View Full Version : Stapel needs help for purchasing a new monitor
My current 21" monitor gets out of focus every once in a while. Apart from that, my PC is a PIII 600 with 192 Mb.
How convinient that I can spend this month's bonus on a new PC! Before taxes!
Anyway: I have more than enough room and want a big screen.
On dell's website I see this:
Dell P1130 21" (19.8" VIS) UltraScan (+202.30 EUR)
Dell 172FPB 17" Entry FlatPanel (no DVI)
Dell 1703FP 17" FlatPanel (+142.80 EUR)
Dell 1901 FP 19" FlatPanel (+333.20 EUR)
Dell 2001 FP 20" FlatPanel (+630.70 EUR)
W1700 - 17" widescreen flat panel monitor and LCD TV (+320.11 EUR)
My Q: What does VIS mean?
Shabbaman
11-02-2004, 09:20
*blub*
*blub*
So, you're finally getting the robosuck?
Stapel, just ask LKendter what he thinks of Dell [tongue]
I have just had a nightmare with Dell too.
It took them one month to replace the broken laptop they delivered to me [mad3]
My Dell desktop never had a problem though...
digger760
11-02-2004, 09:58
quote:Originally posted by Skyfish
I have just had a nightmare with Dell too.
It took them one month to replace the broken laptop they delivered to me [mad3]
My Dell desktop never had a problem though...
[:o] it was broken!!! My Dell laptop is going just fine.
digger760
11-02-2004, 10:01
Why are you looking for Dell in particular?
See this thread for some reviews on displays
http://www.tomshardware.com/display/index.html
I'mt not gonna read through them for you but iirc, Samsung always gets good write ups.
I've been using Iiyama monitors for several years and I wouldn't change for the world.
They are especially good at larger monitors - for < 20" I would say go for Iiyama or possibly Sony, but over 20" definitely choose Iiyama if you can.
My 21" Iiyama at home is a beast - it has a .26 dot pitch in the center and .28 at the edges, which for a 21" is pretty good (they do .25 dot pitch now for 21"!!).
Oh, and VIS means 'visible', as in the visible viewing area - it is normally 1 or 2" smaller than the quoted size, so 21" visible is like a 22" monitor.
thanks all!
I have been working on a Dell latop for 3.5 years now. It still rocks!
Afaik, noone can compete with Dell's prices.
I have a CTX 19" monitor, bought it 6 years ago. Compared it too Iiyama and Philips monitors, this one was the best at the time, don't have a clue how they peform today. Iiyama is always a good choice, Philips makes nice monitors too. I would go into shops and take a look if I were you.
Personally I like the picture of old fashioned monitors much better than the flat panel ones. Better colors, no afterglow when images change quickly. But they do take a shitload of space and dont look as good as flatpanels do.
And my Dell desktop is performing admirably!
I have been a very happy Dell customer for years guys dont get me wrong...but its when things go wrong that you truely judge how good a company is, not when it goes right...
Wait till any of you buy 2.5K euros of gear for someone to then get a broken piece of shit delivered and then have to wait one month (actually more...) to get a replacement !
I'd love to see your faces :D
Especially when you have to spend a total of 8 hours with their incompetent under paid poor customer service guys because the computer is so fucked up you cant even acces BIOS so that they "cant log the problem in their system because they need to know what is broken"
[crazyeye]
ps : by the way when I got it back a note in the package said they had changed the following (get this) : CPU, Motherboard, vidoe card, screen, dvd combo, network card....and hard drive [eek]
How fucked up is that hu ?
[lol]
I recently got a P-IV HP desktop with a 17" flat screen from Best Buy for about $350 less than the not quite equivalent Dell box (mine also has an analog video and coaxial cable input). Of course this also works for me because I can drive to best buy.
HP is trying to steal market share from Sony in the home computer market (after haveing eaten compaq), and so have some good 'bang for your buck' deals going on.
quote:Originally posted by Skyfish
...but its when things go wrong that you truely judge how good a company is, not when it goes right...
