Be Excellent To Each Other

I've seen this PC on eBay and since I no longer know anything about PCs, I thought I'd ask you guys here what you thought. Surely it's too good to be true? And it's eBay!!

I've checked through the recommendations y'all gave to ComicalGnomes the other week and... well... I'm still a bit lost to be honest.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/PD-6-0GHZ-DUAL-CORE-500GB-HDD-2GB-DDR2-DVDRW-8500GT-1GB_W0QQitemZ120298694251QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item120298694251&_trkparms=72%3A985|39%3A1|66%3A2|65%3A12|240%3A1308&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

What do you reckon? Please... be gentle.

I remember the good old days.. a friend of mine had a couple of P600 processors off the back of a lorry so we bodged our way to putting them in PCs!! Good times!

Have you read the item specifics in the description box? The processor is 6.000Mhz and it has 2.000Mb of RAM. It sounds like you're buying some kind of fucked up XT-based machine.

Well it certainly looks nice enough, but all that for £190 + postage? I can't see how that's possible.

It's a pentium D. Avoid avoid avoid.

They've called it 6GHz because it's a dual core 3.0GHz chip. A shitty, shitty chip.

I figured that was a typo on their behalf.. but that's just one of the things (along with the price and it being on eBay) that makes my alarm bells ring.

As for what you said about XT... I have no clue to what this means, but it does sound technical!

is what I thought.. So Pentium D is no good? I thought it would be.. I don't know why, I just figured they'd ran out of numbers by now and moved on to letters.

The 6Ghz in the title is a typo or (more likely) the result of the seller rather dishonestly adding together 3Ghz x 2 cores as 6Ghz. Either way, this stupidity combined with the fact that the rest of the components seem to have been selected from the bottom of the bargain bin in Maplins has kept bidding down.

Are you completely fucking mad? Buying a PC off ebay?

Or to put it another way, not it's not a great deal, the Pentium D is a horrid, horrid processor with a heat footprint slightly west of "The sun" and that PC could be built for about 2/3rds that price and you'd have warranties worthy of the name.



That's precisely what it is.

They stoped using Pentium a long time ago, both the core Duo ranges are a generation or more newer than that. The Pentium D is literally 2 Pentium 4s taped together.

Or to put it another way, the cheapest Core 2 Duo you can buy, at 1.8ghz, will stop that chip into the ground. Hard.

They predate the Core 2. They have a horrid architecture which means they share a pipe to the northbridge, due to being 2 single-core chips on a single die. They draw tons of power and run hotter than hell.

But apart from all that, it's a good machine.... right?

Well, I guess I'm back to the drawing board then! I've no doubt I'll be back with more PC musings. I might just buy what Dudley suggested for ComicalGnomes when I can afford it.

What these people said. I never buy off eBay simply because there's much less comeback against a person than there is against, say, ebuyer.

Well, a budget you say... I was looking at that PC on eBay because it was £200, I don't have much money I'm afraid (sniff) but I think I could stretch to £250. I already have drives and things off this PC (perhaps a new internal hardrive would be nice though) and I have 1gb of DDR RAM already if that helps? I'm guessing that it's not very good though.

Stuff like internal DVD writers and things could be added at a later date.

If you'd like to suggest something then that would be fantastic! I love having you guys around.. you know so much!!

I can also get in quite a bit of trouble with the missus when we need a new kitchen window so let's keep this under our hats!

Seriously, the Pentium D is awful. I could probably (as aceaceaceaceaceace says spec you something quicker with a base C2D for a very similar price that'd run cooler and faster).

In fact, let me...

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/125082 - Asus motherboard - £53.30
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135668 - Core 2 Duo E4600 (2x2.4ghz, massively quicker than that PD) - £74.30
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/129954 - 2gb of Kingston RAM - £26

So that's £150. There are Core 2 design processors in the Celeron range as low as £30, a cheaper mobo is possible too but I *know* that one is good.

As an upgrade kit for your current PC that's nice, if we chose the cheaper CPU we could certainly match the £200 for that thing in a much more pleasant way.

Man, I could reuse my old case and 500W PSU and if I put a £100 on a graphics card on top of that spec I'd be able to run EVE really sweet... STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT.

If you don't want to build it...
The Dell flyer that came through the post today has a special offer on..

VOSTRO 200 system:

Intel E2180 Core 2 Duo 2Ghz processor
2Gb ram
250GB SATA HD
Intel Graphics 3100
16x DVD +/-RW
Vista home premium
1 year warranty

All for £150 plus Vat. They've actually got cheaper ones too.

Worth a look maybe. E-Value code DMUK-D092004. Dell stuff does tend to work properly and lasts a while too.

Dell can fuck right off. They mine details from companies house and then fucking well spam you with no warning. I've never had any consumer dealings with Dell yet they persist in sending me special cunting business offers directed to my business.

Indeed, that config would support a 9600GT very nicely. If you need more ram in future, the board has 2 spare mem slots still, so you could still get 6gb.

That Dell is a workable office workhorse PC. Never expect to upgrade it, don't even expect to add a hard drive, they cut things fine with PSUs and certainly don't expect to run a game made this millennium.

Fair points, although I'm certain you can add an extra HD (if you actually wanted to) as the ones at work have the same case and some have a Raid setup.

What's this going to be used for, TheVision?

Oh it may WORK but ultimately you are putting strain on a PSU it's probably not really specced for. If it's a business who the fuck cares you'll replace the fucker at 3 years anyway or whenever it dies. A personal PC? More of an issue.

If you're confident getting your hands dirty, that chip is an overclocker's dream, too.

it is gay

Your gay.

Again though, probably not something I'd want to do with a Dell

Nice.

Your gay willy?

Wow... You're opening my eyes to a new world of PC upgrading. I wish I knew what all the numbers meant!

Thanks loads.. I'll be taking a look at my finances and seeing what I can afford. I might also go for a new case and PSU while I'm there, I want the thing to look new too I guess.