Dell PowerEdge 400SC (ed: 9/4 offering P4 3.2G for $100) w/ P4 2.8 800FSB hyperthread $448 free ship

[Delbert]

Sat on the fence too long again. Price on those in my cart just went up $50.

 

[oaaltone]

MadScientist: If you really want RAID, it'll be a lot cheaper to buy the drives and RAID card separately. I'd go with the default configuration, and add anything extra from Newegg or something. Even if you just want 2 hard drives, non-RAID: buy the extra stuff separately, it's a lot cheaper.

 

[yomamma]

I scored the 2.8. I've got about a month to get a new vid and some fast RAM before the new games start hitting the ground.

Thanks Whitneymuse.!!!

 

[TEEZLE]

What's the wating time on getting one of these systems? Anyone get an order delivery date yet?

 

[yomamma]

Ordered Saturday, "Estimated Shipping Date: Aug 22, 2003"

My experience has shown that Dell will beat that. -{)}

Cheers,

Bill

 

[oaaltone]

The 1st 400SC I ordered was ordered on a Thursday night, built and shipped before Friday night.

 

[fluffedup]

Hey...first time poster... but I need some computer buying advice , and it seems there's plenty of that here...
I wasn't necessarily in the market for a new computer or even an upgrade, but the price for this [with the 2.8] seems low enough to create interest....

First, I'm usually [read: always have been] the type to buy parts and put it together. But I saw that $448+tax is a whole lot cheaper than buying parts...looking on Newegg, the cheapest 800MHz 875 motherboard is $140+ and the processor is near $270...that's more than $400 already (with no case, power supply, etc.).

Now, I have an XP 1900+ [1.6GHz], in an Iwill XP333 [ALi Magik, yeah baby!], with 512MB of Geil PC3200 [yeah, it's overkill, being that it runs at PC2100 because the motherboard is a better performer with the cpu and memory in sync. I bought it because it has a bit of a chance of being useful in the future, whereas PC2100 and even 2700 might end up just sitting around when/if I upgrade].

My primary use for the computer is video editing and general stuff that most people use computers for: Internet, Office, and so on...video editing also includes media compression [video and audio] though, and it's pretty well understood that even the new AthlonXP's aren't well suited for those tasks...but when I bought it [Spring of 2002], it had good performance for a reasonable price (the cpu and motherboard). I dabble with games every now and then, but it's definitely not a factor in a purchase [I'd move my Radeon 8500 Pro into the new system without feeling like I was missing something, if you know what I mean.]

My tentative plan since maybe this past spring was to wait until spring or summer 2004 and upgrade to an Athlon64 cpu and whatever a reasonable supporting motherboard would be both components were a bit cheaper than at launch. (not that I'm an AMD fanboy, but there seems to be some promise in the whole 64 bit thing....I mean, not that I can see into the future or that I even know that much about 32bit vs. 64bit, but I'd assume that the media compression/manipulation programs and codecs [DivX, XviD, Lame, VirtualDub, and filters for various programs etc.] will see 64bit releases, though those optimized versions may not see the light of day until who knows when, especially if the Athlon64 isn't as accepted and widespread as AMD hopes. I mean, I'd _assume_ that Windows XP 64bit would be faster yet, but again, who knows.

Of course, there really aren't any tests of final versions of the Athlon64's, so speculation comes from just a big, murky crystal ball at this point.

But, the little dilemma I'm facing is that my current setup is pretty much fine: Windows XP loads up nice and fast, audio and video compression takes a while, but it's not painfully slow, 3Dmark 2003 runs the non-DirectX 9 tests decently well, the Unreal Tournament 2003 demo ran fine and very smoothly at reasonably high resolution, and so on. BUT, $448 seems to be a crazy good price, and I'm not the type of guy to have more than one computer in his house. I mean, I'd probably sell the CPU, MB, and maybe memory that I'm using now, and pick-up some dual-channel combo [maybe the Geil gold one with the dragon on it....HAHA...it has a dragon on it, but to be fair, it seems to be decent for a decent price] with that money, then just migrate the drives, video card, and firewire card and modem to the new computer.

