Dell Dimension 8400 Review
INTRODUCTION
Dell Computers do not sell through the shops. This cuts out middle men, and therefore lowers the cost of the PCs for us, the consumer. They do their business on-line, or over the telephone. You may have watched their commercials on television, which ... Read review
Installation in matched pairs of modules is required, please order quantity two. Dell ... more
Branded memory offered in the Memory Selector is fully compatible and supported by Dell. Memory offered now may differ in speed from the original system memory but
Postage & Packaging:see site for shipping costs Availability:3-7 days
Installation in matched pairs of modules is required, please order quantity two. Dell ... more
Branded memory offered in the Memory Selector is fully compatible and supported by Dell. Memory offered now may differ in speed from the original system memory but
Postage & Packaging:Free Delivery Availability:3-7 days
Installation in matched pairs of modules is required, please order quantity two. Dell ... more
Branded memory offered in the Memory Selector is fully compatible and supported by Dell. Memory offered now may differ in speed from the original system memory but
Postage & Packaging:see site for shipping costs Availability:3-7 days
Advantages: Well-Built, Cost Effective, Fast Machine Disadvantages: None
Dell Dimension 8400 Review
INTRODUCTION
Dell Computers do not sell through the shops. This cuts out middle men, and therefore lowers the cost of the PCs for us, the consumer. They do their business on-line, or over the telephone. You may have watched their commercials on television, which show you the fabulous deals.
Dell offers high quality equipment, at very low costs. In addition, they often have offers, ... ...components have been selected by Dell to work together seamlessly. This means that you should experience very few errors from your system.
Imagine a computer which has conflicting hardware. By this, I mean your CD ROM drive does not work properly with other components in your computer, and everything is just thrown in, and may not work well with the other items. This can cause crashes, and system errors. Fortunately, Dell’s computers ... more
Dell Dimension 8400 Review
INTRODUCTION
Dell Computers do not sell through the shops. This cuts out middle men, and therefore lowers the cost of the PCs for us, the consumer. They do their business on-line, or over the telephone. You may have watched their commercials on television, which show you the fabulous deals.
Dell offers high quality equipment, at very low costs. In addition, they often have offers, which offer you double memory, extra hard drive, or free printers, etc. Look out for these. Where possible, go for extra memory or hard drive, because those are invaluable.
I purchased the Dimension 8400 on-line last year, around September. The final purchase cost was £760, and that included my upgrade of the sound card to a Creative Soundblaster Audigy 2, and also I increased my monitor to 19”.
SPECS
The specifications of the PC I had delivered are as follows:
- Pentium 4 with HT Technology, 3GHz - 512MB Ram (They doubled it to 1024MB Ram with a free promotion) - Soundblaster Audigy 2 - 19” CRT Monitor - 160GB SATA Hard Drive - 128MB PCI-Express ATI RadeonTM X800 XT graphics card
It also arrived with the usual mouse, keyboard, and built in modem. A perfect machine, for a pretty wonderful price. Consider that the last computer I bought, from Evesham.com, was almost twice the price, for half the machine, and constantly crashed.
LOOKS
This machine is sexy. The black casing over the monitor and computer case is a delight to look at, and looks very classy on my desk. The keyboard and mouse are also black, to match this great look.
The mini tower is well-designed, and easy to access for upgrading. Some people do not find this to be true, but when I added a second hard drive, it was a piece of cake to remove the cover, and get my hands in there.
There is one expansion bay for another CD ROM drive, or similar device. The back of the case is colour coded, and has a vast array of plugs to fit everything in. Many USB ports (there are even two at the front), a Firewire port for devices that need lightening fast transfer speeds, and some other ones which I am sure will come in handy one day.
PERFORMANCE
This machine is configured to run smoothly. All the major components have been selected by Dell to work together seamlessly. This means that you should experience very few errors from your system.
Imagine a computer which has conflicting hardware. By this, I mean your CD ROM drive does not work properly with other components in your computer, and everything is just thrown in, and may not work well with the other items. This can cause crashes, and system errors. Fortunately, Dell’s computers are built with this in mind, making sure that everything works in perfect harmony.
I can report that this computer has not crashed once since I received it. That is the truth. It really has been a workhorse, dealing with demanding applications (for my projects I work on, I usually have three image editing programs running, along with many other demanding ones). The speed is never compromised, and I can easily run many programs at once without even a slight decrease in performance.
It runs everything well. You should never have any trouble with games, or applications. Every current game will run perfectly, and for many years to come, newly released games will run on this computer, as it is built for handling future technological advances. (For example, the HT Technology, which allows your computer to act like it has two separate processors, and in the future software will be able to take advantage of this, if they require very powerful machines. So with your Dell, you are safe!).
Start up time is so short, you would not believe it. From pressing ON, the system will boot up in under a minute. So you can get cracking on your Ciaoing, and other important business. Shutdown is a breeze, too.
GRAPHICS
The 128MB PCI-Express ATI RadeonTM X 800 XT graphics card runs super-smoothly and the graphics are unbelievably good. I tried some quite advanced 3D games on this machine, and was blown away by the quality and speed of the graphics. The card is fast, and will render 3D scenes wonderfully.
UPGRADE
This machine is well suited for the future. You can upgrade it easily, adding up to 4096 MB in memory, an extra hard drive, and many other things you may require in the future. This is excellent, which means the machine will last you for a very long time, and even when computing technology is more advanced, you can upgrade this machine to cope. I would say for the next five years minimum, you have a very up to date machine. After that, just keep doing simple upgrades.
CONCLUSION
I love my Dell Computer. There is not a single thing about it that I am unhappy about. The quality is the most important aspect. I know I have a top-notch machine which can last me in the future. It is very reliable, so I trust it with my essays for University. I also trust it with my important project files, and find it a dream to operate. The price was outstanding, and for £760, you cannot expect to find a better, more stable and fast machine than this. Performance wise, it is very fast, and can cope with all possible computing tasks you could ever need to undertake.
Dell is a first-rate company, and I highly recommend you try them out.
Advantages: cheap, can be made to own spec Disadvantages: design poor (e.g. front usb ports)
i have had my dell dimension 8400 since february 2005 which could be a trademark of dells supposed reliabilty rating. dell is good as it allows you to build your own spec computer over the phone if you wish not to order the internet. it is also good at prviding a good service at a reasonable pirce.
but there are a few problems. the design and the build quality of the machine is rubbish. since it is to be built by the customer its casing has to be ... ...to each other. dell dimension 8400 computers seem to have power lead problems as on rare occasions the computer refuses to turn on which can be very annoying for the user, instead of switching on the light turns amber. after researching it when i had this problem i was told to buy a new lead which i bought for 15 pounds. dells do have their problems but the fact that it can be built around you is a big pluss factor. i personally negotiated with the ...
divyeshp123 22.06.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Dell Dimension 8400
Advantages: Sppedy, good monitor and sound system, nice design Disadvantages: poor graphics card
The Dell Dimension 8400 is a great machine let down by the poor graphics card that comes as standard. The 250gb hard drive is fast and this is noticeable as early as in booting up the machine. 1 gigabyte of memory is provided, which is more than generous for most tasks.
The system also includes the soundblaster audigy 2 card, together with a 5.1 surround sound speaker system which works well for both games and movies. One minor point out here is ... ...paying a premium for the Dell brand. It does however include 3 year on site warranty and the machine is delivered and professionally installed. Be aware that delivery and installation are two seperate processes and there may be a delay of a few days between you receiving your machine and the installation taking place.
Overall a good machine, but one or two points prevent it from being a great one. ...
jon_f 07.01.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dell Dimension 8400
Advantages: Ease of ordering,good value ,pick your own configuration. Disadvantages: Build quality of case can be patchy.
I bought my Dell 8400 approx 12 months ago.This model is no longer sold by dell themselves and has been replaced by the 9150 model. If you are therefore buying second hand you should be able to get a good deal. Try to go for a higher spec model,mine has a 3.4Ghz intel processor which i find is quick enough for just about every need, especially if you can get 1 Gigbyte of Ram though there are generally empty slots to upgrade yourself.
