Parents are looking for a new budget PC

[KingstonU]

My parents are looking to upgrade one of their older home-office PCs.

Edited: after some of your replies I should clarify a couple things.

My parents are looking for a PC that is under $500 CA or $420 US. There are NO Dual Core Prebuilt PCs that are in this price range.

This will replace an old P3 900MHz that is used for book-keeping. They also have a P4 2.8GHz HT.
Will this Sempron 3400+ basically be the fastest PC in their house?

Since I can't be there to build it for them I'm looking at pre-builts. This Dell seems to be a good choice:
Dell Dimension C521 Basic. Upgraded to 1Gb of ram. I also really like that the tower is smaller.

Also is this a 90nm process? is it 65W or 35W? Is there a noticable performance difference between the 65W and 35W?

When will Dell get 65nm Semprons? Should my parents wait a couple months?
Any other suggestions for budget pre-builts are welcome, AMD or Intel.

Thanks again for the suggestions

 

[nyker96]

ya I think this rig will do nicely for them, although my mom's xp 2500 seems kinda slow now for her daily chores. She just do web stuff but she opens like 10-15 tabbed browsing in firefox and RSS with 20-30 threads plus emails and the system just slows down like hell.

this sempy is a 90nm for sure and I think it will be slightly faster (20-30% boost) but not by much, I say get them a cheapo A64 X2 3800+ dual core system will last bit longer since you buying new.

 

[Zap]

I think that Sempron will be perfectly fine. For the slowing system with a bunch of stuff open, how about more RAM?

 

[aka1nas]

65nm semprons aren't going to make a difference for a budget rig for the parents. You aren't going to OC it and the heat output difference will be minimal.

I also agree somewhat with the X2 advisement. Gives them an extra core to run spyware on.

Also, for the love of god, please get them at least 1GB of RAM.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Definately get more ram. Actually I can't believe Dell is selling that config with 512mb and preloaded with Vista, and onboard graphics wich uses system memory. That thing as config'd will run like complete A$$

 

[AVP]

What is their budget? At Dell small business you can get a amd x2 3800+, 1gig of ram, 160gb harddrive, and Vista home basic for $459. My parents are going to get one shortly I think.

 

[BladeVenom]

A Sempron 3400+ is barely faster than a P4 2.8GHz HT, and you'll probably find some programs run better on the P4. I agree that adding RAM will probably help.

You also need to make sure they have anti-spyware, up to date anti-virus, firewall on, defrag the hard drive, and other basic computer maintenance.

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Dimension E521 w/19" lcd monitor $569 until 2/07

Much better deal than the one posted in the OP IMO, the difference in price is basically the monitor and you get a much better box. If you don't need the monitor, eBay it and your around the same price

X2 3800 > 3400 sempron
1gb ram >>>> 512mb
160gb hdd > 80gb hdd
16x DVDR > 48x CD-RW DVD combo
graphics are the same

 

[3chordcharlie]

There's nothing wrong with the sempron that an extra 512MB of ram won't fix, but it's awfully affordable to buy something a little better.

Why buy something that's really the minimum for today when for an extra $50-100 you can get so much more.

Also, at the moment, I would probably look for something with XP home or MCE (good for security updates til sometime in 2014 I believe), though if it comes with the free Vista upgrade, that would be good for 6 months to a year from now.

 

[KingstonU]

Yes I was planning on configuring the system with 1Gb ram.

My parents too would prefer to stick with XP but it looks like Dell is making everybody get Vista on all systems. Oh well, with it being Vista Basic it won't have the Aero Graphix. They may even like it.

Debating on looking at the X2 3800+, I still have a single core myself so I don't know how different they run but from what many on this forum have said, I don't imagine my parents really need the second core.

Thanks for the input.

 

[DrMrLordX]

The system should be fine, but OEM builds like that really stick in my craw. Why a Sempron 3400+ with 512 megs of RAM? Why not a Sempron 2800+ with one gig of RAM? Sure, you'd like to have the faster processor AND the extra RAM, but the RAM would be more useful overall.

