Aldi's new PC

[mazzy1026]

I am thinking of getting this for my dad and wondered what you people may have thought of it? They bring one out every year and it is a monster.

http://uk.aldi.com/

It looks amazing, but what about the price? You dont get a montior with it. Any opinions from anyone who has one or who may have thought about it are much welcome!

Maz :ok:

p.s. I only have till Wednesday night to think about it as I will be in a que first thing on Thursday!!

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

mazzy1026,

It does not look bad, I would like to know which Vid Card, Hard Drive and RAM they are using though. It looks like the Audio and LAN are onboard and not PCI Cards.

Everything else seems pretty good. ;)

Take Care,

Richard

[mazzy1026]

Cheers Richard (as always) - I have the brochure at home so will post those details, which arent on the aldi site, tonight.

Perhaps if anyone knows of similar systems at the same price?

Cheers

Maz

[ORAC]

Review (http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.chip.de%2Fartikel%2Fc_artikel_1 2595482.html&langpair=de%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools). It is, apparently, a good spec but "outrageously loud".

Graphics card is a PCIe Nvidia Geforce 6610 XL, 128 MByte RAM (clocking chip/memory: 400/800 MHz), an OEM version of the 6600 with 8 pixel pipelines.

[mazzy1026]

Cheers ORAC. I dont think the noise level would be much of a problem to be honest, judging by the already high noise levels in our house :=

I bought Deus Ex 2 and Theif (Invisibe War) and they just wont run on our current machine, which I thought was a good spec (apparently not) - so I will look forward to being able to play them hopefully next week ;)

[HughMartin]

I see Aldi are claiming a Computer Active magazine "Readers Award". Don't see how they can do that as the machine is not available to the public yet. Computer Active did give a 5 star "Buy it" rating to a previous Aldi computer last year but they have only given this one 4 stars this year. Having said that, the only negative points they have come up is the fact it doesn't come with a monitor and its "limited availabilty"

I bought an Aldi laptop (made by Gericom) in the summer and I am chuffed to bits with it.

[Ausatco]

Mazzy,

That looks like a Medion MD8080. My friend has one, it's fabulous. Sure, you could build better (eh, Richard;) ), but Medion from Aldi is pretty much unbeatable value if you're not after the absolute best performance, just very good.

I have its smaller brother, an MD8008, bought about 18 months ago and am very satisfied.

I also have a Medion laptop, MD5400. Also very good.

AA

[mazzy1026]

Thanks all. I will definately be trying to get one on Thursday - if I dont get one, I will come crying back here :{

[Evo]

...and Richard will probably spec you a better machine for less money... ;) :)

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

mazzy1026,

I would also take a look at:

Mesh Computers (http://www.meshcomputers.com/updated/index.htm)

Take Care,

Richard

P.S. And as Evo mentioned, I would be happy to spec out a good gaming machine for you, if you like. ;)

[Engineer]

With regards to Mesh should look at this one (http://www.meshcomputers.com/updated/review_dec04_mat643500xbpc.htm) excellent specificationa at an affordable price which includes a 19 inch monitor unlike the aldi deal.

[mazzy1026]

They look very nice indeed - I have been thinking about the 'monitor' situation, in that with the Medion you dont get one.......hmmmm.......decisions :sad:

[Naples Air Center, Inc.]

Engineer,

That is a very good recommendation. :ok:

Take Care,

Richard

[spannersatcx]

or what about Carrera (http://www.carrerassc.co.uk/carrera_system2.asp?systemvar=b)

[mazzy1026]

As promised, I have come back to give an update. I bought Aldi's PC and gave it to my dad, and I must say it is thee dog's hairies. It is unbelievably powerful and runs everything to upmost perfection. I have a few games running on it and maximum settings, including MS Flight Sim 2004 - they all run smooth, fast and are immaculate in the graphics department.


Now then, with regards to the noise! When you first turn it on, it is quite noisy (the fan) for about 10 seconds, then it calms down and you cant really hear it at all. The beauty of it is, when you do somehting that may require a lot of processor power or HDD RPM, the fan kicks up again, to ensure maximum cooling. I suppose you could look at this in two ways, either as an annoyance, or as a clever way of keeping things cool :)

Got the 17 inch monitor too and the Medion 5.1 surround sound system (these are the extremely flat speakers) - they are awesome - and overall it is an amazing system.

What's most important is that my dad is completely made up with it all. So there you go, a nice shiny new family PC that runs like clockwork :D

Hope you all had a good Christmas, and have a great new year,

Lee :ok:

[Tone]

I was thinking of changing my monitor to a TFT or LCD. Aldi are offering a 17" LCD for £200 - from mazzy's comments it sounds good. Anyone else seen one? Is this a reasonable price / performance monitor?

[mazzy1026]

Hi Tone

We have had 2 of the monitors from Aldi now and they are fantatsic. Never had a problem with them at all, just plug and play. I think they get snapped off the shelf very quick so if you see one and you want it, grab it while you can!

Regards

Lee :ok:

[timmcat]

Tone I bought this week an 'Acer' 17" tft monitor from Comet at £169.99. They had plenty in stock and I'm more than happy with the quality (this from someone who is particularly fussy over image quality of any type). Always thought over the years that Acer make decent tackle priced very fairly.

Comet link (at the time of writing) here. (http://www.comet.co.uk/comet/html/cache/374_234010.html)

Manufacturer link here. (http://www.acer.co.uk/acereuro/page4.do?dau22.oid=5607&UserCtxParam=0&GroupCtxParam=0&dctx1=17&ctx1=UK&crc=35342768)