Sapphire 9800XT problem ;(

[JasperDK]

Its through my work that om offered a DELL pc for much less than they normally charge and they pay a quarter of the price.

I think the offer is ok.

Normally I have build my own - but not this time - I'm going to take a leap of faith and choose the desktop ..... i think

 

[Pinchy]

Go the laptop,

Take my word for it (and most people on this forum will agree), the reason dell are crap for desktops is that they put in parts that are totally untouchable. You cant OC, you cant upgrade, you cant do much. It may look like a good deal now, but later on when you want to put something else in and you realise that you cant, you'll regret it

Dell laptops on the other hand are good, b/c you arent really going to upgrade them or OC em.

EDIT - does your work give you discounted DELL PC's and laptops or just PC's?

 

[JasperDK]

its the same price for both the configurations and in the pc is also incl. a 20" TFT, mouse MX1000 and a keyboard.

 

[Pinchy]

If it wasnt for the 20" TFT, id say laptop straight away.

I guess it really depends, if you want to move it around, get the laptop. If your 100% sure your not gonna upgrade and dont think you will move much, go the desktop.

Graphics wise, the 7900GS and 7900GS Go are pretty much the same. The only diff is clock speeds (which is suprising, normally GO cards have disabled pipes as well)

The only thing the PC has in for it is really the CPU and 20" TFT...and i dont think you will be able to OC the cpu...

 

[JasperDK]

Im not sure at all if im gonna upgrade in the future - havent done it on the one i have now.

Im thinking of the desktop for performance - I play some pc games (Titan Quest, CS:S, waiting for C&C3 nad the likes) - but it would be fun to take the laptop with me on holidays or get WLAN at home and surf from the sofa

 

[Pinchy]

but it would be fun to take the laptop with me on holidays or get WLAN at home and surf from the sofa

Thats whats so great about laptops

BTW, those games will play almost as well on the laptop as they will on the desktop. Id say you mite lose 10-20FPS in a game like CS:Source between those two rigs...not much when you will be sitting on around 100

I play CS:Source on my bros laptop...Dell 9300 with a 256mb 6800GO, runs at 70 FPS constant with maxed out graphics

 

[JasperDK]

So you would clearly recommend that i pick the laptop ?

 

[dino25]

did you try to clean it..from dust..it could be overheating..

 

[JasperDK]

Yeah I have try'ed cleaning it but it didnt help ;(

 

[Pinchy]

Id recommend the laptop, just b/c of the convenience of being able to move it and the WLAN. The only thing i like about that desktop is the 20" TFT, but thats not that great.

CPU - The desktop CPU is better than the laptops, but not enough to bottleneck games and stuff (and i dont think you will be able to OC the CPU on the desktop)
RAM - Same
GPU - The graphics are almost exactly the same, so i wouldnt worry about that
HDD - Depends....would u use more than 80GB?

 

[tkpenalty]

Dells suck for desktops, BUT their laptops are great.

 

[Pinchy]

I guess if laptops were as customisable as PC's, Dell laptops would suck

The only real reason Dell suck for PC's is the hardship you have to go through to upgrade em, and the lack of overclockability

 

[Joshmcmillan]

I also hate dell but my brother has this one Pentium 4 2.0GHZ Northwood that seems like it's just as upgradable as any other pc. I really hate the old dell pentium 2/3 etc... and the flat non tower ones. But there mostly only in companies and skools etc...

 

[Pinchy]

In my experience, they have been really bad when it comes time to upgrade em

 

[JasperDK]

All this bad ecperince with upgrading Dell desktops is that something that lies many years back or is it reasonably new ? - and what was so bad about it ?

I have always had deaktop pc's but it sounds like maybe its time to go laptop im just not sure if its powerfull enough ....

 

[Pinchy]

That laptop is pretty damn powerful

I havent worked with any "recent" Dell's, but ive heard stories.

The problems ive faced are:

Lack of room in case
Un-changeable PSU
Motherboards dont support a lot of stuff

AND Dell use crappy parts in their desktops, from what i hear

BUT, ive only worked with older ones, havent touched a new one yet (people dont wanna void their warranty )