Seems like Dell wants to stick you with the faster processor and insufficient RAM just to force you into paying for a RAM upgrade.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: KingstonU
Debating on looking at the X2 3800+, I still have a single core myself so I don't know how different they run but from what many on this forum have said, I don't imagine my parents really need the second core.

It's just the popular thing, that's all. I'm suprised nobody told you to get a Core 2 Duo for them. Really soon now we'll start seeing people recommending quad core for someone's grandmother for her to more efficiently email her grandchildren.

Now, some have posted links with cheaper pricing which includes a dual core. That may be worthwhile - same price, higher specs?

Originally posted by: DrMrLordX
Seems like Dell wants to stick you with the faster processor and insufficient RAM just to force you into paying for a RAM upgrade.

Exactly! I was looking at notebooks with a friend because he was thinking of buying one, and with various companies (including Dell of course) the price difference from 1GB to 2GB was always over $200. Newegg sells the whole 2GB for under that price. I told him to not buy the RAM from the manufacturer, but instead save money and upgrade it himself - will save money even if he tosses the original 1GB into the trash!

 

[A554SS1N]

Am I the only one who thinks that for general web use a dualcore PC is madness? A sempron 3400+ will be fine and easily fast enough for basic office tasks. What the hell are you lot on? Why does everything have to be over the top powerful? lol crazy....

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Originally posted by: A554SS1N
Am I the only one who thinks that for general web use a dualcore PC is madness? A sempron 3400+ will be fine and easily fast enough for basic office tasks. What the hell are you lot on? Why does everything have to be over the top powerful? lol crazy....

I don't see anyone saying they need a dual core, just pointing out that you can get a dual core + 1gb ram, larger hdd and better optical drive for the same price as the 3400+ system.

But since they don't need that much power and are surely too old and lame to ever learn something new or advance past basic web surfing they should buy the inferior system for the same price.

I'm guessing I'm in the same age group as the OP's elderly parents, so I should ditch my C2D and X2 boxes, trade my highend GPU's and overclocking ram for 512mb of PC2100 and onboard graphics.

This thread makes me glad my teenage son is not in charge of picking my computer hardware

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: GuitarDaddy
I don't see anyone saying they need a dual core, just pointing out that you can get a dual core + 1gb ram, larger hdd and better optical drive for the same price as the 3400+ system.

Sure, for the same price get the better system. That's just being a prudent consumer. However, the first few posts that recommended a dual core did not mention "for the same price."

 

[BladeVenom]

Originally posted by: A554SS1N
Am I the only one who thinks that for general web use a dualcore PC is madness? A sempron 3400+ will be fine and easily fast enough for basic office tasks. What the hell are you lot on? Why does everything have to be over the top powerful? lol crazy....

I think upgrading to a Sempron 3400 is madness. When you upgrade you should get something noticeably better, or it's a waste to upgrade. Look at the benchmarks, and tell me what's the point of going from a 2.8 P4 to a Sempron 3400.

 

[Zap]

Re-reading the OP, the parents have a P3-900 and a P4 2.8GHz. It's sounding as if they want to replace the P3 system with the Sempron, not replace the P4 with the Sempron.

Also, looking at the stuff again it seems as if a more expensive Dell system was choosen because of the smaller form factor.

 

[BladeVenom]

Oops. I must have missed that.

 

[justly]

For a home-office PC haveing a responsive system is usually more important than actual processing power. The Sempron should be more responsive than either of the other systems they have due to the low memory latency provided by the integrated memory controller.

One thing to remember though is that first and formost they need to have enough memory to avoid using the hard drive as a page/swap file.

The Sempron should be fine, its not a processing power house, but it sounds like it should be plenty powerfull for your parents needs.

 

[DoodieBody]

As mentioned by pretty much everyone in here and as a computer tech that sees this everyday...for the love of all that is good, get at least 1 gig of RAM. Buy them another gig next Christmas From what I've seen, Vista needs 1 gig to function decently and 2 is going to be recommended.