Fully agree on that. Thats why you shouldnt get your broadband at UPC
The monitor problem was just solved. It appeared we have two 21" monitors here at the office, doing nothing. I just saved 700 euros......
Another Q:
A celeron processor is a lot cheaper than a pentium IV... 2.6 celeron instead of 2.6 Pentium saves 100 euro.
Of course, the 100 euro (before taxes) is not really something to bother about. But paying money for nothing is not a hobby of mine.
I'd recommend Pentium over Celeron...but dont ask me why :D
I prefer AMD over Intel :D. For obvious reasons (cheaper and faster)
Shabbaman
12-02-2004, 12:32
AFAIK (so, for what it's worth), the pentium processors show their worth over the celeron (only?) when it comes to number crunching. When I bought my cpu, I looked a little bit into it (or better, had others look into it), and for the very specific application of system dynamic modelling, the pentium processor was the best. But then again, that was way back when my p3 was state of the art... so things might have changed.
Common knowledge (not something you want to base your purchase on) is that the celeron is the stripped version of the pentium. AMD's are supposed to be better than celerons, sometimes (I read until the development of the 2400 mhz processors or so) even better than pentiums. So, if you want to save money, go for the AMD.
btw, there has to be a similarty between system dynamic modelling and the number crunching of civ3.
Hmmm, this is exactly the advise I cannot use ;)
What the hell is AMD and what is Intel? The Dell webpage doesn't say anything on AMD....
I can choose from the following:
Intel® Celeron® Processor 2.4Ghz/ 128k Cache
Intel® Celeron® Processor 2.60Ghz/ 128k Cache (+35.70 EUR)
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 2.66GHz (+130.90 EUR)
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 2.80GHz/ 512kb cache (+190.40 EUR)
100 euro extra for 0.06Ghz seems rather lunatic to me.
60 euro extra for 0.14GHz is strange too.
BTW: this is excl. VAT.
quote:btw, there has to be a similarty between system dynamic modelling and the number crunching of civ3.
In English please?
Intel and AMD are the 2 main CPU/chipset manafacturers, and as such you have a choice over which one to go for. Motherbards are designed for one type of CPU only, there are several types of AMD CPU's and several Intel CPU's.
Celerons are the 'low-end' Intel CPU's, and Pentiums are the 'high end' Intel CPU's (currently Pentium 4). AMD have several types, and unlike Intel they tend to call each new chip a different name, so unlike the Pentium series you have to find out what the new one is (e.g. we know the next Intel CPU is Pentium5...).
As Shabba mentioned, AMD are comparable to Pentiums, and are definitely better than the equivalent Celerons. They also tend to be significantly cheaper than Pentiums (although this may have changed by now), and 'most' casual users (including myself) choose AMD over Intel for that reason.
Regarding your prices: Dell appear to be in bed with Intel if they aren't quoting AMD systems. If you really want to buy from Dell be prepared to pay the Intel surcharge. The Celerons are priced as expected, and the P4's are suitably more than that. The big jump in price from 2.66 to 2.8 is probably due to the huge extra you pay for the *very* top end stuff. In a couple of months at most you can expect the 2.8GHz to be +130 and the 3.0GHz to be +200.
As an aside - it is rarely worth paying the extra 40 or 50% in price for the extra 10 or 20% you can get out of a system. This applies especially to CPU's and graphics cards where the manafacturers are always advancing fast - the top end are extortionate, but 6 months later the top end systems are half the price to clear the shelves for the new models.
Intel and AMD are two different brands. Intel is the big dog in processors like Microsoft for Operating Systems. The combination is often referred to as Wintel (Windows/Intel). They own the market. AMD is relatively small but surprisingly it often has the lead regarding performance vs price. I believe that we now are again in such a period. That's why I bought an AMD PC.
EDIT: I've ownded 5 PC's since 1990 and 4 of them were AMD. Every time I bought the PC I bought (in my eyes) the better choice. Be aware that I am NOT a hardware specialist, but have plenty of them around ;)
I have a P4 2.66Ghz at home and a P4 3.06GHz at work = absolutely no difference (for Civ) so dont pay the overprice !
