Dell Inspiron 6000 help customize it

Total budget $900 (total with +taxes and + shipping) or less

Plan to use for: games (age of empires III, age of empires II, Counter Strike (CS), Call of Duty, Sims 2), programs (photoshop 7 or lastest vesion, microsoft offices, dvdrip programs, maybe some audio or video convertor).

***I'm a low budget person (cheap person) ****

Now price: $789 + taxes ($55.xx)
Save $100 Intel® Pentium® M Processor 750 (1.86GHz/2MB Cache/533M [Included in Price]
(reg. Intel® Pentium® M Processor 740 (1.73GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB) )

512MB Shared DDR2 SDRAM 2 Dimms [Included in Price]
60GB 5400rpmHard Drive [Included in Price]
Free! 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer write capability add $0
Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 900 [Included in Price]

I'm not a graphic person, more worries in performances. I already did a few searches on this forum and google. And here are some questions:

** worry more about the performances, not graphic ***

So if I use 512MB Shared DDR2 SDRAM 2 Dimms with ATI MOBILITY™ RADEON® X300 64MB HyperMemory™ [$50] will that be better than 1GB Shared DDR2 SDRAM 2 Dimms [add $100] with Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 900 [Included in Price] (performances of 32 MB - 128 MB shared memory) ?

from ATI website***
X300 64MB HyperMemory, if the 64 MB is used up, it will use the shared memory (512 RAM).

X300 128MB does not. But cost too much for me.

But if I use the 1Gb RAm with Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 900, the advantage will be with programs ruuning with 1GB rather than 512 MB. For games the Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 900 (32 MB - 128 MB shared memory) I afraid that the performances will be bad.

For the RAM cheap, many report saying newegg is cheaper than dell.com. But if you calculate again with shipping + handling + taxes = cost almost the same price.

I was thinking wait til after christmas sales/new year sales. Maybe it will be cheaper?

Question for Dell Inspiron 6000 owner, if I use my Dell Inspiron 6000 for 4 + hours will it be really hot? My average uses is 4 -8 hours. Any report on overheat that causes melt or physical damage on the computer? verheat:

Thanks in advance for any helps/ideas/comments.
:budget: :budget:

 

Here's a system I configured on Dell just now

If your budget is $900, go for the $500 off over $1500, then stack a $100 off coupon on top of that. I've got one if you like.

 

honestly if i had to choose between more Ram and a better video card i'd go with more Ram. Ram + CPU + HD make the holy triangle for me

the only combination that is worth considering is one of the following:

1. 1gb ram + the 128mb card (which will put you over your budget obviously)
2. 1gb ram + integrated card

in my opinion the 64mb hypermemory card is not that "uber" to sacrifce the Ram for.

 

can i get that $100 off coupon rdiver please?

im buying a laptop in 1-2 days for my father , wouldnt mind save some more

 

$100 off $1500 or more Inspiron

Stacks nicely with the $500 off for a total of $600 off

$QB$6VR372KF45

 

nice thanks

 

I would suggest the video card update. Very few programs will require more than 512 MB of RAM (I'm still pretty much fine with 256 in my desktop). More importantly, the video card is permanent; there is no upgrading it in a year. With the RAM, you can upgrade it any time.

Howie

 

Yes, i agree, upgrade the video card to as much as you can, then buy the RAM after you get it. Dell kills you in RAM prices and you can get a lot cheaper if you buy from Newegg. But that is if you are wanting to put it in yourself which i must say is fairly easy.

Nick

 

Personally I would buy the smallest ram from dell you can get and go on newegg to get at least 1gb of ram. Running any virtual os (like Windows) with less than a reasonable amount of ram causes alot of page faults (you see the disk light on for no apparent reason) Adding ram reduces this. You can see this effect by simply timing the amount of time it takes to boot a system with 256, 512 and 1gb. Windows also will use the extra ram as a cache for the hard drive meaning that if you read the same thing over and over again it is already in memory so for instance notepad, save close, some other program, close , notepad again you will notice it just pops on.

If you are going to do anything where the screen is active then I would agree with the video card otherwise I don't think you will be able to tell the difference.

 

all the $500 off coupons are over (expired). The newest one

thanks for the coupon rdiver, I'll try to see if I can work a way to get budget $900 - $1000.

About the video card and memory, I have think over and I 've decided to go 1GB RAM memory with 128 MB video card, so the price around $900 - $1000 w/ coupons.

Now only left is the $500 coupon with rdriver coupon $100 and a system of [$1499 / ($1599)] - $600 = $800 + taxes + other fee = around $900.

Thanks for all the replies. If found or have any good coupons, please share (you can always PM me ). I really needed.

 

The Dell Coupon tab at the top of the page has the new $500 off, which expires on 1/11 or 4000 uses.

 

Many thanks for the help.

 

If you plan to play games, the 128MB X300 will work, bu it is far from being the best card, and will prevent you from having a very enjoyable experience - especially in the newest games.

Check out the Compaq V4000t - for under $1,000, you can get a 128MB X700 (about three times faster than the X300) and a Pentium M.

If you have to get the Dell, then I would take the CPU down to a 1.73GHz (740), keep the hard drive, get the minimum amount of RAM, and then upgrade it yourself aftermarket as mentioned earlier. Be sure to use those coupons.

Cheers,