I ordered this awhile back

Dell Dimension E521

305 Watt PSU
Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (2.00GHz, 512Kx2)
Integrated 10/100 network interface
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
1GB DDR2 SDRAM @ 533MHz
160GB SATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM)
256MB nVidia GeForce 7300LE TurboCache
16X DVD+/-RW Drive
USB Keyboard & Mouse (Optical)
A525 30 Watt 2.1 Stereo Speakers with Subwoofer
Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 with Re-installation CD
Microsoft Works 8.5
1 Year Limited Warranty

PCI - 2 Slots
PCIe x1 - 1 Slot
PCIe x16 - 1 Slot

Sub-Total $609.00
Shipping FREE
Tax $40.29
Total Price $649.29

I can tell you all that it runs Unreal Tournament 2004 fine, it's perfect on the highest settings.

It runs F.E.A.R. but not that well, I must turn most everything off.

It runs Oblivion, and no matter what I turn off it is basically the same throughout (jittery but not terribly so).

Considering this came with a 300 Watt PSU and I would need 150 to purchase a compatible supply from PC Power & Cooling I find it's not a poor investment if you finance it, but building is still the best option.

My suggestion to anyone is that if you are willing to buy a new PSU and then change it with the one inside this it would certainly take a kick ass videocard.

I may do that, also I might just buy an XBOX 360 since 150 (PSU) + 200 (videocard) = XBOX :-P

So yeah, it's kinda cool though the thing flies otherwise.

Why dont you raid the hdd's?

What would be the point of that, it can't possibly do anything more to my PC. I mean RAID is just a fancy way of sharing more then 1 HD as a single unit right? Kinda silly!

Well, trying to figure out why you are dropping frames. But on the other hand it could be your CPU that cannot process the data fast enough not the HD being able to sustain the data rate.

RAIDed drives are more robust and can sustain data rates better, also your OS may not be the best choice as a matter of fact you may be better off running XP Pro.

Download Tune-Up utilities 2006, it does alot of cool stuff but also is good for easily killing processes and start-up items.

How about if you manually stop services one by one, still drop frames?

Me sleepy, you tell me of dropping frames :O Me didn't think there was a name for it LOL.

What I really mean is it runs, just somewhat slowly and sometimes in action scenes skips around (for Oblivion). I'm not sure there is anything to fix except getting a better vidcard, I did an analysis with a psucalculator and found I could upgrade to an ATI x1600 Pro without needing a new PSU.

Rather than dropping cash, John is suggesting you optimize your settings.

Your computer should run those games fine. It's remarkable that you got a computer with one of those dual core Athlon 64 processors for so cheap.

Here are a few tips that might help speed things up a bit
- make sure Windows is up to date
- make sure your graphics card drivers are up to date (go to the nvidia website for that)
- make sure you have the latest DirectX drivers
- make sure your hard drive is defragmented
- make sure your hard drive isn't cluttered with viruses and spam

If you've done all of that and it's still running shitty, I can recommend a piece of free software for graphics card acceleration. It's called Powerstrip. Try googling for it. Just make sure not to overclock it too much--it can potentially shorten the life of your videocard or even cook it. Use it with caution.

Of course, I wouldn't expect a computer that inexpensive to run those games (FEAR and Oblivion) perfectly on the highest settings... but they really should run decent on a machine of those specs anyway.

I hope some of that information will be useful. Good luck!

Me sleepy, you tell me of dropping frames :O Me didn't think there was a name for it LOL.

What I really mean is it runs, just somewhat slowly and sometimes in action scenes skips around (for Oblivion). I'm not sure there is anything to fix except getting a better vidcard, I did an analysis with a psucalculator and found I could upgrade to an ATI x1600 Pro without needing a new PSU.

Like the post above mine states, turn off the "in-game" stuff you dont need, kil all os relatede processes you dont need (networking is a killer). dont use overclocking stuff and keep your video card :).

The main point is to determine if the dropped fromes\glitches are CPU related, 'cause it's all about clock speed :)

RAID arrays can be configured for Asyncronous sharing of drives, simply put the files on the drives are "dealt" like a card dealer in turn to each drive, piece by piece.

This does mean however that a percentage of your drives is used to remember where the blocks are locationed in relationship to one another (You can imagine "Defrag" isn't necessarily Defragging if you looked at just one drive)

I lose 4.6875% (15Gb) of my 320Gb RAID array just on blocks for this.

However the benefits of RAID are pretty much down to the number of Read/Writes you can deal with over a normal single drive, since you have more Cylinders, Heads and two RPM's dealing with file transfers. Caching for Animation, Gaming, Media stream etc is all alot faster (The main reason why RAID arrays are mounted on Servers)

Stryder and John make valid points about RAID.

However the 7300LE video card has a 64-bit memory width. I believe the 128-bit vid cards are best for gaming. Hence why the Dell machine wasn't more expensive.

However the 7300LE video card has a 64-bit memory width. I believe the 128-bit vid cards are best for gaming. Hence why the Dell machine wasn't more expensive.

For him to benefit from a different video card he would need to go completely high end (whatever that may be). But the problem is that PCIe2 or something like it will be out before you know it.

Also, it looks like this (PCIe x1 - 1 Slot ~ PCIe x16 - 1 Slot) means he can use SLI which i have never used myself, mainly because it only affect's full screen apps (games).

Not really "completely high end" John99, just a 128bit card would be fine. Eg budget about 150USD for a Radeon x1600 series card. Not saying the RAID will be ineffectual, but a 64-bit vid card simply does not have the drive for F.E.A.R. and the like.