Dougloid From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Posted (4 years 8 months 2 days 18 hours ago) and read 1387 times:
I've got Sunday's flier from the paper and Office Despot is offering the HP Pavilion desktop on sale.
The final cost on the CPU is $299 after rebates and it houses a dual core Pentium E2200, 3gb of memory, a 500gb hard disk drive and a DVD/CD read write drive. I've already got a good monitor that needs nothing and a standby hard drive. They don';t ssay but it's probably got some sort of home type Vista operating system.
Is it worth upgrading my P-IV 2.8 gb desktop at this price?
Beaucaire From Syria, joined Sep 2003, 5252 posts, RR: 26 Reply 1, posted (4 years 8 months 2 days 18 hours ago) and read 1378 times:
Go for it ,Dougloid- it's barely the price for one meal in the "El Bulli" restaurant in Rosas,Spain -without wine that is-naturalemente..! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Bulli
Dougloid From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 2, posted (4 years 8 months 2 days 18 hours ago) and read 1370 times:
I'm thinking about it if I can scratch together the funds. I do feel the limitations of my present desktop to handle complex tasks and even though it's got a new lease on life with Chrome it is still a little limited.
We're a little short of reserves right now and I am not using charge cards any more.
I wish someone in the government had asked me about the evils of living on credit a few years ago. I could have told them a thing or three about it, you can be sure of that.
Quoting Beaucaire (Reply 1): the "El Bulli" restaurant in Rosas,Spain
Would that be the Woolly Bulli?
I like the idea of molecular gastronomy. It sounds really interesting.
Beaucaire From Syria, joined Sep 2003, 5252 posts, RR: 26 Reply 3, posted (4 years 8 months 2 days 18 hours ago) and read 1350 times:
Quoting Dougloid (Reply 2): I like the idea of molecular gastronomy. It sounds really interesting.
If you want to wait nearly one year for a confirmed free seat and spend an average of say-well,depending on the wine- 600 € for two- it's a once in a lifetime experience.But friends of us who went there ,were dissapointed ,because most of the "molecular" cuisine was just rubbish-combinations of things that don't fit together..( like Garlic-icecream..!)
I don't mind spending money for great food,but there has to be some form of supportable price-performance-quality ratio. For me he's over the top and attracts people because he's famous and expensive ...
I prefer places like those typical Italian gems- hidden and offering the best value for
money..
CPDC10-30 From United Kingdom, joined Feb 2000, 4759 posts, RR: 26 Reply 4, posted (4 years 8 months 2 days 17 hours ago) and read 1346 times:
The only thing I would look out for on that is the video card (or lack thereof). Many of the cheapest PCs have fairly high spec processors and memory, but no dedicated video card, and rely on the processor and system memory. This severly degrades performance for games and video. So in other words it will be great for spreadsheets but not so much for flight sim.
If you have the exact model number then I can check the spec for you. If it has a video card and not integrated video, then it sounds like a great deal.
Cumulus From United Kingdom, joined Aug 2006, 1402 posts, RR: 1 Reply 5, posted (4 years 8 months 2 days 17 hours ago) and read 1341 times:
Quoting Dougloid (Reply 2): I wish someone in the government had asked me about the evils of living on credit a few years ago. I could have told them a thing or three about it, you can be sure of that.
Don't pay them!!!
What Goes Up Must Come Down, Hopefully In One Piece!
Dougloid From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 6, posted (4 years 8 months 2 days 16 hours ago) and read 1318 times:
Quoting CPDC10-30 (Reply 4): If you have the exact model number then I can check the spec for you. If it has a video card and not integrated video, then it sounds like a great deal.
I'll have to check it out. I've got to buy some paper today so I'll stop by and see. It'd be nice to know how many card slots and other goodies it has.
Dougloid From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 8, posted (4 years 8 months 2 days 13 hours ago) and read 1269 times:
I'm going to pass on this one. They were sold out but I was offered the floor model for a 10 per cent discount. During the conversation we opened up the cabinet and there was only one spare card socket and all memory sockets were full.
