UK BOINC Team Forum

Looking to buy a £500 pc package for my daughters first pc ..

Now obviously, a major consideration is its crunching capabilities..

So, of course I looked at the Q6600  :D

Whats peeps opinions of this ?

PROCESSOR Intel® Viiv™  ( can select non viiv at no cost ) Core™ 2 Quad-Core Q6600 Processor
Windows Vista® Home Premium
HARDWARE SUPPORT 1 Year Base Warranty - Collect & Return
MONITOR Dell™ 20" Black Wide Flat Panel
MEMORY 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
HARD DRIVE 500GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB
GRAPHICS CARD 128MB ATI® Radeon™ HD 2400 Pro graphics card
OPTICAL DRIVE 16x DVD +/- RW Drive
KEYBOARD Dell™ Entry Quietkey USB Keyboard -
MOUSE Dell 2 Button USB Scroll Optical Mouse - Black

499 delivered .

Im also considering removing the 32" widescreen ( panny crt, our 42" lcd replaced it lol ) from her bedroom, and getting her a smaller ( in bulk, maybe still 32" ) lcd, with the thought of connecting the pc to it ..

If I select no monitor ... the system is £380 delivered ..

very tempting

And chances are, Ill be putting my slightly better 8600gt, and 4gb of ram in it, and swapping them over, then the quad will crunch 24/7

I bought Dell 2yrs ago, not had any problems with it to this day!

Would be better without Vista

NaRyan wrote:Would be better without Vista

Too true! My Dad is having major probs with his new Tesco's  'poota!

Obviously my Dell has XP Home preinstalled, so no problems there. My Dad is seriously thinking of putting XP back on his new 'poota (he has a 'proper' CD!)

going for vista on the thought that xp won't be supported eventually, and I have vista on this pc with no issues ..

I'd check with Dell about the memory first as some years ago I tried to upgrade the Ram for a friend only to find out that Dell tie you into using their own branded Ram and 3rd party sticks would not work.

This may of changed now but a quick e-mail would not cost you anything.


Gary.

We have a dell running Vista, and after rewiring the HDD's [thanks for NOT telling us Dell] It works no problem [cross fingers]..

I ran the test on Crucial's website and upgraded from 512Mb to 2Gb about six months ago, no problem!

melter65 wrote:I ran the test on Crucial's website and upgraded from 512Mb to 2Gb about six months ago, no problem!

That's good then, they must of had too many complaints.



Gary.

Or.. you could just buy the quad for yourself and give your pc to her? As i doubt she will use if for any heavy work anyway? At most teenagers as a general rule of thumb use the pc mostly for: MSN, Bebo (etc etc), Youtube, Music  :?:

Very true Ben, but id like the 4gb ram and 8600gt that in this for my gaming / master cruncher

That is, if the new mobo will take 4gb ram ..

fellie wrote:That is, if the new mobo will take 4gb ram ..

If you go to the Crucial Website there is a mobo compatability gizmo. Just pick your 'poota or mobo and away you go!

Dell don't state what boards they use ..

and I guess 2gb in either system will be fine anyways, Ive never seen this one use over 1.7gb ..

nooooooooooooooooooo ...

wifey has it in her head a laptop would be better ..

£500 laptops ONLY have dual cores

fellie wrote:nooooooooooooooooooo ...

wifey has it in her head a laptop would be better ..

£500 laptops ONLY have dual cores

LOL now thats not funny!! I suggest you have one and IF wifey NEEDS a laptop get her a less expensive model?

PS Get XP64 installed whilst your at it  :lol:

fellie wrote:Dell don't state what boards they use

You only need to enter the Dell model number your looking at then the website does the rest!

4 slots ...hmmmmmmm

fellie wrote:4 slots ...hmmmmmmm

It might have 4 slots but only take a max of 2GB (with all 4 slots full) as it only accepts single sided DDR2 memory.

I have even seen some "cheapo" boards that will only accept 4x 512Mb sticks
Some that have 4 slots but only slots 1 & 2 work or 1 & 3 work.
usually the 2 slots that make it dual channel.

And just be glad it's not a HP system, geez, stupid system specific memory!

crucial says :

Dell Inspiron 530 Desktop
# Maximum Memory:   4096MB
# USB Support:   2.x Compliant
# Standard Memory:   512 or 1024MB removable
# Slots:   4 (2 banks of 2)


and dell says it comes with this fitted:

:MEMORY 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]


or is it as you say NaRyan , and only gonna hold 2gb max ?

The way I read THIS is that you need to fit 2 matched pairs of 1Gb strips to get 4Gb of RAM. But you should also install the 64bit version of your OS to allow the 'puter to recognise the RAM  :D

As far as i remember Dell used ECC ram and most other boards can use Non ECC and/or both .
Years ago they used non standard PSU's and motherboards so that the only way of upgrading was to buy more Dell bits and bobs ..
Are they still the same ?

Arr... damn the common sence!  :lol:

Crucial is probably correct
And what melter65 says is correct too, if you wanna use all 4GB you either need Windows XP x64 or Vista x64.
As if you use Windows XP or Vista you only get 3.25GB.

And loosing 750Mb ram is not something to sniff at

"2 matched pairs of 1Gb strips to get 4Gb of RAM"

Means the 4 1x1Gb sticks have been tested to work in a dual channel motherboard and should not have any problems.
Posh talk for we are charging you £20 extra per pack for a poncy label.

yeah my current 4gb is reported as 3.2 .... on vista 32

Ive heard about various pc manufacturers building systems with their own 'special' parts .. its a dirty trick imo.. but no worse than car manufacturers fitting special fastners etc ..

ended up ordering a laptop, measured up for a desk and chair in my Daughters bedroom and its not gonna happen, so the quad will wait til I upgrade this current E6750 ( c2d 2x2.66 )

Bought, a vostro 1000 with vista hp, amd 65 tk57 ( a 1.9 I think )
120gb hdd, in fact, a bog standard vostro ... apart from I opted for 2Gb 667 ram, ( knowing how ram thirsty vhp is ) and the 9 cell battery , as this is £90 if bought seperately ..

£292 inc vat and p+p, £50 off dueto some promotion, £60 saved due to free delivery

so, the big question is .... what can I crunch on it

slight benefit of a laptop is, that it'll go to work with me, and I can manage boinc on it, and hopefully remote log in to my home pc

Ya can crunch all ya want on it (long as it windows of course )
After all it all counts

Just make sure your house inusrance covers Laptops when they out and about, best to be safe.

good point

Is there no real issues with laptop crunching, apart from heat, and the software shutting it off a little to reserver battery power ?

Heat is the number one consideration (some projects do run hotter than others) and it is probably best to avoid the big climate models. I have been running a Toshiba laptop 24/7 for 16 months with no problems so far (apart from a bit of internet access it only runs Boinc).

I would usually say don't keep it on 24/7 or for any long periods of time as they do get very hot. However, with the new modern types of laptop with better processors and heat ventilation systems i would say give it a try and see how it goes.

Alternatively you could just set it so the projects only use 50% of the available cpu power which would keep it a bit cooler.

turns out its a proper 2 core cpu, so I have 2x 1.9 thrashing away, at 90 % now to drop the heat a little ..



thanks for the info and thoughts peeps