Computer quandary

[RalphTheCow]

My computing needs are web surfing, light gaming like Sims 2, and regular old word processing stuff.

So I bought a Dell Dimension 3000 with Integrated Video and 512 MB, only to find out after receiving it that Sims 2 takes forever to load and the graphics are sub-par, barely acceptable, and probably responsible for most of the slowness. There are no AGP or PCI Express slots. Happily, Dell will take it back and I just have to pay return shipping, which I would guess is about $40-50 from NJ to Texas. They said they would buy me a PCI video card as a concession for not returning it.

So my question is what should I do? I originally wanted to build one to get the best parts and expandability, but my wife and daughters really want a prebuilt,and it is hard to pass up the good discount and dependability of Dells, in my experience. I have a pretty good Dell employee discount, so I paid about $770 total with tax for this one, with an 80 GB drive and 15" LCD. It looks like I could get a Dell 4700 for about $1100 with 512 MB DDR2, and SATA HD, and 17" LCD, which they also really want.

So I am really torn between the easy path of taking the PCI card and also probably buying more memory to get SIms 2 to run, building, or buying the 4700. If I did build, I would have to do it really quickly and not screw up. But is it really worth it? I guess the differences are things like an ASUS versus cheap Intel MB, the fastest drive versus one that may be old, etc. But realistically, the 3000 with PCI graphics should meet our needs for the next few years, although having only 3 PCI slots and 2 memory slots is a little restrictive. Thanks.

 

[techwanabe]

I'd go with the Dell Diminsion 4700 over putting a PCI video card in a Dell 3000. Anyone who might be interested in playing modern computer games needs to have a computer with an AGP video card in it or better and I would consider something like a Geforce 4-ti4200 or equivelent to be the minimum (but that is only Direct X 8 compliant) - better yet a Radeon 9600 or equiv should be considered minimum.

I see that the Dell Dimension 4700 comes with Integrated graphis which would not give acceptable performance for most modern games. Even the upgrade to the Radeon X300 would not probably be all that good. I see they sell for $77 at Newegg so I'm guessing they probably aren't going to offer great performance but you might get by in Sims 2. The problem is that Dell's "better" computers are now coming with PCIe card slots so you have to shop from the limited list of PCIe type cards. Supposedly PCIe will be replacing AGP in the future, but right now it is pretty new and there aren't as many choices yet. It doesn't look like Dell is offering AGP slots in it's line up of computers anymore.

I did a google search and found this info regarding Simms 2 which is a very new game BTW:
Recommened video cards (and the more video memory the better):
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
Nvidia Geforce 4
Visit "The Sims 2" official website for a more detailed list.

 

[Markfw]

Return it and build your own.

 

[Baked]

Originally posted by: Markfw900
Return it and build your own.

Yup. And if you don't know how to build your own system, go to a local computer shop and have them build one for you. It'll cost you $100 (?) for the building fee.

 

[Markfw]

Unless you are totally bad with tools, there are guides HERE that you can use, along with good advice on what to pick. Dell is great for a cheap websurfing and word processing ONLY IMO. The minute you say anything else, build !!!

 

[techwanabe]

As others have noted, building your own will give you more options. I will admit that if you work the Dell deals right, you can often get more computer for your money than by building yourself. I don't think I could have built a computer (in my sig) for $1048 that I paid and that included a 19-inch flat panel LCD monitor too.

I think if you can work the Dell deals right, and outfit with a decent video card, you might be able to satisfy your criteria, but remember - if you want to play modern games smoothly, there is a price. To have a system with a monitor that will allow you to play modern games fairly smooth, a thousand dollars is probably a more realistic figure to expect to pay. Yeah, I know it seems sad with computer speeds and prices these days that you can't get a computer that will handle modern games smoothly for much cheaper.

BTW, I think you will be allot happier with a 17-inch LCD than a 15-inch. Just make sure it has 16 ms refresh rate or better.

 

[RalphTheCow]

How the heck did you do that, techwanabe? ebay? That is exactly the spec listed for an 8400 at Dell's website right now, for $1500. I'll check the employee discount, but I don't think it will be 33%!

 

[techwanabe]

Originally posted by: RalphTheCow
How the heck did you do that, techwanabe? ebay? That is exactly the spec listed for an 8400 at Dell's website right now, for $1500. I'll check the employee discount, but I don't think it will be 33%!

RalphTheCow,

There were some very Hot Dell deals in the Hot Deals forum around the late October/November time frame that turned me on to the offers at the Dell website. I think there was an end of quarter push to sell as many Dells out before the deadline. You had to get the price up to $1500 to get $400 off and there some other discounts too, plus the free upgrade to 19" LCD FP monitor.

