that’s big business sonny;-)
When did 2-for-Tuesdays go away?
So they put an outstanding processor into an under powered system.
- People looking to buy a PC on woot aernt going to benefit from 8 cores at 3.4 ghz.
- With a 300 watt power supply you dont have enough head room to add another hard drive even if you wanted to.
- Graphics card is going to bottle neck the processor extremely bad if you try to run anything halfway intensive.
- Those talking about not being able to overclock need to also realize that the motherboard is not capable of overclocking even a K series.
- All 4 slots of ram are taken meaning your going to lose 4GB if trying to upgrade to a larger amount.
Im done creating cons, this would be alot better deal if they had a $100 processor in it instead of the $300 processor with so much wasted potential.
I agree with everything you said, especially the point where replacing the 2600 with an i3-2100 and reducing the price to $500-550 would make this system much more balanced.
One thing to mention though, the 2600 is a quad-core, not an octo-core.
Is 5400 going to be anything noticeable for a basic user (web, word, cloud, light music, adobe etc.)
They are coming from a year old HP desktop with 1-2 steps lower specs all around BUT 7200 speed. (Non techie person would be using this)
i7 processor, 8gb ram, and 1.5tb hard drive if I could switch back from laptop to a desktop I would be all over this.
Go to Dell, put in order code DXDAMA1, use coupon code TDMRFH29N6D54W
Result: similar XPS 8300 system for $700. Same CPU and memory, 7200 rpm 1TB drive, no BD player (but can be added), 2 year warranty, 460w supply, etc.
XPS 8300 Qty 1
XPS 8300, Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64Bit, English Unit Price $1,262.99
Dell XPS 8300 price includes $413 instant discount.
Limited Time Offer!
- $413.00
$150 off XPS 8300 Desktop order code DXDAMA1
Expires Wednesday, July 20, 2011
- $150.00
6 mos. special financing on new computer purchases $699 or more with Dell Preferred Account!
Limited Time Offer!
Catalog Number: 29 DXDAMA1
Module Description Show Details
XPS 8300 XPS 8300
Operating System Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64Bit, English
Processors Intel® Core™ i7-2600 processor(8MB Cache, 3.4GHz)
Memory 8GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 4 DIMMs
Keyboard Dell Consumer Multimedia Keyboard
Monitor No Monitor
Video Card Nvidia® Geforce® GT530
Hard Drive 1TB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache
Mouse Dell Laser Mouse
Network Card Standard USB 2.0 + 10/100/1000 Ethernet
Modem No Dial Up Modem Option
TBU Adobe® Acrobat® Reader
Optical Drive Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability
Sound THX® TruStudio PC™
Speakers No speakers (Speakers are required to hear audio from your system)
Wireless Dell 1501 Wireless-N PCIe Card
Office Productivity Software (Pre-Installed) Microsoft® Office Starter: reduced-functionality Word & Excel w/ ads. No PowerPoint or Outlook
Security Software McAfee SecurityCenter, 15-Months
Hardware Support Services 2 Year Premium Hardware Service
Data Safe DataSafe 2.0 Online Backup 2GB for 1 year
I was tempted until I read the hard drive specs… Who builds a powerful computer like this and then saddles it with a 5400 rpm hard drive? 
Id probably disagree due to the 1TB SATA 7200RPM in the Dell… the 5400 in the HP is really a bottleneck IMO.
At the very least its not as clear cut as you make out. The speed on a machine is based on the slowest component, not the fastest.
Replacing a mobo within an HP case is kinda pointless… at that point you might as well just build your own PC… besides aren’t Manufacture cases designed so that only one specific mobo fits within that case?
That is, if Apple produced barely entry level desktops such as this one, which they don’t.
You get what you pay for. Always have. Always will.
Short version: I don’t think you should buy it.
Who is this computer for?
Person 1.: A person who is gonna play serious games or do serious stuff like video editing or whatever that requires a Fancy Computer, you can build yourself a better system for a similar or smaller amount of money.
