Windows 7 New Dell computer....

[catilley1092]

What matters the most is that the user is satisfied with their purchase. I realize that you got a deal on the PC, and added things at your pace, & that's perfectly fine. Not everyone can get all that he/she wants at once. I can't myself.

This is why I'm already saving for my next PC, a small amount of cash each month adds up over 3 & a half years, which is when I'll purchase my next one.

As long as the PC is upgradable for expansion to meet the user's future needs, then that's good. At some point, if needed, the CPU can be upgraded to an i5, if not needed, that's good too.

Dwayne, I hope that you're enjoying your PC, & that it will serve your needs for many years.

Best of Luck,Link Removed
Cat

 

[NaiyaShamiso]

My point is that I got a nice little computer for $399 that's far from bare minimum, but not too pricey.

3.30GHz.

12 gig RAM

500 Gig Hard drive

2nd 500 Gig Hard drive for back up

2- 64 gig SSD's

Yes I paid extra for the back up drive, memory upgrade, and SSD's, but it's a great computer that'll do the job for me within my budget. The 2nd generation i3 cpu does a fine job with my programs.

Any thing under $500 is a cheap computer, I dont care what who says what, that is FACT. You start running into olnboard/intergrated grafx, striped down raid cards, underpowerd CPUs, the list goes on and on. Now you already said taht you had the SSDs and 2nd 500 GB drive, crap you allready have is not part of your new purchase price. As well as things you dont have, like 12 GB RAM, you allready said that the system is limited to 8 GB max. A 500 GB HDD is nothing to get excited about at all. 3 years ago, yea that was about right, now its 1/2 what you should expect. Almost all cmputer should be comming with 800 to 1000 GB bare minimum. Not cause you spacificly need it, but because these computers are cookie cutter and some where someone that is going to buy this low priced budget computer will need it. I have no problems listening to you and talking with you about facts and how things work, but when you start using false information to prove you point, thats when i get annoyed.

I don't think I need 12 gigs of RAM just to surf the web...I think you've been oversold a bill of goods. You don't need a monster computer to do simple tasks.

OMG, you want to pull that out of your hat? You have been oversold...OMG...Okay look I can do custom builds of computers that will range from $1,100 to $39,000. The last word on it is how important is what you are going to use this computer for to you? If you want to go with the bare minimum when it comes to your equipment, then you are going to get the bare minimum product and the bare minimum time frame.

 

[djwayne]

I didn't pass out any false information. I've got two 500 gig drives which adds up to 1,000 gigs of hard drive space that I have available to me, that's plenty for my needs, but on top of that I have 120 gigs of SSD space. That's hardly a bare minimum computer. Is a under $500 computer a cheap computer ?? Not any more, the stats on them have risen dramatically in the last few years. My current computer is much better equiped than the computer I had 5 years ago, and it costs a lot less too. I don't need a $39,000 dollar custom built computer. I didn't need to spend a $1,000....and I ended up with a much better computer than what I previously had. If you build computers for a living, you've got some tough competition out there. I can see why you're annoyed, but beating up on my little Dell ain't gonna change things.

 

[catilley1092]

No, beating up on your little Dell doesn't change things, but the fact is, it was originally a $399 computer. Which by today's standards is rather cheap. There are plenty in the sub-$500 range at Wal-Mart, I wouldn't want one of them.

You get what you pay for. Setting your customizations to the side for a moment, it was a low-end PC out of the box. $399 only buys so much. Dell sends their junk mail here, I've seen plenty of their PC's in that price range.

Like I said in my post above, I hope that it will serve you many years, but don't be shocked if it doesn't.

Then, you'll be willing to spend more the next time around. My HP desktop PC cost $599 in 2009, that was considered cheap at the time as well. But at least I accept that fact, and learned more on how to buy.

That's the fact that I don't believe you've accepted yet, and why this is a 23 page & running thread. From your opening statement, that was all but proclaimed to be the best PC in the world, yet that doesn't change what it is. Time will tell the final story on that.

Cat

 

[NaiyaShamiso]

I agree 100% with what you said Cat. Great way to put it.

When you start talking about a $399 computer and how cost effective it was, then you start raddeling off a list of parts, that is a misleading statement, and there for false information.

I looked up that 620 again, and in the time that we have been talking about it it has droped $100 in price. Not really holding its value much. LoL

 

[djwayne]

I never said it was the best computer in the world, but for me it's the better than what I had at a very affordable price. It's getting me to where I want to go. Ya I could have easily spent $1,000's of dollars on another PC or even bought a MAC, but I chose not to, and came out with a nice little computer that's working fine for me...so what's so bad about that ??

Ya prices drop on high tech gear, that's why I'm careful not to spend too much.

I've been very upfront about what I have added to my computer, there is NO FALSE INFORMATION. You're just being ridiculous.

 

[NaiyaShamiso]

Yea, it could have been worse. You could have the same computer you have now, and have spent $2,000 for it...Mac sucks. ROFLMAO

Oh, BTW, its Mac, not MAC. MAC refers to the MAC Address for your NIC, every computers with an 802 network interface has one. The MAC is a hardware address formated in hexadecimal. Mac is an abbreviation for Macintosh a devision of Apple computers. Just so you know in the future if you ever need to work with MAC addresses, so you don't get it confused.

