This ? not the pentium/celeron re Dell Dimension

TOB9595

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I should've asked this inside the Pentium Celeron difference post which is here /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon23.gif

Anyone deal with the bare bones systems before

I suspect it will fly by my p3 900 n speed /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

I'm concerned about the shared ram. What's this?
What's this
Dell has a great price of $349:
Celeron® Processor at 2.20GHz with 400MHz front side bus
256MB Shared DDR SDRAM at 333MHz
integrated video and audio
No Monitor she has a nice one
no floppy I can install all hardware and software
no burner They're cheap, even free after rebates
win xp /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif I'd wipe to win 2k so she doesn't get used to xp
shipping extra
1 year warranty

I guess I'm ok with the celeron
I will ask what the power supply is on this?
I'll change the os to win 2k upon arrival /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
What's gives with the shared ram?
I've had good experience with dell MOSTLY
BUT if you know of a better deal, I'm all for it.
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/help.gif
Tom
 

raggie33

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ya video card and system emeroy arte shared i mean that ya video card uses a portion of ya system memeroy
 

kakster

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Yup, your video chip will steal ram from the main system ram.Say 64 megs is allocated to the video chip, this means the system will only have 192 megs to play with. Usually, you can adjust the amount in the bios.
 

_mike_

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Re: This ? not the pentium/celeron re Dell Dimensi

The above answers are correct.....some of your memory is used for your video.This is because you do not have a separate video card....saves Dell money doing it that way. It's not necessarily a bad thing unless you plan on doing some hardcare gaming. General computer use it will work fine.
Some barebones systems are not easily upgraded because of the motherboard. Basically make sure you have at least an extra PCI slot and an AGP slot if you decide to upgrade.

Be warned that Dell does NOT use a normal pin-out for it's ATX power supplies. If you get a Dell, only order a power supply from them or look into adapters. Here is a link describing the power supply issue....
http://www.upgradingandrepairingpcs.com/articles/upgrade3_01_01.asp
Here is another link...
http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/dellconverter.html

Also, here's a link that might help answer even more questions....
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/

Good luck,
mike
 

John N

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Re: This ? not the pentium/celeron re Dell Dimensi

I don't think anyone pointed it out specifically, but Mike implies it in his response - typically shared system/video memory is slower than normal, dedicated video memory. As Mike points out this isn't really an issue unless you are doing something that needs very fast video. For most applications you probably won't notice.

Is this a good deal? Yes and no. On one hand, you can get a system (slightly) cheaper. On the other hand, it's a very reasonable computer with Windows license for 350 bucks with a warranty from a company that isn't going out of business tomorrow. I'd call that a good deal.

-john
 

TOB9595

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Re: This ? not the pentium/celeron re Dell Dimensi

Yes, If I had the $400 sitting around lookin for a place. I'd buy the bare bones after finding out about the open slots bays etc.
Tho for less than $150 more, you get a cd burner, more ram, a 17 monitor, 2 year warranty, free ship
Oh to be wealthy
I'd need a bigger house /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
Tom
 
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