It did not seem like there was much room for expansion or growth, even though the processor is a good one. So I am going to do more shopping. Besides me and la Dragon Lady just bought new glasses and that was a pretty hefty chunk of change.
It is a HP A6528P by the way, and they're not restocking them. so it would also be an orphan.
Flexo From St. Helena, joined Mar 2007, 405 posts, RR: 0 Reply 9, posted (4 years 8 months 2 days 13 hours ago) and read 1259 times:
Quoting Dougloid (Thread starter): Is it worth upgrading my P-IV 2.8 gb desktop at this price?
Not sure what you mean by this but I take it it is a 2.8 Ghz processor.
Upgrading this to the mentionend PC really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You should ask yourself what you actually want to do with your PC. Playing modern computer games is out even with the new PC as an up to date graphic card alone is almost $200 stand alone.
So, just for internet surfing and office applications your current PC is already oversized. You should try to reinstall XP if you feel your computer is too slow for that.
If you want to upgrade, a good start is always the memory - it is cheap and accelerates your PC a lot.
Mham001 From United States of America, joined Feb 2005, 3001 posts, RR: 3 Reply 10, posted (4 years 8 months 2 days 12 hours ago) and read 1237 times:
I agree on just doing some upgrades as you can afford. Unless you have a proprietary motherboard, Dell?
I burned up a video card last week and am finding excellent deals on last generation gaming stuff on ebay and craigslist, enough so Im going to go for a new motherboard too.
Anyway, what is it that is bogging down your current system? btw, I'm reading that Chrome is a big memory hog, maybe worse than the old Firefox2.
Dougloid From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 11, posted (4 years 8 months 2 days 7 hours ago) and read 1193 times:
Quoting Flexo (Reply 9): Quoting Dougloid (Thread starter):
Is it worth upgrading my P-IV 2.8 gb desktop at this price?
Not sure what you mean by this but I take it it is a 2.8 Ghz processor.
Upgrading this to the mentionend PC really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You should ask yourself what you actually want to do with your PC. Playing modern computer games is out even with the new PC as an up to date graphic card alone is almost $200 stand alone.
So, just for internet surfing and office applications your current PC is already oversized. You should try to reinstall XP if you feel your computer is too slow for that.
If you want to upgrade, a good start is always the memory - it is cheap and accelerates your PC a lot.
Well I've been monitoring processor usage and *I was told* (famous last words, right?) that dual and quad core processors do a better job when they're getting a lot of things tossed at them. I could be wrong about that but I am a processor novice.
I've pepped up the memory on this Dell box but there is more room to add, I think I can go to 4gb and I'm at 1.5 gb. I've got XP stripped down to its essentials and it works a lot better than it did when I started. I do think a periodic wipeout and reinstall is a good therapeutic measure as is the use of Crapcleaner.
By far the biggest processor hog was IE6. I have mostly stopped using it and use Chrome more or less every place I can.
BHMBAGLOCK From United States of America, joined Jul 2005, 2698 posts, RR: 5 Reply 12, posted (4 years 8 months 2 days 3 hours ago) and read 1158 times:
Quoting Dougloid (Reply 8): It is a HP A6528P by the way, and they're not restocking them. so it would also be an orphan.
Low end models are typically only produced for a few monhs in any given configuration so this really isn't a factor. By the time you get it home, it's pretty much an orphan anyways. HP Business class machines have production cycles ranging from 6-36 months depending on the target market as IT departments really don't like getting new configs from week to week. Those who don't care, buy Dell.
Quoting Dougloid (Reply 11): Well I've been monitoring processor usage and *I was told* (famous last words, right?) that dual and quad core processors do a better job when they're getting a lot of things tossed at them. I could be wrong about that but I am a processor novice.
Absolutely true as long as the apps are compiled to work with multiple processor threads. If not, then you'll see some improvement when multiple apps are running but nothing stunning.
Quoting Dougloid (Reply 11): I've got XP stripped down to its essentials and it works a lot better than it did when I started. I do think a periodic wipeout and reinstall is a good therapeutic measure as is the use of Crapcleaner.
If you get a new one, go with Vista and you won't have to screw around with reloads any more.
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