Latest Aldi PC Offer - MEDION® AKOYA® E4355 D - Thursday 4th Feb 2010

[GrahamC230K]

What do you all think? Good value?


ALDI - Thursday Special Buys 4th February 2010

MEDION® AKOYA® E4355 D (MD 8341)

Powerful Intel® Core® i3-530 processor (2.93 GHz, 4 MB Intel® Smart cache, Intel® Hyper-Threading-Technology)
Powerful NVIDIA® GeForce® G210 DirectX® 10 graphics card with 512 MB graphic memory and D-Sub VGA, DVI-I and HDMI interface (HDCP support)
Massive 3 GB DDR3 SDRAM
Large 1 TB (1000 GB) S-ATA hard disk for more than 200,000 music title or photos1.
Multiformat DVD/CD burner2 supports all the usual DVD/CD standards, incl. dual layer DVD-R and DVD+R
High speed Wireless LAN 802.11 n-Standard with up to 300 Mbit/s. 802.11 b/g compatible3.
Network Controller Gigabit LAN (10/100/1000 Mbit/s.)
IEEE1394 FireWire on board
eSATA connection for connecting external SATA devices
8 channel high definition audio4
Multi Card Reader reads and writes all current flash memory cards5
PS/2 keyboard and optical USB mouse
Connections:
Front: Multi Card Reader, 2 x USB 2.0, 1 x Microphone, 1 x Headphone, 1 x eSATA
Rear: 2 x PS/2, 6 x USB 2.0, 1 x FireWire, 1 x LAN (RJ-45), 1 x Front line out, 1 x Rear line out, 1 x Subwoofer/Centre out 1 x Surround out, 1 x Line in, 1 x SPDIF optical out
Comprehensive software package with original Windows® 7 Home Premium (OEM versions)
and much more…

£399.99


For the spec difference, I am thinking I wished I had gone for the other Medion PC earlier in the month. Similar spec and had the hot swap SATA bays I so liked. The extra bells on this I don't need - firewire, wifi, etc.


What's you take on it?

 

[GrahamC230K]

The more I read, the better deal I think the previous offer was in comparison. I think I will pass on this one too hoping for a high spec Medion to follow.

 

[A-AvantGarde]

What do you all think? Good value?

For the spec difference, I am thinking I wished I had gone for the other Medion PC earlier in the month. Similar spec and had the hot swap SATA bays I so liked. The extra bells on this I don't need - firewire, wifi, etc.


What's you take on it?

I liked the hot swap drives of the other one too but this still looks decent, perhaps it could be a little cheaper but the warranty offering is good...

 

[Sp!ke]

This one is more entry level than the last.

 

[w124coupe]

Bit disappointing - last one was high-spec case and old components. This one is new components and low spec case!

Unusual for Aldi to run 2 relatively low-end machines one after the other.

This one would be ideal as a low power consumption quiet and cool Photoshop/internet/Office/not-too-demanding-games machine though - especially at the price with 3 years warranty.

A quick trawl shows its at or just under the cost of the components for DIY without the extended warranty (although DIY would allow an unlocked BIOS for easy overclocking up the 3.5Ghz+ for more oomph).

Without opening it up, its hard to check if the cooling and PSU would allow a graphics upgrade.

 

[GrahamC230K]

Yeah, I am holding out this one doesn't leave me much impressed.

 

[radders]

Hi, i have been looking at quad cores such as Q8300 with 4GB ddr 2 ram and basic graphics card for similar mony to this machine, i don't no much about the i3 systems would i be better sticking to the quad core or would this newer machine be quicker???


Thanks

 

[w124coupe]

As always, it depends.

If your application can use the 4 cores (e.g. some video rendering apps, some games), the Q will be faster, if not the i3 will be faster.

For a DIY build where you only need non-gaming graphics, the i3 includes integrated Intel HD graphics fully capable of playing Bluray etc (subject to choosing a motherboard that icludes the right output connectors). It therefore has the potential to be cheaper than a Q buld plus graphics card and also to use less power and therefore run cooler/quieter.

 

[radders]

o.k Thanks

So for general internet use, music etc the i3 will be faster, what machine would be best for AutoCAD (drawing package)?

 

[GrahamC230K]

This says it for me.

PassMark CPU Lookup

 

[radders]

Thanks

Excellent bit of info.

 

[GrahamC230K]

I want Aldi to offer this at a cut price with 3yr warranty

MEDIONshop Deutschland: MEDION® AKOYA® X7325 D


A shame the Medion UK shop doesn't list it either.

 

[w124coupe]

This says it for me.

PassMark CPU Lookup

That just says how they run PassMark....which hides all the detail of how they run real applications - try Anandtech reviews or similar where they test real apps, by category, so you can see the processor/board combination's value to you.

 

[w124coupe]

o.k Thanks

So for general internet use, music etc the i3 will be faster, what machine would be best for AutoCAD (drawing package)?

AutoCAD is a special case - you need to look through the Autodesk notes against the modules you run and see how many cores/threads will be used and especially which graphics cards (actually graphics drivers) they support for acceleration - the graphics card acceleration is dramatic when AutoCAD deigns to use it....

If you also use the others (Archicad, Vectorworks etc) or any 3D rendering engines then they will also have help pages on the use of cores/threads plus supported graphics cards.

All 3 of the above have user forums where you can ask specifics or benefit from others' tweaks.

They you can choose wisely - both CPU type and graphics...for what matters to you.

We run an i7 920 with a dedicated 1GB graphics card and carefully selected driver version for our CAD and renders and it flies (renders take about 16-20% of the time they used to...). The trick is the research first - popular "top 10" games graphics are often ignored by ArchiCAD as the driver isn't certified by them.

ArchiCAD just for drawings runs fine on standard PCs.

 

[w124coupe]

The Aldi, in summary, is very good value at £399 and uses up to the minute components. It will run "normal stuff" very quickly (office/web/photoshop etc) and has all the standard connectivity needed.

It will not rival what you could spec & build for, say £499, and also will have:

A limited power supply (i.e. may not support add-on gamer-graphics) which may be hard to swap out.

A locked BIOS (no overclocking etc).

Limited but perfectly adequate cooling for the standard spec - supplemented by the PSU drawing air from the top of the case. This MAY limit additional drives/graphics etc - hard to tell without opening it up.


So, its a great home PC supported by a long, free warranty but not ideal for "tweakers", serious gamers or those who do high-end graphics for a living (to our American readers - I don't mean that kind of tweaker...).

If you want a PC that's still value but open to mods etc, probably best to look at Overclockers or similar where every component in their pre-builds is specified in detail - and there's a forum where users exchange info on experiences and mods....or just build one.