Hands on: Dell Dimension 8200 By Phillip Alex Haddox July 11, 2002 The CPU power war between AMD and Intel rages on. The latest warrior to hit the market is the Intel Pentium 4, 2.53 GHz processor. As good journalists, we felt it imperative for our readership to hear about this latest processor in one of the most popular platforms in the world, a Dell computer. After much pleading with the wife, accompanied with a cacophony of promises to fix things around the house (the kids don't need braces until next year, honestly), the Big Boy CPU was on order. Surprisingly, the Dimension 8200 was buried on the Dell Home and Home Office portion of the site beneath the low-end, inexpensive processors. With a little digging, a game-worthy PC by Dell revealed itself. Wait, Dell makes a gamer's PC? They do now, and for a reasonable price. Here are the specifications: Dell Dimension 8200 Intel Pentium 4, 2.53 GHz CPU 533MHz system bus/ 512K L2 Cache 512MB PC800 RDRAM 120GB 7200RPM Hard Drive with DataBurst Cache 128MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600 Graphics Card w/DVI and TV-Out Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition 16X Max Variable DVD-Rom Drive SB Live! Digital Sound Card 56K Telephony Modem for Windows XP Intel Pro 100 M PCI Ethernet Network Card No monitor Cost: $2,039.00* Is it really worth it? The cutting edge is always costly. Before anyone shells out cash, the question "is it really worth the extra money?" always comes to mind. That answer completely depends upon the use and the type of game played. For Real-Time Strategy, an upgrade from a Pentium 3 to Pentium 4 is probably not worth the cost. In the MMORPG arena, it helps quite a bit. In large-scale battles where there are many server generated monsters and many players casting spells in every direction, having the extra horsepower can come in really handy. From personal experience, in 100-player versus 100-player Dark Age of Camelot battles, I no longer lag out when the area-effect spells start flying during keep sieges. For the 3D shooter (Quake, Unreal, Half-life, etc.), CPU speed, RAM and video speeds are always king. In our horsepower comparison, we pitted two Dell Dimensions against each other. While not a sterile laboratory environment, this test yields results that a person might experience in the real world. We pitted a Pentium 3 Dimension against the new Pentium 4 Dimension. Both machines have pristine installations of Microsoft Windows XP, Home Edition. The competitor: Dell Dimension 4100 (XPS-Z) Intel Pentium 3, 1.0 GHz 133MHz system bus/ 512K L2 Cache 512MB PC133 DRAM 20GB 7200RPM Hard Drive (Western Digital) 128MB DDR NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400 Graphics Card w/DVI and TV-Out Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition 16X Max Variable DVD-Rom Drive SB Live! Digital Sound Card 3COM 3C905 TX 10/100 PCI Ethernet Network Card The test was a timed loading of the shipping Neverwinter Nights Chapter 2 Campaign Module into the Toolset Editor. This particular software was chosen because it is a hot game, designed for editing and manipulation by end-users and it is a 31,864kb file that unpacks and loads pallets, animations, scripts, databases and textures. We could think of no better way to compare the horsepower of the two computers with a game and tools that the average gamer would come across in real-world operation. Computer Load Time Dell Dimension 8200 3 minutes, 0 seconds Dell Dimension 4100 (XPS-Z): 6 minutes, 19 seconds The Pentium 4, 2.53 GHz, Dell Dimension 8200 unpacked and loaded the file nearly twice as fast as the Dimension 4100. Three minutes might not seem like a long time on paper, but when you are staring at the screen waiting for the file to load, three minutes feels like an hour. Six minutes is so long, you get up from your chair, refill your coffee mug and hope it has completed by the time you return. Internals Dell implemented a new internal configuration with the Dimension 8200. Instead of the normal slip-off side panel, the entire side pivots up. I felt like I was getting under the hood of a large tractor more than opening a computer. The DVD, hard drive, and other peripherals are attached to the portion that moves. The motherboard remains horizontal in the bottom of the case. Adding or replacing the peripherals is made easier with the new design. Rails are attached to the drive with the normal screws. The entire unit is then slid down guides and clicked into place. Installing a CD-RW and an Iomega Zip drive took mere moments. Cable lengths were ample, obviously cut with the intent of expansion. Overall, the design is well thought out and easy to manipulate. Dell Hell I have been an advocate of Dell Computers for years. Over time I have personally purchased six Dells, all of which are still running. I have referred my family, friends and clients to purchase Dell. I referred my wife's office to purchase Dells. In all, I represent a minimum of 40 computer sales for Dell over the past 5 years. Unfortunately, my latest experience with their Customer Service has given me pause to recommend any future sales. When I ordered the computer, I paid additional money for 3-5 business day shipping. It was due to arrive by May 31, 2002 (the 5th day of the 3-5 days). On June 6, I still had not received my computer and was forced to call their customer service to track the order. This was my first experience with Dell Customer Service and one of the worst experiences of my computing life. The delay revealed itself to be an error by my local post office. Dell's private shipping company, American Package Express (APX), took the computer from the Dell manufacturing plant and handed it off to my local post office for final delivery. My local post office supposedly attempted a delivery on the final scheduled day and when the delivery person scanned the parcels as "attempted delivery" s/he unintentionally scanned them as "delivered." I doubt an attempt was truly made as I was home all day, I had house guests who were also present and we never discovered a delivery attempt notice. The real problem began