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General discussion

Help....

Apr 23, 2005 6:00AM PDT

I might be buying this from costco this weekend, am I paying too much:

Dell 4700 P4 540 3.2GHz
512MB, 160GB
DVD+/-RW,DVD
19" LCD
XP Home/Works Suite
128MB PCI Express? x16 ATI Radeon? X300 SE
3 Year Warrant

Protect your investment:


Includes three years Limited Warranty1 and Dell's At-Home Service2. Dell has won more service and support awards than any other PC manufacturer in the last 6 years.

Processor & Memory:

Intel

Discussion is locked

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RE:
Apr 23, 2005 6:10AM PDT

I'm sorry, but what's the total price? From the looks of it, it's pretty good. But i would've gotten a 64-bit capable 8400 instead or if you have the money a Dell XPS GEN 5.
Roger

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RE
Apr 23, 2005 6:26AM PDT

$1199.99 plus tax

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Bad news
Apr 23, 2005 7:03AM PDT

Everything on there's great, but you lack a firewire port on the pc. The dells don't have a firewire port as standard equipment, you need an additional adapter. THe only dell with one at costco, is the xps which cost $2400 and that's only because it came with a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS, and not the adapter. For some reason, the costco folks didn't want to fork over an additional $25 for an adapter. I think if you want to install an adapter, you're going to open the case, which may void your WARRANTY, which you paid for. I'd go to costco and ask them whether opening the case and installing a firewire card would void your warranty, if yes, don't buy the computer unless you do plan to use a firewire port which is used to import/export video from camcorders, external hard drives/ disk drives.
Roger

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Re: Computer at Costco
Apr 23, 2005 7:53AM PDT

Price seem reasonable. Buying from Dell the exact same components comes to $1306. Buying the 8400 from Dell which has a larger case, more L2 cache.....2MB instead of 1MB, and the 64-bit support technology, would come to around $1500 with the same components. That particulr Dell 540 Pent 4 4700 does have the 915G chipset, and like the 8400, has the new PCI-Express with x16 video card that can be upgradable

Demasta has a point about IEEE 1394 firewire and if it is ok to open the case to install an adapter without voiding the warranty.

Dell changes their on line prices and jumbles around what 'free' they are including just about every week, usually on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. Sometimes a low price deal comes up after waiting to find what you want for several weeks.

You can order the IEEE 1394 firewire adapter installed when ordering from Dell as a $30 extra on the 4700 and 8400.

I didn't know Dell authorized any store to sell their new computers as I thought they were online or phone orders only and computers are shipped to the customers.....hmmm.....guess I'm not up to date.