Is this PC any good?

  • Thread starter Thread starter half_pint
  • Start date Start date
Definitely bottom end. Good for web surfing and word processing,
E-mail etc. but not much else.
 
Pen said:
Definitely bottom end. Good for web surfing and word processing,
E-mail etc. but not much else.

Its about 10 times faster than what I have got (Cyrix 6x86MX)
though and I can surf and word process with that.
So i should see soe improvement.
It used to OK for video too untill the developed hugely
CPU intensive formats, which are pretty unnecessaary anyway
as I am more than hapy with the existing video format.
 
Presumeable if I spend three times as much I will be able to
surf and send an email at the same time.
I doubt there is a machine on the planet which is much more than
twice as fast.
Am I correct?
 
half_pint said:
Presumeable if I spend three times as much I will be able to
surf and send an email at the same time.
I doubt there is a machine on the planet which is much more than
twice as fast.
Am I correct?

Hello half-wit. No it's a HP. If you must go for a system from a large
company, go for a Dell -at least that way you'll be provided with a proper
OS CD. HP uses a recovery partition with a recovery CD. If the hard drive
fails you'll not only be down a hard drive, but an OS as well. HP will then
charge you five times as much to replace the hard drive with the OS
partition.
 
Miss Perspicacia Tick said:
Hello half-wit. No it's a HP. If you must go for a system from a large
company, go for a Dell -at least that way you'll be provided with a proper
OS CD. HP uses a recovery partition with a recovery CD. If the hard drive
fails you'll not only be down a hard drive, but an OS as well. HP will then
charge you five times as much to replace the hard drive with the OS
partition.

Hmmm.. i think I will be able to back up the system to CD or DVD
or use one of the disc from my other computer, assuming 2-3 gig is enough.

I could get one of there
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/dimen_2400?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs
but it only has 40gb hd not 80gb hd it also does not have a DVD writer
just a DVD.
It does have a monitor big 17" job (which uses power and space) and a
graphic card
(I don't play games) but it is £30 more.
http://www.comet.co.uk/comet/html/cache/110_220043.html suits me better I
think.

I think it is also 533FSB as oposed to 400
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/uk/en/ho/WF06b/35123-35527-39847-39847-39847-9514987-15162163.html
 
Presumeable if I spend three times as much I will be able to
surf and send an email at the same time.
I doubt there is a machine on the planet which is much more than
twice as fast.
Am I correct?

It depends entirely on the tasks.
Nothing is going to be twice as fast at Office, email,
surfin', etc, but certainly just about anything with a
modern video card will be multiple times faster at gaming.

If you'll be heavily mutltasking it would help a lot to add
more memory, as 256MB is a bit light for WinXP. Granted
it'll still do all the things you can do on the Cyrix box,
even much more, much faster, but ultimately the memory will
be a more significant bottleneck to typical uses. "Most
people" will manage to need more than 256MB memory. It's
probably not worthwhile to buy that memory from HP though,
it'll be cheaper to add it later.
 
kony said:
If you'll be heavily mutltasking it would help a lot to add
more memory, as 256MB is a bit light for WinXP. Granted
it'll still do all the things you can do on the Cyrix box,
even much more, much faster, but ultimately the memory will
be a more significant bottleneck to typical uses. "Most
people" will manage to need more than 256MB memory. It's
probably not worthwhile to buy that memory from HP though,
it'll be cheaper to add it later.

Kony is correct. You definitely will need more memory. The HP system uses up
to 64 meg of video shared memory.. In some instances this will leave only
192 megs of system memory to work with. Any operations requiring much memory
will cause your new system to come to screeching halt.
 
jacoby said:
Kony is correct. You definitely will need more memory. The HP system uses up
to 64 meg of video shared memory.. In some instances this will leave only
192 megs of system memory to work with. Any operations requiring much memory
will cause your new system to come to screeching halt.

Well 'up to' 64meg, my current system seems to manage fine with 2 meg.
Would only be a prob running many apps at once which I don't tend to do
much.
 
