My development PC (Dell Dimension 8100)

Member Name: andycharger

Product:	Dell Dimension 8100
Date:	08/01/02 (2475 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice computers, Good tecnical service

Disadvantages: Expensive, Non standard parts

when you are running as much software as me, to provide as many different IT solutions as I have to, you need a PC that can do many things at once.
So you need a PC that cope with the high demands put on it and know it is not going to fail you at a critical time.
You are going to need plenty of RAM for running these applications and multitasking and lots of Processor power to give the whole operation a big brain to work it out with.
So who do you turn to?
Well, Dell are always my choice. Yes they are expensive but they supply a product that is second to none from the factory.

So what are you getting for your money?
Externally, you are getting the following:
Keyboard,Mouse,PC Desktop Tower and a Monitor.
Dont know where the speakers are that the picture shows.
It all comes in a rather odd looking Black/grey plastic too which can be a bit offputting. Not the Tan colour shown in the picture.
Everything is much more slimline than my old Dell too. Technology sure is getting small.
The 17 inch monitor that comes with the package has a much smaller chassis than before. Sitting my old monitor next to my new one makes the new one look like a 15 inch Monitor body with a 17 inch screen.
This is good as it takes up less room and it weighs significantly less too.
The mouse has changed from my Microsoft Ergonomically shaped one to an older looking traditional mouse, again in its black/grey livery. It now has DELL plastered across the back of it too. Very ugly.
The keyboard is now much more slimline.
Dell normally supply huge ugly keyboards but this is now a big improvement. It comes in its matching colours to blend in with the monitor, tower and mouse.

The tower is now a flat desktop box. It is much smaller than before. When I say smaller, I mean it is flatter than older models. So flat that it will not take expansion cards straight into the motherboard.Instead it has taken a backwards step in technology an
d opted for a riser board.
To explain this, take a look inside your PC. The Motherboard is what everything else plugs into. Its the big square thing at the bottom of your PC. If you have a sound/graphics card or a modem, chances are they are plugged into the motherboard directly at a 90 degree angle. See them?
Well not with this new case. There is not enough height room to get one of these cards in at a 90 degree angle. Instead a riser card plugs into the motherboard at a 90 degree angle. Its not as tall as your normal cards and then the sound/grapics and modem car plug into this. They are then running parallel to the motherboard.
This is excess technology to put into your PC and just another thing to go wrong.
All of this to save space.
So now we are inside the PC we can take a closer look.
It posesses Pentium 4 technology. This is the latest on offer from Intel and looks to be the industry standard for at least the next couple of years. These processors go up to over 2 gig now and the one in this PC is rated at 1.7 Gigahertz! Plenty of processing power.
The chipset it sits on is the latest on offer too. Its the Intel 850 and offers you lightning performance around the motherboard.
It comes with 256Mb of ram too. This is ample for most home users and many in the office. There are 2 spare RAM slots though so you can boost it up to 738MB!

Operating system is up to you. Mine came with Windows 2000 as standard and it is superb. I have had no problems running my applications and the superior performance of the technology allows lightning quick results.
Technical help is always on hand. If I have a problem I can give them a call. When things have gone wrong with my old PC, they have had an engineer out within a couple of hours! Thats what I call service.

What I dont like about Dell is its non standard parts. It makes its cases so non dell motherboards will not fit. Bad move. If your machine is old, you find you cant o
rder the parts anymore. Bad move. If you can they are about 3 times the price of a non dell part. BAD MOVE!

All in all its a great system but its great while its new. Once its old and things go wrong, expect to pay big money to get it put right. Its not as if its cheap i nthe first place!

Summary: