Aldi pc
did anyone get one ?
£699 Aldi PC could leave others in the dust
Is this the best value PC ever?
By Désiré Athow: Sunday 21 November 2004, 14:32
TWO DAYS AGO, Fudo talked about a special deal that Aldi secured with Nvidia for the 6600XL for its forthcoming PC. The Aldi-PC Medion Titanium MD8383 is coming to UK shores as from the 25th of November as from 0900. The computer costs £699.99 inc VAT - around £599+VAT. This is almost exactly what it is charging in Mainland Europe at 999, around £770. The computer comes with three years of warranty and after sales service and includes the latest technology. If you're gunning for the best value for money, there is nothing much you can do to beat this one - you won't find anyone offering so much value for so little money, even if you build one by yourself.
Inside, you get a socket 775 P4 550 running at 3.4GHz with a 800MHz FSB. It supports Hyperthreading and comes with a 1MB cache. I don't know if it is one of the latest "j" version P4. If this is the case then you might benefit from some thermal advantages as well. The CPU is entirely covered with a huge heatsink and a sizeable 80mm fan with a strange design. The MD 8383 comes with two 256MB PC3200 CL3 Samsung memory modules as well as a large 250GB Western Digital SATA150 hard disk with a huge 8MB cache. The motherboard used is a Microstar MS 7091. You won't find the motherboard on MSI's website but it seems to be a special kind of beast, most probably with an Intel 915x chipset. Surprisingly, it comes only with three PCI slots and one PCI-e X16 slot. No PCI Express X1 - at least according to the picture from PC Welt. The motherboard has SATA 150 and PATA connectors and provides with Intel's AZALIA sound module which support up to eight channel. Other storage devices include a Pioneer DVR-108 Dual Layer 16x DVD/CD Writer and a 16x DVD ROM drive. IO's include six USB 2.0 and two Firewire ports as well as a SCART port. But that's only half of the story - The medion PC was cleverly designed so that it can provide with ten front connectors accessible via a 5.25in bay. You don't get a floppy disk drive but you do get a 9-in-1 memory reader.To connect to a network or to the Internet, you are provided with a 10/100 onboard LAN Network controller, an onboard 802.11g wireless LAN adapter supporting up to 54Mb/s and an analog v.92 data/fax modem.
However, it is probably the multimedia part which is the most conspicuous part of the whole system. The graphic card is a Microstar MS8979 which is built around a Geforce 6610XL, which of course, you won't be able to buy in any shops. The card is bolted on a PCI-Express x16 bus slot and comes with 128MB DDR3 memory running at 800MHz. The core runs at 400MHz, more than the 6600 plain edition but slightly less than the GT version which means that it should be within reach of an overclocked 9800XT. The MD8383 also comes with a DVB-T Digital TV and FM radio Tuner card complete with a full size remote control. With them the DVB-T tuner, you can of course watch Freeview and other available Free-to-Air TV channels and you record them right on your PC with the available software. The included RF remote control wortks with the TV, DVD, CD, Radio and digital photo functions of the Medion Power Cinema software provided.
Other accessories included in the bundle are a Wireless Multimedia Keyboard and a wireles optical Scroll mouse, both of which are apparently from Chicony - since they look exactly like the one I am using right now. A fairly solid model, quire responsive and easily used as a bed remote control. The keyboard is light on batteries while the mouse needs to get rechargeable batteries. As for the casing, it is quite restrictive. You only get one free 3.5-inch internal bay with all the rest - three other bays, being already filled. Only two PCI slots are free.
Last but certainly not least, the Medion PC comes with a whole lot of software - Windows XP home edition SP2, Medion Power Cinema 3.0, Media Show SE, Power Director 3.0SE, POwer DVD 5, Power Producer 2 Gold, Music Match, Videon, Nero Burning ROM 6 and Recode 2, eTrust Antivirus 6, Symantec System recovery, AOL, MS Works suite 2005 - DVD Version and including MS Word 2003, Microsoft Works 8, Picture It Photo 10, Encarta Encyclopaedia 2005. Money 2005 and Autoroute 2005. Of course and unlike others, you do get the software media for these software as well as the drivers. PCWelt does provide with some proprietary benchmarks but they seem to be pretty useless if you're not fluent in German. µ
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19792
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Re: Aldi pc
Originally Posted by The Prodigy
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