New (5th) PC ..

[Tantalus]

Bought a new PC yesterday on a pure whim: was passing ALDI's of all places and saw them advertised - good looking spec, so I bought one..

 

Have a look at this:

 

Intel Pentium D Dual Core CPU 830 at 3.0 GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 800 MHz FSB.

Includes Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition SP2.

Extreme Low Noise BTX case, Heat-Pipe Coolers and quiet fans.

1024 MB DDR2 SDRAM 533 MHz 64 Bit dual channel memory.

250GB SATA 8MB cache 7200rpm HDD.

x3 Dual TV tuners installed:

2x DVB-S digital satellite. 2x DVB-T digital TV. 2x analogue TV/ cable TV.

PCIE x16 NVIDIA® GeForceT 6700 XL 128MB 525Mhz GDDR3 GPU.

Sony 16x Dual Layer (Litescribe) Multi-standard DVD/CD burner.

16x DVD-ROM.

Wireless LAN @ 54Mbit/s.

Integrated 8in1 USB 2.0 card reader.

6x USB 2.0 ports.

2x FireWire (IEEE 1394).

8 Intel® High Definition Audio.

V.90 PCI data fax modem.

10/100 Mbit/s LAN.

 

Also dual-boots, either into Windows XP or into a Linux based utility called PowerCinema - which acts as a media center for audio/video/slides etc etc.. :cool:

 

Also bought one of their external 250GB HDD's. which sits in a bay on top of the case and plugs directly into the case! Cool or what! :cool:

 

Anyway - I think the wife will love it.. and you can give it the once over yourselves here:

 

http://www.medion.co.uk/flash/md8800/

 

honestly, it's not a bad machine at all - and it really is QUIET - you can't even tell it's on; which has pleased the missus coz my last build sounded like a hairdryer with all the fans I installed..

 

Those efficient germans seem to have done it again..

[Guest Mortarion]

AAAArgh a medion yr ****ed mate.

2 to 1 the digitl tune wont work.

We had some fun with those things here.

Some of m run with no troubles others,well ever seen a melted graphics card ???

 

 

btw heatpipe coolers are called new technology ??

[Tantalus]

I can only assume that the melted graphics card occurred in some spotty youths machine who was attempting to gain that extra frame on Doom3 or claw that extra point on 3DMark - I honestly don't see it happening in the wife's office, no matter how fast she types ..

 

For the money, component for component, I could not make one cheaper and given the included software package, 36 month warranty, free call-out service and on-site repairs it is an ideal 'out-of-the-box' solution.

 

I'm one of the first to normally say "Baah, make it yourself, it's cheaper and you get better components", but in this case the components themselves are not as budget as you would expect.

 

The BTX case could have been swapped for an ATX one to allow for the expansion that the motherboard caters for, but I honestly can't see the missus worrying about installing another 3 SATA drives so that she can configure RAID .

 

Here is a breakdown of the components:

Mainboard: MSI MS-7204 with the Intel 945P chipset.

PCIE Graphics: MSI OEM GeForce 6700XL (MSI MS-V035 with MS-4073 feature board). Note: 6700XL is based on 6600GT and clocked at around 525Mhz.

HDD = Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 250Gb SATA-II 8MB cache.

The DVD +/- R/W D/L Lightscribe = Sony DWQ31A.

The DVD ROM = Sony DDU1615.

RAM = 2 sticks of Swissbit (spectek) 512MB DDR2 PC-4300-4-4-4 @ 533MHz.

M/Bd has 1 PCI-E 16x, 1 PCI-E 1x (unused) and 2 PCI slots (1 unused).

 

Reviews for this re-release have so far been quite good:

 

PCPLUS Magazine

 

WhatPC? Magazine

 

Picture below shows fitted with optional 250GB external HDD in the units hot-swap bay..

 

Oh.. and if it gets me more sex then it's gotta be worth it!!

[Guest Mortarion]

That 250GB external HDD looks nice though