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Strange brands, internet & graphics cards... (Read 231 times)
Apr 28th, 2004 at 7:45am

Dan   Offline
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I have quite a few questions needing quite fast answers: I was mooching around my local PC World last night and I have the opoetunity to buy an ex-demo P4 3.06GHZ 256DDR RAM machine with 15in TFT monitor, all for £540, WITH XP!! The tower was made by Patriot, and the TFT by Medion. I aint heard of either of these, are they good? The 'fast talking' dude salesman said it had a 'Shared Graphics card' in it. I didn't know anything about 'em, so i didn't ask him to elaborate. What are they / do they fly well?
Thanks, and please reply speedily, Dan G
Wales, Uk  Cheesy
 
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Reply #1 - Apr 28th, 2004 at 8:23am

JBaymore   Offline
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The price sounds too good to be true for the specs........ so likely it is  Grin.

Never heard of them either.

Shared graphics cards are no good for FS work.  You'll likely have to disable it and install a good agp graphics card.  (It DOES have an agp slot, doesn't it?  What speed..... 4X, 8X?)  Shared graphics seems to me to be the hallmark of a "cheap" machine.  WHY it is set up that way in a machine with those basic "high end" specs is a REAL question for me. 

Caveat Emptor.

best,

....................john
 

... ...Intel i7 960 quad 3.2G LGA 1366, Asus P6X58D Premium, 750W Corsair, 6 gig 1600 DDR3, Spinpoint 1TB 7200 HD, Caviar 500G 7200 HD, GTX275 1280M,  Logitec Z640, Win7 Pro 64b, CH Products yoke, pedals + throttle quad, simpit
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Reply #2 - Apr 28th, 2004 at 8:32am

Dan   Offline
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Right.... I will check the AGP spec... The internet question was: I have my ISP running this PC fine. Can I run it on another PC, in the same house without being charged more?
Dan
 
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Reply #3 - Apr 28th, 2004 at 8:53am

Delta_   Offline
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I have heard of Medion, my friend has a comp built by Medion.  The quality is pretty good, and he has had it for 1.8 years now, so they last aswell.
 

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 #4 - Apr 28th, 2004 at 6:21pm

Stratobat   Offline
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Quote:
The internet question was: I have my ISP running this PC fine. Can I run it on another PC, in the same house without being charged more?


Yes, you can create a LAN session, that way one PC is used as the host PC for the internet and the other PC "piggy-backs" off the connected PC. I'm not 100% sure how to do it though, but I know it can be done.

Regards,
Stratobat
 

...&&&&'If the literal sense makes good sense, seek no other sense lest you come up with nonsense'
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Reply #5 - Apr 29th, 2004 at 11:26pm

congo   Offline
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Dan,

Shared graphics card = Onboard graphics chip = junk gaming!  Tongue

Ex-Demo = Outdated

If the mainboard also has an AGP slot, a decent video card can be added, but typically, any mainboard with onboard graphics is a budget model, probably a mini board with a cheap chipset. That PC only has 256mb of RAM, you'll need at least another 256mb stick. The monitor is only 15", but it's a TFT, so you are paying mainly for the TFT screen as far as I can see.

It's the same deal here: There are unbelievable bargains  with apparent high specs (3gig CPU's).
They look awesome at first sight, but they are still junk because the rest of the hardware is sub-standard.

The mainboard is the main consideration, is it a decent chipset? Does it have enough expansion slots? Does it have an AGP slot? (<---VERY IMPORTANT!),  Is it running an 800mhz Front Side Bus instead of the outdated 533mhz FSB? Is the RAM PC3200 (DDR 400) ?

Do your homework, you could probably build a nicer system yourself for the money after you consider the costs of getting that one up to par. (if it can be done).

Check it out carefully DAN, turn your ears off when the smooth talker approaches.
Instead, get him to open the box so you can peak inside. I bet it's pretty empty.

There are some good little mini-boards out there though, so you may have a bargain, but be careful you get what you need, it's a total waste of money if it doesn't do the job.


 

...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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