 

[djwayne]

Yea, it could have been worse. You could have the same computer you have now, and have spent $2,000 for it...Mac sucks. ROFLMAO
.

Now you're starting catch on !! LOL !!

 

[NaiyaShamiso]

This is not personal, its almost all computer have problems like the ones we are talking about. I would say...ummm about 97-98% of all computers out, can be improved in about three differnt ways. Not talking about mor RAM or what ever, I mean better air flow, better fans, things that will lengthen its life in a very signifigant way. Very rarely do you ever see one, esspecaly a cookie cutter that has the things needed to be "prefect". Most of the time you will see the perfect modles in the $1,000 to $2,000 range. Thers are the ones that are capable of taking up to 6 or even 8 or 10 cores and have an added graphics adapter. These are the ones that you want to get, cause even though you get the cheap version of it, they can be upgraded and made new again, with less than it would cost to buy a new one. With the advancement in graphics cards, it is now possable to use your graphics card as a peralell processor. So if you get a system like mine, $1,100 three years ago, and add the GTX 460, would be something like $1,500 to $1,600 for parts. Now this will take it and make it go from a quad-core i7 with 8 threads, to something like a 452 cores with 456 threads. It is all about what the system can do. Soon when i get a new gameing computer, if intel will ever drop our their hyperthreaded deca-core processor *evil face look*, this system that i game on now will replace the email and web surfing computer, and that one will go into the hardly ever used section of the lab. I'll use it for Minecraft or something. Any way, the point we are trying to make is if you spend extra in the begining it will save in the end.

 

[djwayne]

I don't need 6,8 or 10 cores...I don't even need 4, I'm getting by nicely with my i3. At the time I bought the Dell, money was tight and I needed a new computer like right now. Since then the money situation has gotten better, but the Dell is working out nicely, so I don't need another computer. So it all worked out good for me. My experience says more fans = more noise, and I don't want more noise. The i3 runs cool so I don't need more fans/ better airflow. I like quiet, I've even disconnected my back up drive's power so that it's not running all the time. I'll plug it back in, reformat it and run a fresh backup every month or so, disconnect it, and that's plenty enough for me. I also like this plan because it isolates my back up drive from surge or virus problems.

 

[NaiyaShamiso]

LMAO...WoW...LMAO

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

It all depends on what you are going to use your computer for.
I can never get a computer fast enough to suit me.

When I have to wait for an hour to output a 3D video file, it drives me crazy, so anything that will do it faster is what I want.
I used to have to wait many hours for the same thing but I still want to measure it in minutes or better yet seconds.

I know people who are spending 24 hours rendering one image.
I don't have the patience for that, I want results now! LOL

But there is no need for everyone to have the kind of computer that I use.
If you only browse and do work processing and email you can get by on a fairly low level computer.

But you don't want to decide a few months later the you want to play games on it.

My computer is 2 years old and I'm getting the itch. some time in 2013 I'll replace it with a faster one.
My friends new computer is faster them mine and that makes me grind my teeth.

I don't want to have to get new teeth, so I'll buy a new computer instead.
That will save me money.

Mike

 

[NaiyaShamiso]

Mike, LoL, yes please donot ruin your teeth. That would make it very dificult to get a good conversation out of you LoL.

Do you get my point that if you speen a little more and look forward then the cost of upgradeing is less than the cost of buying new? Thus that makes more since then buying bargon basement computers all the time. Did I make taht clear?

 

[djwayne]

Well I rarely work with video files, I'm mostly an audio guy, I don't play games with my computer, so I don't need a specialized graphics card, the last graphics card I had just generated a lot of heat for no reason.....My sound programs do use some resources but not as much as you'd think. My i3 has been fully capable of running my programs without a glitch. I wasn't sure it would but now that I've worked with it I know it is. Sure an i5 or i7 would have been better, but I've found it's not needed for the stuff I do. I have no burning desire to upgrade to i5 at all.

 

[djwayne]

To give you an idea on how well the i3 is working...I did a test recording with my most powerful recording program, playing three guitar audio tracks, a drum machine, and recording audio on another track....cpu usage was between 4-10% mostly around 5-7%, it peaked for a second at 21% then went right back down....this tells me the i3 is very capable of handling what my needs are. I would rarely do more than this with the recording program.

 

[NaiyaShamiso]

LoL, OMG you are using some of the bigest newbie lines ever. I'm just haveing fun sitting here listening to the next newbie line you come up with. Hurry post again, i can barley wait.

 

[catilley1092]

To give you an idea on how well the i3 is working...I did a test recording with my most powerful recording program, playing three guitar audio tracks, a drum machine, and recording audio on another track....cpu usage was between 4-10% mostly around 5-7%, it peaked for a second at 21% then went right back down....this tells me the i3 is very capable of handling what my needs are. I would rarely do more than this with the recording program.