 

[RalphTheCow]

Hmmm. So your custom built computer failed. That's where my wife and kids would have a cow!

 

[techwanabe]

Originally posted by: RalphTheCow
Hmmm. So your custom built computer failed. That's where my wife and kids would have a cow!

Well, my home built computer had some issues that were hard to be sure where the cause was. The video card was a refurbed Asus Geforce 4 ti-4200 and it failed after about 3 months. I RMA'd it since it had a 3 year warrantee and the 2nd one failed 4 months later, and so on. Finally I wondered if something wasn't causing the video card to fail so I RMA'd the motherboard. They didn't find any voltage anomalies but did find a bad memory slot so they replaced it. The Asus video card failed one more time after that too. I put a PNY GF4 MX440 in there in the mean time and it so far has held up. Also, after the forth failure, ASUS sent me a totally new different model GF4 card - so maybe the previous model of Asus card had a bad run at the factory? Bottom line is my AMD machine is still working but I'll never know for sure what caused the video card to keep failing. The Dell was a result of my parents knowing I needed a reliable computer so now I have 3 computers - the third went to my daughter but is getting a new PS cause it apparently just died.

The ironic thing is that most of the parts in my home built computer had 3 year warrantee's and the Dell only has one year! cause I wanted to keep the cost as close to $1000 as possible.

 

[Rukkian]

Dell computers now only come with a 90 day warranty unless you buy extra and all home systems have to talk to India for support, that may be a deciding factor.

 

[mechBgon]

Out of curiosity, what sort of PCI video card were they offering? FX5200 or something?

 

[techwanabe]

Originally posted by: Rukkian
Dell computers now only come with a 90 day warranty unless you buy extra and all home systems have to talk to India for support, that may be a deciding factor.

I just looked up the Dell Dimension 4700 series and they appear to come with a 1 year minimum warrantee. Where did you read about 90 days? My Dimension 8400 came with 1 year.

Out of curiosity, what sort of PCI video card were they offering? FX5200 or something?

mechBgon, the 4700 series has integrated but there is a PCIe slot so there are upgrade options to either a Radeon X300Se for $63 or a Nvidea Geforce 6800 for $216. Seems like the middle option should be better than a Radeon X800SE.

I too am curious what they are offering for PCI slots on the Dimesion 3000 - no options are shown in "customize it" at the website.

 

[mechBgon]

techwannabe, he said that Dell offered him a PCI video card as an incentive to keep the 3000. I was wondering what kind it was.

 

[RalphTheCow]

I didn't really get that specific. He said whatever it took to run the game, and we all know how demanding Sim2 is, right? (Wish I knew some super card to mention here but I don't). Actually I was about ready to mention that it also needs more memory to run the game (seriously, it does). Watch, I'll call back tomorrow and he'll say are you the guy who posted this on the Internet? No DEAL FOR YOU!

And on warranties, it has 4 year, I think because it was through employee buy. But my 4100 is 4 years old now and it has never needed a bit of service, other than getting rid of Windows ME.

 

[techwanabe]

Mech, yes, I quickly edited my previoius post - I too am curious what PCI card they would offer - there aren't that many choices are there?

 

[mechBgon]

My little sister runs Sims 2 on an nForce2-based AthlonXP 1800+ with an AGP Radeon 7000 with 32MB of RAM. At this point, that's about a $25 card...? She is happily addicted to Sims 2, I might add It appeared to be running reasonably smoothly for her, although she only gave me a brief demo of a family in a house.

 

[RalphTheCow]

mechBgon, our problem comes in the loading of the game, where it sometimes takes a minute or so to load a big family and house. Once loaded, playing is fine. So that still makes me think the slowness is caused by low memory, but everyone tells me it is the integrated video. And since the integrated video only uses 64 MB, I think, out of the 512, it still shouldn't be anywhere near the lower limit of 256 MB system memory. Yeah, I figured about a $50 card should do it - I don't often see many for $25.

 

[Porter21]

I would ship it back and purchase one with agp slot. I have 9800 pro and sims 2 stutters occasionaly. Even the people that reviewed the game on gamespot that use alienware systems i think, said it stuttered everyone in a while. I would suggest spending some money on a new card. Start with the 9600's or higher from ati, or likewise from nvidia.