This has a very weak graphics card. You could put a good one in it but the power supply’s 300 watts maximum is not going to like it very much, if it runs at all.
Person 2.: A person who is gonna do light computing, web browsing, casual games, word processing, video watching, etc. doesn’t need this fancy of a processor, or this much memory.
The hard drive is plenty big, but it is slow. I can’t remember the last time I saw a 5400 rpm drive on a non-laptop. (The vast majority are 7200 rpm.) That’s gonna mean slower system boot and slower launching of programs.
It has a great processor, but an expensive one. It costs around $300 if you or I were to buy it by itself. I believe at 9 out of 10 users wouldn’t notice a significant difference between it and a $140 or $200 processor from AMD (965, 1100T, respectively).
Person 3!: You are a whiz kid savant type of person who can solve super complex math problems in your head really really fast, but you move in slow motion when you try to open your math book. You can sketch a drawing okay, but that one time when you took a sculpting class, people ended up in the hospital. You demand to get paid significantly more than your coworkers, who are only a tiny bit less good at your job. You want a computer that understands what you are going through.
It’s not a big deal that this one doesn’t burn Blu’s either. Blank Blu-ray discs are pretty expensive. Believe it or not it is roughly 10x cheaper per gigabyte to buy really good hard drives than really cheap Blu-ray discs. More like 20x if you get cheap hard drives.
Pretty simple really.
Buy if
A. You aren’t a gamer or require anything graphic intensive.
B. You don’t mind upgrading the video card and psu.
Don’t listen to all the 5400rpm haters, it’s fast enough, so your boot takes awhile longer, will the world end? Plus, if you really wanted a faster boot, purchase a 7200/10k rpm hdd or just a SSD and use the 1.5tb included with it as a media drive. Or you could just buy another 1.5tb 5400rpm drive and raid 0 them for speed, if that motherboard even has controllers for raid.
I’d always suggest building from scratch, as you get exactly what you want and it’s a good experience, but if you’re not picky, need a decently fast normal use computer, this may be for you.
It’s really odd to have the bluray but no media center remote on this unit. The great strength of HP that many find balances out their weak graphics and power supply (in addition to their nigh impossible to upgrade systems in general, which seemed intentionally made to encourage buying new units every 3 months) is that lovely black media center remote control. That thing is perfect in almost every detail.
Without that remote this is too much for the money IMHO. With the remote it’s just ok as a tv-computer.
Why do people keep asking if HP machines are upgradeable to a gaming unit? Has the answer ever been yes, or debated in less than 3 full pages?
Edit - uh oh, check out something with the remote and bluray at “buy” for about the same $700this week:
another HP computer. what a waste of time. Woot used to have cool stuff for sale
This is a good desktop at a good price. If your looking for a gaming system, you should not be on Woot anyway. So quit complaining about it. This will work for most peoples needs.
It’s TUESDAY - TWOfer Tuesday. I’m so confused!!!
If all you want is a Blu-ray player/burner, don’t buy this machine (obviously). But if that’s all you’re after, you don’t need a Quad-Core i7… that’s way more processing power than what you need = more money than you need to spend.
Does the world really spend that much time playing games on their pc’s?
Upgrading video cards and power supplies really aren’t that important to most adults.
I kind of agree this is a “less than optimal” configuration…
This was obviously done for the “PRICE POINT”…
I bought the “right” system about 2 weeks ago when HP had those 2 coupons and you could configue for $300 off…
My cost $920…(tax and shipping included)
Add the “right” minimum power supply 400 Watt $50…
A better video card…$50 more…minimum…
A better hard drive…$50 more…minimum…
And my additional option…A Blu Ray writer…(probably another $100 extra)
So this is not that great of a deal…But it does hit a price point…(when you put the right components in and add my additional accesory, tax, a little for shipping…$920 actually beats this price…)
The processor does not match a “balance” that the rest of the machine should have…
It is like putting a 600 HP engine in a Yugo!
(to be fair…you do get a wireless keyboard and mouse that is worth $30 or $40 extra…upon further spec review)