New Computer

generalman

Renowned L&N Fanatic
Upon reading the opening post of this thread, I'm rather sickened at the deal since I just dropped $600. I wanted another laptop in the beginning anyway, but it's all said and done now and I'll be fine.

A couple weeks ago I purchased a new Dell desktop computer, and wanted to post the system specs here to see what some of you all may think.

The computer is a Dell Inspiron 3847 with a Dual-Core Intel i3 processor. Also bundled it with a Dell 23" monitor at 1920x1080 pixels, (which is huge compared to my old 15" laptop at 1366x768). Details below:
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It's obviously not a high end gamer computer, but that's not what I wanted anyway. It's also definitely much better than the laptop I had before; it's specs were: 6GB RAM, Intel Pentium @ 2.4 GHz. Shown this info, this system is obviously much better on processor speed alone. However, the big thing to me was not the gaming strength, but the all around usage; i.e. capability for work, school, games, or whatever may be required of it. Given that, I think it's a good system for me.

One thing I have already noticed about this desktop is that it does not get hot like my laptop would. If you didn't have a fan under that laptop it would nearly burn you.

As for the gaming side of things, it's done pretty good so far, I believe. Farming Sim. and American Truck Sim. can run smoothly on medium graphics, whereas my laptop would have lots of lag at that setting on both of those games. Trainz is also an improvement, (or at least a good enough one for me). My laptop would run Trainz at, what I would call medium graphics, around about 15 fps, while this desktop is getting a solid 20-25. Now I know most of you are appalled to here a fps below 30, but given what I was getting before, it's a good improvement.

All in all I enjoy the system, as it's perfectly fine for me. However, I would like to hear from some of you as to what you think about the system.

Thanks everyone,
 
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I would have chosen an i5 myself, and you don't say what kind of graphics you have. Is it on board or a separate graphics card? I always say you are better with a desktop, if you don't need portability especially, I've never owned a laptop nor plan to. Depending on your needs if it meets your budget and you are happy with it, performance wise, then you are good to go.

You should be very happy with your monitor, I have a 23" Dell as well and I love it.
 
I have not installed T:ANE yet, Matt, but one of these days when I get the time I'll try to.

So far as I know it's just Intel Integrated Graphics, but honestly I could care less because I'm not aiming for it to look perfect.
 
Well it's not about perfection, I'm beginning to think not even NASA computers could get perfection out of TANE, it's about the game actually playing beyond being just a slideshow viewer. You may get TS12 workable with it, but you may be hard pressed to get TANE to do anything acceptable on an integrated GPU. Give it a try, if you are happy with whatever results you get, that's all that matters.
 
It sounds like you have thought it out, made a sensible decision, and spent your money wisely unlike so many who buy the latest mobile phone, tablet or powerful laptop/desktop then wonder what they are going to do with it. You are also probably in the minority of Trainz Users who are happy with what they have which is nice to hear, and don't forget should you want a few more fps. in the future you could always ask the family to club together for that more powerful graphic card come birthday/Christmas etc. Good luck, Peter
 
Although Im not a great fan of Windows 10, it seems to have the ability to even make an old dog into a greyhound. I have installed Win 10 on an ASUS Eee pc that only has an intel atom 1.6GHz PCU and 1 Gb RAM and it ran pretty well, yet it was hopeless with on Win 7 which is what it came out with.

So, while I wouldn't recommend an i3 either for anything much other than email, a bit of browsing and word processing, I would think with Win 10 on it, it may actually run pretty well, and generalman's comments seem to back that up.

TANE doesn't actually use much of the CPU but is GPU hungry, I think it will struggle with TANE on it if you are using the integrated GPU, but if you put in a decent separate GPU and got away from the shared GPU, you might be onto a cost-effective winner - I hope so.

Glad it is all working out good so far and you're happy with it, that's the main thing. Big screen in HD is also a winner. :Y:
 
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