Simviation Forum - eMachines Computers

Feb 11^th, 2004 at 9:32pm

jimclarke Offline
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Would anyone recommend an eMachines brand computer. Walmart has them and I can get a good deal through a friend of ours but I want to make sure they are decent enough. Thanx,

Jim ???

No God? Know God!

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Reply #1 - Feb 13^th, 2004 at 8:17am

4_Series_Scania Offline
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NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!

If you buy one, you deserve all you get!

Emachines #1 fan (not), Paul. Grin

Posting drivel here since Jan 31st, 2002. - That long!

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Reply #2 - Feb 13^th, 2004 at 8:48am

Delta_ Offline
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No way. They are almost impossible to upgrade, and they are highly under equipped. If you are trying to save money i would recommend building a comp. It is cheap to get. Get OEM win XP get OEM stuff that you don't need software for. If you get a burner get retail, then you get software. If you get a Graphics card get OEM because you get the card, wires and drivers. You can build comps for as little as $300 with most stuff you would want.

My system:Intel Q6600@3.6GHz, Corsair XMS2 4GB DDR2-6400 (4-4-4-12-1T) , Sapphire 7850 OC 2BG 920/5000, X-Fi Fatality, Corsair AX 750, 7 Pro x64

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Reply #3 - Jun 13^th, 2004 at 10:12pm

martianfrogz Offline
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NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Undecided

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Reply #4 - Jun 13^th, 2004 at 10:54pm

Pinchaser... Offline
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the only thing they are good for is for throwing out of a car at 50 mph.

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Reply #5 - Jun 14^th, 2004 at 11:55pm

taracer89 Offline
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I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
Albany, NY

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I've owned two emachines and I must strongly disagree with the above statements.

The first one I bought in 2000. Never had any problems with it, and was able to upgrade it with sound cards, video cards, hard drives, memory, ect.

The price for that one was $350, which was great because it allowed me to upgrade over time with a cheap entery fee.

I still have that system, and it is a part of my home network.

My new emachine is simply a powerhouse.

Amd Athlon xp 3000+, 333mhz fsb, 512mb ddr sdram, nvidia nforce2 chipset. Great performance right out of the box.

Just like my old one, it is easily upgraded. It has an AGP 8x slot, so I put a new vid card in. Memory can be expanded to 2 gHZ.

Price for this system was less than $650. The only way you might be able to do it cheaper is to build it yourself. If you know what you are doing. Think about mis-matched componets.

Forget about paying hundreds of dollars more for the same system just for the name. The emachine is a great deal. Four years on my first one and no problems.

Oh, and by the way, it came with a CD burner and a DVD player. Both work great.

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Reply #6 - Jun 16^th, 2004 at 9:12am

Pcyco Offline
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and counting!

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The main reason e-machines are so cheap is the components in them are the cheapest that were able to be thrown in them. For any type of gaming they are completely unreccommended. Essentially you get what you pay for.

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Reply #7 - Jun 16^th, 2004 at 11:59am

nickle Offline
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I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
San Diego, Ca

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Pcyco has it right.
Junk components.
These machines are sold only on the basis of price.
Ok but don't expect a miracle gamer.
Recommend finding out what MOBO and other components.
Ditto Dell and other mass stuff sold on price alone. Yes they do advertise the CPU and thats about it.
THGuide has a piece on DIY a cptr for less than $1k.
I can do better than e stuff at a local cptr shop where wide selection of performance, components and upgrades are advertised on a weekly basis.
Best for me is DIY. The performance and cost of major components are to my specs.

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Reply #8 - Jun 16^th, 2004 at 12:12pm

bm Offline
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UK

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If you know enough about computers the only way to go is to build it yourself. With the advice, assistance and ecouragment of all the simviation hardware forumers you can't go wrong. I didn't know alot but still managed it!

From Demonite, you can choose all the specs. The only things I don't like about my new computer is the case and the monitor which are the only things I didn't personally choose Tongue

I thought Demonite would supply a Gaming monitor for a gaming computer system! But its a 20ms model.... Sad

) Oh well - when I have enough money I shall get a 12 or 16ms one and I'll send this one to mother 8). I'm going to get my sister a 12-16ms LCD first though....

PS. I can't recomend demonite for many reasons Roll Eyes

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Reply #9 - Jun 16^th, 2004 at 1:18pm

congo Offline
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Make BIOS your Friend
Australia

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Taracer,

You got lucky this time because your emachine came with a decent chipset (ie mainboard). So that was a good deal providing the RAM etc. is not substandard.
---------------

JimClarke,

You need to understand the importance of chipsets in buying a PC. Ultimately, the future of the PC is limited by it's chipset and how long it will be supported. Current Chipset State of the art is found in Socket 939 mainboards, just to give you an idea, here is one........

http://www.asus.com/products/mb/socket939/a8v-d/overview.htm

You don't NEED the latest, but buying up to date ensures the longest future for your PC, The mainboard is the key........ get that right, and the rest going to follow as a matter of course.

The usual deal has been for mass PC marketers to use Power purchases of "so so" hardware with a high CPU spec just to make it look good and maximise profits.

The buyers are left with a quickly outdated system.

Taracer was able to get a good deal because that particular chipset (nForce2) was a bit revolutionary and was a particularly advanced one as well as being cheap. So emachines did a good thing by using them. (but it didn't cost them did it!)

You need a potent PC for simming in FS9 for instance.

You'll want a recent chipset (mainboard) running at least an 800mhz Front side bus speed and dual channel DDR 400mhz ram modules in a matched pair, preferably 2 x 512mb PC3200 quality ram modules.

You'll want a 2.8 ghz CPU minimum or AMD equiv. XP2800+, (everything else is old).

You will NEED an awesome video card, spend the bucks on that one.

Mainboard: Asus P5K-Premium, CPU=Intel E6850 @ x8x450fsb 3.6ghz, RAM: 4gb PC8500 Team Dark, Video: NV8800GT, HDD: 2x1Tb Samsung F3 RAID-0 + 1Tb F3, PSU: Antec 550 Basiq, OS: Win7x64, Display: 24" WS LCD

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Reply #10 - Jun 17^th, 2004 at 10:10pm

jimclarke Offline
Colonel
So many add-ons....so
little time.....
Arizona

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Thanks for the advice guys. I only know just enough about computers to be dangerous! However I didn't get back to your replies soon enough and wound up with the eMachine. So far I am having really good luck with it. I got FS9 and upgraded to 512 DDR RAM and it works fine.
I don't regret it........so far.......

Jim Cheesy

No God? Know God!

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Reply #11 - Jun 18^th, 2004 at 5:56pm

taracer89 Offline
Colonel
I love YaBB 1G - SP1!
Albany, NY

Posts: 11

Jim, if you bought one of the top model emachines you will be very happy.

The people above are talking about Intel based systems. That is why you see huge numbers like 800 mhz FSB and 3.0 ghz CPU's.

My system is AMD running at 2.17 ghz. It is more than enough for FS9.

By the way my RAM is Samsung and the motherboard is FIC. I don't care about the names, this system is very fast.

As long as you did not get a Celeron based system, you will have good results.

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Reply #12 - Jun 20^th, 2004 at 9:27am

RAAF453_Goose Offline
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I bought one of the top E-Machine models. I'm very pleased with it.

A Fighter Pilot is all balls and no forehead. If he thinks at all he thinks he is immortal, Gods gift to the world, to his plane and to his women.&&&&http://www.simviation.com/yabbuploads/grab_027.jpg&&; &&

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