The case is ... ...of space inside if you wish to change graphics cards ,drives etc.
Mine was supplied with an nvidia 6800 Gpu and is pretty good at playing all the games on the market at this time. As an example ,when i play Doom 3 i play on high settings and still get 40+ frames per second though you must shut down all open windows etc.
The Hard drive is a 250 GB maxtor and the DVD Rom and DVD CD Rewriter drives are easy to use and will probably have sonic record ...
toonboy61 24.03.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dell Dimension 8400
Advantages: Great value for money. Disadvantages: Only available off the Internet.
The Dell Dimension 8400 PC has loads going for it, I should know, I'm on one right now. This first thing to note about all Dell PCs is that they are not available in high street stores the main source of their sales is over the internet; this should obviously not a problem to anyone reading this review. Also the specs given with this PC are the standard specs, when purchasing online you have the choice to upgrade any of the components, or downgrade ... ...can be found on the Dell site offering discounts for certain upgrades, the monitor upgrade can be purchased without any offer or deal for around £200, well worth while in my opinion
The PC comes fitted with a 2.8 GHz processor, the highest I've seen at the moment is a 3.4 GHz but for a non professional there would be no noticeable difference between the two, therefore I don't think there's much point upgrading the processor unless it's for business ...
pete_482 18.04.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dell Dimension 8400
Advantages: Good spec, well known brand, customer service Disadvantages: Reliability
Buying a Computer is still a major purchase, and due to the level of choice and the myriad of terms and quite confusing information, a very difficult purchase. I would judge myself to have a quite good understanding of computers, but i'm certainly no expert. Whilst my old 'Tiny' machine was still working I starting looking for a replacement. I chose Dell, because you had the option of custoimising the computer to your requirements, and they are a ... ...terms of price. I went for the 8400, as I wanted a high level machine that would be useable for at least 5-6 years.
The machine spec I went for has 1meg of Ram and a 140 gig hard drive, 19 inch CRT monitor (I find them more reliable-longer life span), P4 3 gig processor etc. I don't play games on PC's, so I didn't need to consider this aspect, though it should be Ok for all but the most demanding games. The case is hardly high tech, but is passable ...
streetmachine100 27.01.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Dell Dimension 8400
Speed
Design
Manufacturer Support
Ease of use
Value For Money
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Advantages: No software or drivers required, built in mouse, hotkeys, excellent value for money! Disadvantages: None
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Advantages: Excellent memory, great customer service, value for money, ease of use Disadvantages: None, except it's rather heavy!
As far as writing about computers goes i am not the most experienced so please bear with me and i'll try and do what i think is a great computer, justice.
First of all, i had previously owned a DellDimension8400 with double memory due to a deal via online purchasing. My needs in a desktop computer have expanded and having been very happy with Dell products in the past, i have upgraded to the Dimension 9200. This is where my first tip to a potential buyer comes in- check out the Dell website because if you buy direct and order at the right time, they very often have deals on such as double memory as previously mentioned, or freebies such as printers and scanners. I ordered mine online again this time and found the staff as usual to be incredibly helpful and very pleasant. Ordering online also allows you to customise the PC to suit ...
2, 1, 2, 1 x right / left channel, subwoofer, right / left rear channel, center channel, 2, 1 x right / left channel, subwoofer, 2 x right / left channel
1 x subwoofer
Operating system / software
OS Provided
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Software
Drivers & Utilities, Microsoft Works 7.0, McAfee SecurityCenter (Trial), Paint Shop Pro (Trial), Paint Shop Photo Album (Trial)
Miscellaneous
Input Device
Mouse, keyboard
Manufacturer's product description
The Dimension 8400 delivers all the benefits of the Dimension 8300 but now with the latest technologies including PCI Express graphics, Dual channel DDR2 SDRAM and the Intel Pentium 4 Processors with Hyper-Threading Technology up to 560 (3.6GHz, 1MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB). These enhancements provide high end users the ability to run advanced productivity, intense graphics and enhanced multimedia applications.
