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For those who remember my recent rant about Windows Vista (see link to my prior posts), the story continues......
I needed a desktop for home after using my laptop for a few weeks. My small lightweight laptop though great for traveling has a 14" screen I cannot use for long duration. So I ventured out and bought another off the shelf machine, this time a Gateway Vista Premium, AMD64X2 5000+, 1G of 553MHz RAM, 320G SATA drive with the usual add-ons and bloated trial software at $650 + tax (great value for the price).
I gave the machine and Vista a full two week trial this time. I tailored it so it was as close to what I had on my XP machine. I almost kept it but something about the OS that sucked up so much memory and resources it just totally rubbed me the wrong way. I figured another 1G of RAM probably would help, as anything I ran it took up at least 600M to 800M of RAM. Also, not having an external graphics card probably didn't help but I didn't play game or use graphic intensive applications on the computer.
After two weeks, I ran a full system recovery on the Gateway, packed it up nicely and took it back to the store again. I felt bad about returning two machines to the store. I again told the Geek Squad person it's the OS I could not stand. I asked whether they could put XP on the machine, and I got the usual answer: Yes, but that would void the warranty, and no guarantee onboard devices would work under XP etc... One suggested that I ordered a machine from their business site and that kept me thinking.....
I looked at various custom made machines, from Puget System, Micro Express, HP, Gateway, etc.... Then I decided to look at Dell Small Business computers. I found the Dimension E521 line. If anyone hasn't realized, I'm an AMD fan. The comparable Core 2 Duo processor probably is faster (bigger cache) and overclocks better but I've got all AMD machines at home, why change now. So I ordered an AMD64X2 5600+, XP Professional, 2G (667MHz) RAM, 320G 8M cache SATA drive, a 13 in 1 media reader, dual DVD ROM, DVD RW drives, Firewire card, but just onboard integrated graphics, sound, and network. The cost was $1,248 with a $150 discount and free shipping, hardly cheap but a hair cheaper than other custom built machines.
I ordered the computer on a Sunday evening, the computer arrived Wednesday. I guess that's what Dell known for.
The good:
Nice minitower case with quick release for peripheral bays.
Relatively quiet running fans (one in power supply, one for the CPU)
Components seem good quality
No bloated software installed other than the McAfee Security Suite plus the usual junk but a lot fewer than a consumer machine.
BIOS allows overclocking of CPU and PCI bus
The not so good:
BTX case (cheap way to use a single fan for CPU, motherboard and the rest.
Only a 308W power supply with proprietary power plugs (a well known Dell issue, probably Michael Dell's way of imitating Bill Gates)
Motherboard on the wrong side, the heat sink and fan from add on board may face down rather than up.
Only two full PCI slots (one slot taken up by my Firewire card), one PCI Express, one PCI X16 and I guess this is the usual number of slots unless I go for a full tower case
Only four USB port in back and two in front (would prefer 6 in back and 2 in front)
No parallel and serial port (I guess newer machines just don't come with these), need to either get a new personal printer, a converter plug, or a parallel card (taking up another PCI slot).
Priceless:
All applications I use and need run smoothly and at warp speed 8-D.
posted by 12.171.1...
My prior rant (also see all follow up posts...)
, Sat, 12 May 2007 15:50:00
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