DELL recently had an offer that if you bought a Vostro 270 desktop, you could purchase another one for half-price. So I bought two systems each with an Intel i3-3220 3.3GHz processor, 4Gb memory and 500Gb hard disk plus Windows 8 Professional for just £400. Obviously, this offer isn't for everyone unless you have a friend who also wants a cheap, basic system. [It has since expired.]I expected DELL to cancel my order, but they arrived this morning. After installing Windows 8 (never a pleasant experience), I was pleased to discover that this was a fast, well-built system that just needed a good graphics card. I used a £50 Asus HD 6670 with 1Gb GDDR5 memory. This card does not require an extra power connection and with DELL's 300W quality power supply, I felt that this would be a good choice. Also the GDDR5 memory alleviates somewhat the HD6670's poor memory bandwidth. It is much faster than the commoner DDR3 versions.
This ends up as being a really good mid-range gaming system (Windows Experience 7.2, 5.9, 7.0, 7.0, 5.9) that is able to handle most modern games, even though you might have to lower the detail levels slightly. And all for just £250 including VAT and delivery! An obvious upgrade would be an SSD drive.
I challenge the DIY system builders to configure a better, faster system that includes Windows 8 and perhaps even the two years next day warranty.
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