON'T buy a company made one at all.

As said, build it yourself or find someone who can.
It is very VERY easy to build them yourself and there are millions of easy to understand guides all over the internet.
There is very little that you can do to damage them if you build yourself as long as you take precautions (which will be stated in said internet guides)

[edit] You want a socket 939 motherboard and a socket 939 Athlon 64 if you're a gamer (or anything other than a video editor/Intel fanboy loser)

[Dude]

Touch something metal and don't throw the parts around, and you're good to go.

[Nocashvalue]

Touch something metal and don't throw the parts around, and you're good to go.

You may as well buy an antistatic wristband, £5 for a lot of peace of mind and component safety.

[Discus]

Saying that, after putting a graphics card in mine I slipped and put my hand flat against the motherboard with the system powered on and Windows running. I got a belt, there was a big blue flash and the thing powered off leaving a burnt electrical smell. I pushed the power button and it turned on as normal; and has been absolutely fine to the day.

Though I really don't advise experimenting with that.

[Dude]

Oh my gawd, same thing happened to me, apart from it was my thumb.

[Nocashvalue]

Heh. Something you tend to learn very quickly is to never fiddle with a PC's insides when it's on :|

[Alteran Ancient]

A quick work is advice, Dell is RUBBISH!
They secretly advertise at schools by selling them to tricked school at a low, low price for bulk. Kid goes home, "I've got a Dell PC at school. They're really good!"
They buy the thing at a biggy price, for a lump of Junk, especially for Games.

Multivision was VERY good, (where I got this from, never let me down once,) but they recently went out of business. I would say, (god help me) get a Tiny or an Aria.

[Pie R Squared]

I agree completely, although, the venice cpus may be slightly more expensive than the winnies. I bellieve they were released to day actually...

That's whay I said buy one in two weeks, the prices should start falling as the initial buyers (*cough* gimps like me*cough*) have come and gone, plus the second hand market should be going fairly well as you'll hae overclockers wanting specific steppings.

Seriously, build it yourself. It's as easy as taking a piss.

[Comrade Smith]

My dad works as a senior manager for a engineering firm. Since they change computers often I am soon getting one or two 3(or 2) year old machines. My dad says if I can succsefully dismantle and re-assemble them then I can build the family PCs from now on (they buy parts I make).

which is preety cool for me since I have already done this a few times with old computers and even made a small crappy one from spare parts from my friends sources.

trust me I thought it would be too hard but it really is quite easy to do.
I say build. Practice first, of course, trust us it is the only way to have a machine that is truly... Yours.

[Dinkleberry]

Mobo £35
Processor £70
RAM £30
Case + PSU £30
Sound (On Mobo)
DVD Rom Drive £20
DVD Writer £60
Cables (Salavage)
£245 so far leaves you £105 to spend on graphics. If you salvage your case then you get extra to get either a separate sound card, better graphics or a better mobo. This doesn't include a monitor or any of that stuff though. Maybe the extra £100 would come in useful for that

[Lewiji]

Put that into practical shall we:

AMD Athlon 64 3200+, Mobo and 512mb 400 DDR £221
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?MBB-643251

Novatech Chimera case + 350W PSU £25
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?NOV-CFACHI

NEC Black 8x Dual Layer DVD Burner (God knows why you'd need a dvd rom and a burner, in fact you don't even need a CD burner) OEM so no IDE cable, rob them from old PC £37
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?NEC-ND352B

nVidia GeForce 6600GT £116
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?NOV-GF66GT

That adds up to £400, so a pretty decent gaming PC for a good price. You might want some case fans too. If you want the price down a bit, try this graphics card:

ATi Radeon 9600SE £42
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?SAP-9600SE

It won't give you screaming performance in all modern games but it is a pretty good card and will play things like half life 2, just not at full settings.

[Bloopo]

It would be slightly cheaper if you buy the ram processor and mobo seperately, but...meh.

[Lewiji]

If I was considering buying a Dell, I wouldn't trust myself with putting together the heatsink and fiddling with the processor :p

[Al2]

Heh. Or, in fact, with a mouse and keyboard.

Or the internet.

[streety]

Again it comes down to what you are primarly going to use the computer for and your budget. People always have their favourites (I <3 teh macs or Alienware!!) but they may not be suited to the individual.

In this case, a mac would not be advisable due to the lack of games released and the expensive price tag. Alienware machines are built very well and are great for gaming but are again overpriced and wouldn't fit into the budget.

I am not sure why everyone is moaning about Dell. They are built well and have great customer service. They may not be suitable for everyone, a prime example being gaming, but that doesn't make them shit. Everyone I speak to recommend Dell as a good buy. I am thinking of getting one myself.

For your needs I recommend building your own. There has been a lot of good advice from people on here... Maybe take a look at magazines like Computer Shopper as they test and review budget computer's under £500.

[White Tiger]

Good news i got one, its made by Dtech, they only have one shop but they do a good deal.