 

[techwanabe]

Hm.... long load time sound more like a symtom of disk transfer rate to memory, not video card/memory. If you can swing replacing that Dell 3000 with a Dell 4700, I would do that. It comes with a SATA 7200 rpm hard dive, that might help speed up load times somewhat.

BTW, I noticed on the Dell website that the Dimension 4700 are conventional cases now and they used to be slimline. I wonder why the slimlines were discontinued? Maybe overheating problems? We had allot of overheating problems with a series of 40 slimlines at the bank I worked at (different brand).

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: RalphTheCow
mechBgon, our problem comes in the loading of the game, where it sometimes takes a minute or so to load a big family and house. Once loaded, playing is fine. So that still makes me think the slowness is caused by low memory, but everyone tells me it is the integrated video. And since the integrated video only uses 64 MB, I think, out of the 512, it still shouldn't be anywhere near the lower limit of 256 MB system memory. Yeah, I figured about a $50 card should do it - I don't often see many for $25.

What's the drive in that thing, exactly, is it a Seagate ST340014A? The one I call the Seagate SnailDrive?? If so, maybe you ought to try what my lil' sister's using, a Hitachi 120GB 7200rpm ATA drive with 8MB cache.

Also, after playing for about 15 to 30 minutes, call up Task Manager and look at your peak Commit Charge. I bet you need more RAM whether you think so or not.

Even if you did have enough RAM, it'll always be single-channel in that system, meaning, not enough bandwidth for the CPU to perform at its best even without the video fighting for a piece of the pipeline.

I guess the big question is whether it's worth worrying about. If you anticipate playing more games of this caliber or heavier in the future, and it really is frustrating you to have to wait (I mean hey, that's an excuse to raid the fridge), then invest in a system that's not hobbled five different ways by its very nature. If it has to be a Dell, maybe a 400SC with a 15000rpm SCSI drive and a 6600GT, and to heck with the warranty :evil: OS sold separately.

Edit: if you did build your own rig, or get a 400SC and customize it, you can get Microsoft Works Suite 2005 OEM for $45 at Mwave.com. That's a rippin' deal for an all-around home-apps package, check it out.

 

[RalphTheCow]

No, it's a Maxtor 6Y080L0. After looking at this review http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/maxtor-6y080l0/ it seems it isn't the problem. But Device Manager doesn't show the cache, I don't think. That test says 8 MB, and I thought maybe it was 1MB on the system specs somewhere, but I might just be thinking of the p4 processor. Anyway, I think it would be prudent to start out with 1 GB of RAM - thanks for pointing out that commit charge thing - I always wondered what that meant.

Is SATA that much better? The 4700 is looking better, but I still don't like the lack of AGP and still limited slots. It doesn't have to be a Dell. What's better? BTW, we get a fantastic deal at work from MS, MS Office for $20! What about chipsets, 915G in the 4700 vs 845something in the 3000? They say the 3000 does dual channel DDR - I'm not up on that stuff. I think it only does that if you have identical memory sticks in each slot? But I always thought it was best to get the largest stick possible in a single slot to leave room for expansion?

 

[techwanabe]

SATA isn't supposed to be hugely faster, only small improvement. But the combination of several factors might make the overall experience substantially better. Faster HD, more memory and a better videocard with better video bandwidth (as in not PCI video).

The Dimension 4700 doesn't have AGP, but it does have PCIe (PCI express - not to be confused with standard PCI) which is replacing AGP in newer platforms. While the improved bandwidge of PCIe isn't taken advantage of presently, it is much better than standard PCI. The only PCI express options for the 4700 are shown as Radeon X300SE and Nvidia Geforce 6800. The first one is better than integrated, but nothing to get excited over for gaming, and the 6800 is a nice gaming card and should handle even the most demanding games like HL 2 well.

 

[Gurck]

light gaming like Sims 2

Erm... The Sims 2 is currently the most demanding game out there on computer hardware, or at least close to it... far moreso than Far Cry, Doom 3, or Half Life 2.

Anyway, if you have any problems with the build (and have a second PC), post here and you're sure to receive help. It's a much better solution than Dell. If you *must* get a prebuilt, try ABS or Monarch computers.

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: Gurck

light gaming like Sims 2

Erm... The Sims 2 is currently the most demanding game out there on computer hardware, or at least close to it... far moreso than Far Cry, Doom 3, or Half Life 2.

Anyway, if you have any problems with the build (and have a second PC), post here and you're sure to receive help. It's a much better solution than Dell. If you *must* get a prebuilt, try ABS or Monarch computers.

What have you been smokin, the sims2 can run well on an intel extreme graphics based system pretty well, I would not call that too demanding.