An i3 w/o hyperthreading? Peaking at 21% while doing all of the things that you stated concurrently....get real man!!!

What program are you keeping track of your CPU usage with? Have you tried the one that ships with Windows 7? It's there in the task manager. Or try Rainmeter, both are free.

Cat

My i5 with dual cores & four threads (hyperthreading) would break that barrier with the programs that you're describing.

 

[NaiyaShamiso]

I second that esspecialy when the system requrements are looking like this

Symphonic Orchestral

[h=3]Minimum Requirements for PC[/h]

• Pentium 4 3.0GHz, 2GB of free RAM, Windows XP SP2 or Vista, sound card with ASIO drivers

[h=3]Recommended PC System[/h]

• Intel or AMD Quad Core 2.0GHz, 8GB RAM, 64-bit OS and host

Sonar X1

Windows XP Service Pack 3 (32-bit)/Vista Service Pack 2 (32- or 64-bit)/Windows 7 (32- or 64-bit)*
Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.67 GHz/AMD Phenom Quad Core 9750 2.4 Ghz
2 GB RAM
1280x800 minimum screen resolution
4.5GB for minimal installation, 15GB for complete installation
SONAR on DVD: DVD-ROM, DVD+/-R or DVD+/-RW Drive
SONAR download: Broadband or better internet connection for download
Cakewalk Publisher requires available web server space with FTP access




LoL

 

[catilley1092]

Here are my CPU specs. While it won't blow the roof off of the house, it would break the 21% mark running all of those programs concurrently.

Link Removed

Being that the Dell 620 has a few different i3 configurations, I don't know which he has, still the i3 is the lowest of the "i" series, which is why I never wanted one to begin with.

[h=3]Core i3[/h] The Core i3 was intended to be the new low end of the performance processor line from Intel, following the retirement of the Core 2 brand.[SUP][18][/SUP][SUP][19][/SUP]
The first Core i3 processors were launched on January 7, 2010.[SUP][20][/SUP]
The first Nehalem based Core i3 was Clarkdale-based, with an integrated GPU and two cores.[SUP][21][/SUP] The same processor is also available as Core i5 and Pentium, with slightly different configurations.
The Core i3-3xxM processors are based on Arrandale, the mobile version of the Clarkdale desktop processor. They are similar to the Core i5-4xx series but running at lower clock speeds and without Turbo Boost.[SUP][22][/SUP] According to an Intel FAQ they do not support Error Correction Code (ECC) memory.[SUP][23][/SUP] According to motherboard manufacturer Supermicro, if a Core i3 processor is used with a server chipset platform such as Intel 3400/3420/3450, the CPU will support ECC with UDIMM.[SUP][24][/SUP] When asked, Intel confirmed that, although the Intel 5 series chipset supports non-ECC memory only with the Core i5 or i3 processors, using those processors on a motherboard with 3400 series chipsets it will support the ECC function of ECC memory.[SUP][25][/SUP] A limited number of motherboards by other companies also support ECC with Intel Core iX processors; the Asus P8B WS is an example, but it does not support ECC memory under Windows non-server operating systems.[SUP][26][/SUP]


[h=3]Core i3[/h] Released on January 20, 2011, the Core i3-2xxx line of desktop and mobile processors is a direct replacement of the 2010 "Clarkdale" Core i3-5xx and "Arrandale" Core i3-3xxM models, based on the new microarchitecture. While they require new sockets and chipsets, the user-visible features of the Core i3 are largely unchanged, including the lack of support for Turbo Boost and AES-NI. Unlike the Sandy Bridge based Celeron and Pentium processors, the Core i3 line does support the new Advanced Vector Extensions.
[TABLE="class: wikitable"]
[TR]
[TH]Codename
(main article)[/TH]
[TH]Brand name (list)[/TH]
[TH]Cores[/TH]
[TH]L3 Cache[/TH]
[TH]Socket[/TH]
[TH]TDP[/TH]
[TH]I/O Bus[/TH]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH]Sandy Bridge (Desktop)[/TH]
[TD]Core i3-21xx[/TD]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]3 MB[/TD]
[TD]LGA 1155[/TD]
[TD]65 W[/TD]
[TD]Direct Media Interface,
Integrated GPU[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Core i3-21xxT[/TD]
[TD]35 W[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH]Sandy Bridge (Mobile)[/TH]
[TD]Core i3-2xx0M[/TD]
[TD]rPGA-988B
BGA-1023[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Core i3-2xx7M[/TD]
[TD]BGA-1023[/TD]
[TD]17 W[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

One of these is his CPU, none supports Turbo Boost, the i5 does, there is plenty of evidence that the i3 is the lesser of all of Intel's "i' series.

Cat

 

[NaiyaShamiso]

2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i3-2120 processor (3.30GHz with 3MB Cache)

Thats whta i pulled off the Dell site. I could be wrong and this be a newer modle then the one DJ got. But for teh sake of the discussion lets say this is the processor.

This is what Intel has to say about it

Link Removed

I wouldn't that is a horable processor, but I wouldn't say it was grat either. This would be what I would be suggesting for terminals, and work stations, not digital media production systems.