Got my new Dell 4600. What do others think?

[nitsuj3580]

Well, I just got in on that hot deal for the 4600 w/ the 2.8c chip and radeon 9800 from Dell

I didn't realize the case was this small! I like it in a way but I want to install another hard drive and add more RAM to this and it looks like that's going to be a PITA.

Performance wise, I'm not really impressed at the moment but I'm assuming it's cuz I only have the 256 MB of RAM in it at the moment that came with the PC. But even IE doesn't really load up instantaneously like I thought it would. Not too worried yet though.

Tomorrow, I'm going to throw in my WD SE 80 gig drive, the 1 gig of corsair ram that should come tomorrow and give this thing a fresh install with another copy of Win XP that I have from my old computer that died. Hopefully, that'll make this start to run nice

This is the first PC, I haven't built in 6 years. It still feels kinda funny knowing I didn't build it The processor and vid card are worth the price of the PC by themselves though so I'll probably get the itch to pull those parts out and upgrade the mobo and case someday.

what do others think of it?

 

[TommyVercetti]

I got it 2 months ago, but I don't have the 9800, just a cheap graphics card. That thing is sooooooo quiet.

 

[her209]

What does it look like?

 

[Lager]

Dell computers are nice, I just don't like the OS with Dell stuff in it.

 

[BillGates]

Get rid of XP and it will be much faster and more responsive. Take it from me.

 

[TommyVercetti]

Originally posted by: BillGates
Get rid of XP and it will be much faster and more responsive. Take it from me.

Install Lunix.

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: BillGates
Get rid of XP and it will be much faster and more responsive. Take it from me.

Nah, just rid of all the silly bars, colors, and background. Use the Classic Theme.

 

[Imdmn04]

just buy another case and motherboard, and transfer all the goodies inside, use whats leftover parts and make a internet surfing pc and donate it to charity or something

 

[RossMAN]

I was going to buy a Dell Dimension 4600 until I read AU Tigers post dated 06/10/2003 6:22 PM here.

 

[theNEOone]

dells just seem slow for some reason. i work at a comp lab full of dell's w/ 1.8 P4s and 512 ram running on Win98. my old athlon 1gig machine (also 512mb ram) running WinXP felt much much faster.

 

[AU Tiger]

I am currently in the process of installing WinXP on my 4600 on my 80GB WD SE drive. Unfortunately, I am still running only 256MB of RAM.

Unless you are switching to XP Professional, the Dell provided XP cd works fine (it's a plain XP install, no extras). You also have to use the provided driver cd as I currently have a bunch of unidentified devices in control panel.

I booted it up right out of the box and I too was not impressed with the speed, but I believe it was due to 1) the WD300BB hard drive and 2) 256MB of RAM. That 30GB drive was a bit noisier than my SE drives as well.

For a MicroATX case there is quite a bit of room for airflow, I haven't tied the extra power cables out of the way yet, but there is very little clutter. Also like the switch back to fastening the drives to the chassis rather than rails. I always thought the rails on my Dimension 4500 were loose.

I don't like that it uses a proprietary floppy drive attachment (currently floppy free, but will have to pay Dell $20+ if I ever want a floppy or any 3.5" drive).

Also, with the ATI 9800 installed I do not feel comfortable using PCI Slot 1 as this would almost block the fan on the 9800. So really there are only two PCI slots. This is not a problem as the only PCI card currently installed is a SB Audigy.

It also seems a bit noisier than my 4500.

 

[RichieZ]

i want a new computer

 

[Lager]

Very nice computer.