Having played Civ on the Celeron of the little cousin = DONT buy the Celeron, not good for Civ (or DVD watching i.e) !
Melifluous
12-02-2004, 13:32
quote:Originally posted by Skyfish
...DONT buy the Celeron, not good for Civ (or DVD watching i.e) !
I have a Celeron 1.5Ghz on my laptop and that runs civ fine and plays DVDs..
[crazyeye]
Melifluous
Civ runs fine on my PIII 600 - 192......
So, I guess I will buy the celeron and add a nice 1024 MBs of memory.
digger760
12-02-2004, 14:18
Can't resist but add my piece of techno bullshit:
Intel CPU's
Celeron
Pentium
the only difference is the L2 cache. It is much quicker for the CPU to store and retreive data in the L2 cache, than DDR-RAM. And Guess what the Celeron has less L2 cache (but this savs on power)
The end results is the Pentium can process quicker than the Celeron (when both have the same clock speed). The celeron consumes less power and requires less of a heatsink (and perhaps a slower fan)
AMD
Duron (i think they dont make duron anymore)
Athlon
Duron is the AMD equivalent to Celeron
Athlon is the AMD equivalent to Pentium
AMD chips have a slower clock speed, but have more L2 cache than the Intel equivalent CPU's. Because of the slower clock speed a 1.3Ghz Athlon CPU matches in perfomance a P4 1.6Ghz. AMD came up with a marketing scheme so that people would know how to compare products. So they name there Athlon CPU's as
AthlonXP 1600, 1700, 1800 and so on
the 1600 means its equivalent to a 1.6Ghz Pentium4 CPU
In General AMD CPU's and accociated motherboards are cheaper.
But it sounds like you want to stick with Dell so your stuck with Celeron or Pentium. Both will probably do ok for Civ but a pentium will mean quicker time between turns and quicker processing during larger maps.
digger760
Just to be in on the techie talk, our server bought last summer for testing has 2 Intel Xeon processors with (IIRC) 1Mb L2 chache and 512k of L3 cache! [:o]
digger760
12-02-2004, 15:07
Yea! i dont know too much about L3 cache, maybe its just with the server CPU's such as the Xeon.
The new Penitum-M (for laptops)(also known as Centrino when matched with Intels 855 chipset and pro-wirless card) has 1Mb L2 cache and apparently a 1.7Ghz pentium-M performs about the same as a 2.5Ghz P4, which only has 512Kb L2 cache.
WTF is L2 (or L3) cache? Do I need that? Is it worth 100 euros?
L2 cache is a small amount of storage (memory) that resides directly on the CPU itself. This does a lot of the work that would otherwise need to be done in the normal memory of your machine, and is very significant in reducing the time taken for certain CPU tasks.
L3 cache is yet another layer between the CPU and your normal memory, after the L2 cache and is only seen on *hugely* expensive chips, so I am sorry fo rconfusing the conversation with it. :(
As digger mentioned, the size of L2 cache is the only difference with Celerons and Pentiums, and you will notice the difference. The big question to ask is "Should I spend 'x' on a Pentium or a Celeron" - and to be honest, it depends on how much 'x' is. In your list the extra cost of a Pentium 4 is huge comparable to the Celeron, but this is mostly because you are at the high end of the market. If you were going to spend that much extra you should get a Celeron that is a lot faster, rather than a same speed Pentium. If you were looking at 1.5GHz chips (for example), the difference between Pentium and Celeron would be *much* smaller, and so the choice would be a different one.
I just ordered a P IV 2.8 Ghz with 1024 Mb [jumpD] .
I hope that will lead the ddpp Japanese to a great era in their history :). One-and-a-half week, then you're up! [party]
I still look forward to that Plux!
I expect the new pc to be there in 10 days..
[jumpD][jumpD][jumpD]
It has arrived!
[jumpD][jumpD][jumpD]
Congrats! Should be good for the Monster game! Can you give some more specs?
When can we expect the first "i've got this problem, how to resolve it"? ;)
If in doubt, reinstall the operating system...
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