Wally selling desktop cheap - any good?

U

Uriah

Guest
Walmart is selling "Compaq CQ50-139WM. And it wasn’t a slouch in specs: a single-core Intel Celeron M processor running at 2 gigahertz, with 2 gigabytes of DDR2 RAM and 160-gigabyte hard drive."

Do you think it will play OFF well?
 
I don't claim to know much about these magic boxes, but what little I do, says stayaway, it's a Celeron CPU @ 2 Hhtz, that's bottom of the heap.

That's Below a PENTIUM IV
 
If you're a simmer, stay away from the celery processors. They don't have as much punch as the standard chips. Too many folks on other forums come by mad because the sim doesn't run good on their nice new rig, and afyer they post their specs, it's usually this, or a weak video card, or integrated video.
 
Naaa

The real problem with these sort of machines is they tend to be so 'intergrated' there's no flexability or extensibility. By which I mean there tend to be no, or too few expansion slots for video or sound cards or anything else.
While this 'entry' level machine would be just fine for someone not wanting much more than email from it, as soon as you mention the words graphics or games any ethical sales person is going to show you something else.
A Celeron by definition is Pentium without a maths co-processor, but a sim like cfs3.... is going to be doing lots of 'maths'.
To me there's not a lot of saving to be had going low end in cpu, ie the difference in price between a low end and high end cpu, maybe only $100-$200 or so. It's the video card(s) that are the expensive items in a new rig and can easily be worth more than the rest of the components combined.
 
Uriah said:
Walmart is selling "Compaq CQ50-139WM. And it wasn’t a slouch in specs: a single-core Intel Celeron M processor running at 2 gigahertz, with 2 gigabytes of DDR2 RAM and 160-gigabyte hard drive."

Do you think it will play OFF well?
Click to expand...

I am no computure expert, but to me this is 4 year old technology. I wouldn't bother unless they are practically giving them away.

I used to have a Celeron 1.7 machine (similar) and it would run OFF at low graphic settings. Even then it got choppy if there are many planes in the sky or when flying around airfields.
 
Hello Uriah,
this is quite old technology for a PC, and the Celeron proc. is one of the weakest in performance. I had OFF Phase 2 running on an AMD 3000+ with two Gb of Ram on an Asrock mainboard, and with an ATI 9600 Graphics card, and it worked - but there was stuttering above airfields, not a slide show but close. Any slower single proc. will probably not make you happy.
Cou can get much better PCs here in Germany for say 300 Euro (don't know exactly what this is in $$ ?), with a 2x2300 Intel dual core minimum and all you would like, so...
The most important thing apart from proc. speed is the internal clock Ram speed, and of course the graphic card. I take it in the PC you described this is even an onboard graphic chip stealing its Ram from the system memory.
Greetings,
Catfish
 
The other thing to remember too, is what you spend on afactory built rig, you can spend on better components and build a nicer rig, than you can buy. Just remember unless you want to spend a lot, stay away from the latest greatest parts. Get the parts that are about 6 months to year old, as you can save a bunch doing that.
 
Look before You Leap

It's a Laptop with intergrated video system, so forget the upgrades

Anytime you have the serial or model number, the Heck with what it says in the ad.

Do a GOOGLE Search on the unit itself. .:kilroy:
 
I've got around $700 in my rig, not including monitor and peripherals. I price a comparable "ready made" rig online for between $1100 and $1200. The components are not all new. The vid card and mobo are recertified, but warranted and come with all of the same software and accessories as the new ones. Now I've got a machine that will run just about anything I throw it's way and run it well.
APEVIA X-CRUISER-BK Black Steel ATX Mid Tower-ABIT IN9 32X-MAX - motherboard - ATX - nForce 680i SLI - LGA775 Socket-Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz 6MB L2 Cache-OCZ Platinum Revision 2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)-EVGANvidiaGeForce8800GTX768MbGDDR3-Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s-SAMSUNG Black2MB Cache SATA 22X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe-Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Interface Sound Card

Antec EA650 650W ATX12VSLI CertifiedPower Supply
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top