General Schvantzkoph said:
If you are looking for a budget PC I'd go with one that has a Sempron in
it rather than a Celeron. You'll get more bang for your buck (or in your
case quid) with an AMD processor.
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/s...tops/compaq_presario&storeName=computer_store

Yes ideally I would like the Semperon unfortunately they are difficult to
get hold
of locally
http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/sto...sku=150361&category_oid=-20730&fm=9&sm=3&tm=0
is one I could get locally, but notice the "Temporarily Out of Stock"
I could try mail order or ebay but P&P tends to put the price up and then
there
is the hassle of being in when it is delivered.
 
half_pint said:
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/s...tops/compaq_presario&storeName=computer_store

Yes ideally I would like the Semperon unfortunately they are difficult to
get hold
of locally
http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/sto...sku=150361&category_oid=-20730&fm=9&sm=3&tm=0
is one I could get locally, but notice the "Temporarily Out of Stock"
I could try mail order or ebay but P&P tends to put the price up and then
there
is the hassle of being in when it is delivered.

This one is in stock though
http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/sto...sku=891038&category_oid=-20730&fm=9&sm=3&tm=0
but when I looked in store they only seemed to be selling full systems with
monitors. I suppose it would be worth asking if they sold just the base
unit.

I think maybe AMD are stopping making some of these chips to make people
by more expensive ones.
I think the AMD uses quiteabit les power too.
 
Well 'up to' 64meg, my current system seems to manage fine with 2 meg.
Would only be a prob running many apps at once which I don't tend to do
much.


Well as I wrote, I'll likely be cheaper to add it later.
There is no pressing need to order one with a Gig of memory
in it, you can monitor memory utilization once you have the
system, and then decide.
 
As to whether the system is "any good" depends on what you expect to use it
for. Any hints as to the applications you will be running?
 
Well the main problems with my current system (ancient Cyrix 8x86 ) is that
it
just cant cope with some of the newer video formats, the cpu is at 100% and
it
cant play them at real time (or at least not without dropping frames or
something)
Also playing a mp3 leaves very little CPU whichis a problem especially if I
am
running a java application at the same time.
It also struggles with some of the newer badly written applications (in my
opinion).
I don't play cpu intensive video games though.
Even the 'entry level' products are about 10 times faster than what I have
got so
I would probably be OK with anything at the moment but obviously the faster
the
better as few years down the line I will probably encouonter similar
problems.
Power consumption is also a consideration as my PC is on a lot but there
probably only
so much you can do in that area.
Currently my power supply is 90 watts!! 300 watts is like 3 fridges or a
small electric
fire. My PC is noisy enough as it is now, I dread to think how much noise is
generated
cooling 300 watts.
I think there is some sort of law which says that you will always find a
need to consume
150% of the resources you have available though, especially as more bloated
applications
are produced.
 
Power consumption is also a consideration as my PC is on a lot but there
probably only
so much you can do in that area.
Currently my power supply is 90 watts!! 300 watts is like 3 fridges or a
small electric
fire. My PC is noisy enough as it is now, I dread to think how much noise
is
generated
cooling 300 watts.

Dont have worries over large power supplies making more noise... As long as
the PS has a proper fan, you will barely hear it. I have an Antec 480W and I
cannot hear it. Most often 90% of the computers noise is the fans. ( there
is a large market for after-market fans now)


That system is fair for the typical home user with exception to the
intergrated components and lesser amount of memory. If you had 512 ram or
more an add a proper independant video card ( so it wont take away from ram
sharing), it would be able to perform vast majority of what a average user
would need. With computer configurations being so numerous, dont be
pressured to buy one if its "close, but almost what you need".
 
Mac Cool said:
half_pint:


If you can stretch your budget, I would lean heavily towards this:
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/desktops_Q4_W10
_dimen_5000_D01505?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs

Buy it today and get a free upgrade to flat screen monitor.


This one is cheaper but doesn't have an AGP slot so you couldn't add a 3D
video card later.
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/homepage_Q4_W10
_dimen_3000_D01302b?c=uk&cs=ukbsdt1&l=en&s=bsd

Any of these systems are way more than 10X faster than your Cyrix. I had a
Cyrix P120 based system many years ago, served me well, but you'll be much
happier even with the HP.


Those links don't work!!
 
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