I guess the question I'm asking is, do you guys think the price is low enough now that it'd be smarter to pick up the Dell system in the coming days [before the CPU upgrade isn't free anymore] than wait to see how the Athlon64 thing ends up almost a year from now? Especially considering that it may cost more than the $448+tax to get a decent Athlon64 system running. I mean, I'm not afraid to buy towards the middle of the market [I got the 1900+ as the 2200+ was the premium AMD chip and the Pentium 4 was pushing [a real] 2.2GHz (if I remember correctly) because I don't have a limitless pile of cash to spend on computer stuff, and I don't have a need for the newest, fastest, greatest.

Thanks a lot.

Dan

 

[Bookmage]

...
/me watches the words all flow together in a jumble of letters and computer images....

i think a p4 2.8Ghz 800Mhz is good enough for video editing + normal stuff.
and a complete system for under 500$ thats top of the line is great!
drop another hard drive or two, maybe a video card or a better sound card, and u
have a good gaming machine too

64bit sounds, looks, and smells good on paper, and maybe in real life too,
but it'll be a while before apps become fully optimsed for it and before the rest of hte world
decides to go 64bit. So unless u have apps,games,movies,music,pr0n thats optimised for
64bit(64 bit pr0n??? hrm...) there is no real reason to wait 6+months for 64bit to go mainstream....
then again, when it does go mainstream, it'll prob cost a lot more than 500$ for jsut the cpu....

now, where did those 500$ of rebate checks go....

 

[Bookmage]

/me *grumbles* stupid session timeout error msg causing an automatic reload/repaste of a msg....

 

[TEEZLE]

Originally posted by: Bookmage
...
/me watches the words all flow together in a jumble of letters and computer images....

i think a p4 2.8Ghz 800Mhz is good enough for video editing + normal stuff.
and a complete system for under 500$ thats top of the line is great!
drop another hard drive or two, maybe a video card or a better sound card, and u
have a good gaming machine too

64bit sounds, looks, and smells good on paper, and maybe in real life too,
but it'll be a while before apps become fully optimsed for it and before the rest of hte world
decides to go 64bit. So unless u have apps,games,movies,music,pr0n thats optimised for
64bit(64 bit pr0n??? hrm...) there is no real reason to wait 6+months for 64bit to go mainstream....
then again, when it does go mainstream, it'll prob cost a lot more than 500$ for jsut the cpu....

now, where did those 500$ of rebate checks go....

Very well put! Listen to him and buy the system before the price raises.

 

[yomamma]

Should I jump on this or wait to see "how the Athlon64 thing ends up almost a year from now?"

Patience Grasshopper.

If you can wait a year there will be another deal then and the CPU will be at least 25% faster the disk will be 50% bigger, etc, etc, etc. Computers always go down in price and you are ALWAYS better off waiting if you can.

Dont get a woody and buy a box a year before you don't know if you need it.

I upgrade every 2 - 3 years and only when necessary, for example, when my current box won't run the next id game *DROOL*

 

[Whitneymuse]

To the guy who is happy with the performance of his current machine, Intel has actual performance gains described and what you might gain from this processor and system. I they also describe HyperThreading, I think they refer to it as two logical processors...sort of like virtual only slightly more concrete, I think.

If you don't need it, next year you'll have Serial ATA as the standard as well as the introduction of two 'real' processor cores handling the multitasking at minimum plus faster memory by another 1/2; see then if the changes are compelling.

 

[Samus]

It's up 100 dollars now to 548. No longer a deal

 

[yomamma]

Originally posted by: Samus
It's up 100 dollars now to 548. No longer a deal

Try again.

 

[Apex]

Originally posted by: Samus
It's up 100 dollars now to 548. No longer a deal

Give this a try.

Dell PowerConnect Network Switches
None [subtract $249]

 

[Whitneymuse]

Samus must be pushing the wrong buttons.

 

[fluffedup]

[from the guy who asked if the upgrade were worth it when I'm reasonably content with my current system]

Thanks a lot for your replies. I'll probably wait it out until spring or so and upgrade then. Of course, if there's no sweet sub-$500 power system available at that time, this is the first place I come complaining .

But, it's only $448 and available now. Darn. Well, if anyone else has an opinion [read: anyone who wants to help me rationalize a purchase that I don't really need or vice versa] feel free to contribute.

Thanks,
Dan

 

[ericlp]

Pretty good deal ... Problem tho, Dell's are really hard to overclock.

Right now just off pricewatch you can get a decent Motherboard that will overclock well Abit or Asus for around 100.00 and a 2.4C 800Mhz w/HT for around 165.00 retail with FAN Shipped. But you don't get a case/Floppy/CDROM/Video Card (worthless 128Meg Ram Chip) Dunno about the video card... So basically you got to ask yourself.

Is a 2.8 really all that faster then a 2.4? I am thinking if you built it yourself you could probably overclock a bit to get past a 2.8. Going to have to replace the RAM anyway.

Look at this... It's only a few mins off for seti 1:49 (2.4) Vs. 1:37 (2.8)... Anyway, I really don't see the big of a performance gain.

linky

So for 450 bucks a pop. Or 270.00 for a board and chip. You'r gonna have to buy the better RAM anyway. Might as well get the 400Mhz good stuff. And... you could most likely pick up a nicer power supply. After getting a 80 or 120Gig HD. You'd still probably end up spending about the same but with better components.

THAT being said. This is still a good deal, I thought about it. But it would be even better if one had the 10% off. I think I can build a nicer system that would work better for me at this price. Besides Retail CPU's and Abit motherboards come with 3 year warranty!

This is a good deal for the (NON overclocker) and one who doesn't know much about putting a system together or is just tired of getting all the parts and spending an hour or so trying to get them all working together Plus risking that one part could be bad and have to trouble shoot and waste even more time.

 

[fumbduck]

I am confused.


Does this have hyperthreading or not?

 

[Apex]

Yes, all 800mhz fsb based P4 processors are hyperthreading enabled.

 

[yomamma]

Originally posted by: ericlp

Right now just off pricewatch you can get a decent Motherboard that will overclock well Abit or Asus for around 100.00 and a 2.4C 800Mhz w/HT for around 165.00 retail with FAN Shipped. [...] I think I can build a nicer system that would work better for me at this price.

First, find a 875 Mobo, not a "decent" one. Then, find a sweet clamshell case. How much have you spent now? I don't need the "80 or 120Gig HD" so theres another $100 delta from your thread crap.

Do the research using reputable dealers and equivalent parts and you will see that you are wrong.

Cheers,

Bill

 

[ericlp]

Obviusly you didn't get my point. I wasn't 'thread crapping' since I stated 2-3 times it was a good deal... But, for people that KNOW HOW to build a computer and do it right I just think you can get a better board. And yes ALL intel chips that use a 800Mhz FSB have HT built into them. But maybe the dell bios doesn't have built in support? Who knows??? I guess you just have to buy it and find out.

Logic of buying one of intels top end chip is to get it going fast. Via SATA, Tweaking RAM, bumping up the Chip to better perfromance. Then stay away from Dell. Tho, if you just want a fast chip then this could be for you... But don't bother going to mushkin high end ram since the BIOS on this system won't allow you to take advantage of it. Unless DELL is changing it's tune. But, I have over 200 dell workstatin/servers and I am even guilty of buying them at home! How can you pass up a 320.00 2.6 gig system?

 

[oaaltone]

Yes, the 400SC will use HT: proof, more, and more

 

[dexvx]

Anyone know anything about the SCSI?

 

[oaaltone]

From the list of components, looks like the PCI SCSI card is a LSI 21320. There are also rumors that the SCSI machine comes with a 400W power supply.