when I called Dell. Over the course of several days, I spoke with three different representatives in an attempt to track my order. They were all pleasant and helpful until they read the tracking report stating that my order had been delivered. At that point, they stopped being helpful, stopped being pleasant and started treating me like a thief. I repeatedly asked to speak with a supervisor. I was told that no supervisor was available and if I wanted to speak with one, I needed to complete a form and a supervisor would call me back in 24-48 hours. ?!?!?! The customer service reps at Dell show up to work with no boss to direct them or make high-level decisions? That certainly explains a lot! I said I would speak to a manager instead. There were no managers either. After pressing them for some time, I was told flatly that I was not going to speak to anyone beyond him on this call. I was left with a feeling complete helplessness. I was continually promised a call in the future with more information (a few hours or the next day) and even promised a call back from a supervisor once I submitted the request. I never received a call, even from a supervisor. Eventually, I received a call from the private delivery company, APX. They had located the packages at my local post office and I was free to pick them up from the local USPS warehouse. On June 17, 2002, I posted a letter to the Vice President of Customer Service expressing my dismay at the horrid treatment I was given and included the names of the representatives I had spoken with. On July 3, 2002, I received a response from the Customer Service department, apologizing for my experience. They promised to investigate the matter in detail and explained that it was not their policy to prevent customers from speaking directly with Supervisors. As a show of good faith, they refunded my shipping costs for the extended delay in delivering my computer and the poor treatment I received from their service department. I feel so much better now. (heavy sarcasm) Cost comparison Here is a quick cost comparison of self-proclaimed gamer's computers. CPU, RAM (and type), hard drives, video cards and other peripherals were matched as closely as possible. ABS Computer Technologies Inc., http://www.abspc.com/ Customized Diablo X2, $2,379.00* Alienware, http://www.alienware.com/ Customized Area-51, $2,958.00* CyberPower Inc, http://www.cyberpowersystem.com/ Custom Build Configurator, $1,772.00* Falcon Northwest, http://www.falcon-nw.com/ Customized Mach V, $3,031.00* iBUYPOWER.COM, http://www.ibuypower.com/ Customized Gamer Titanium, $2,068.00* Voodoo Computer Studio, http://www.voodoopc.com/ Customized EGAD II, $3,591.62* Conclusion The Dell Dimension 8200 is a fantastic machine. It is fast, comes with all of the hardware, memory and peripherals that any gamer needs at a fair price. The power it purports to have is all there. Whether you like to tinker with your systems or just turn them on, the Dimension 8200 will work for you. Over my five years as a Dell customer, their machines have proven to be so solid that I have never had to contact Dell with a problem. These are not disposable computers, these are machines you hand down to family or turn into servers when they loose their game-worthiness. The only question is the amount of customer support you will need. If things go well, you will never need to call Dell. My first encounter with them was a disaster. From now on I will disclaim any referral to Dell with a warning about their service. * NOTE: All prices were retrieved from the company's own web site. All prices listed are before shipping, rebates and taxes, in USD. Reader Comments May 15, 2003 Dear Sir, I just read your article on the problems you had in the delivery of your Dell computer. We ordered ours on-line and received a "thank you for your order" with the promise of receiving an order # within one business day. That was a week ago. We too have been on the merry-go-round with the customer service department. I can't tell you how many people I have talked to. Now I am waiting for a man to call me. That promise was given 5 hours ago, still no call. Thank you. K.P. Follow-up e-mail of May 25, 2003 I began again this morning to try one more time for someone to be able to find my order and address the situation. Late in the day, I finally found someone that could actually find my order. He said it was right there all the time, and he could not understand why no one could find it. This was after two and a half days of being on the phone, I was given the Sales Managers number, and later in the day, he did call me back and an apology was given, and a new order was sent in. I immediately received an order number and confirmation of my component selections. I was promised that I would receive my computer in three to five days. We will see! I encourage everyone to keep hard copies of all communications (and in my case there was a lot of them) and definitely keep all names, extension numbers, and the name of the department they talk to. Just a first name won't help later on. If they try to transfer you to someone, get their name first and their extension number in case you get cut off or put in the recording cycle maze. Just as a follow-up, we received our computer on Friday, May 23. K.P. August 13, 2004 Sir/Ma'am, I just read your article about the computer and the horrible experience you had with Dell. I purchased a Dell Inspiron 4100 Laptop in 2001 shortly after graduation from basic training. I ended up returning the laptop less then a week after I got it due to the screen shorting out and the alarm system w/ gyroscope being unable to be disarmed. Since the alarm system wouldn't work we were forced to cut the wire and pry out the battery. Dell refunded the price no problem and I thought all was well. Several months later they tried to charge me saying I owed them money for the defective alarm system since it wasn't returned in the same condition. I explained how it was broken and they agreed to refund it. Over the course of the next 4 years (this started in Jan of 01 and I just resolved it in May of 04) I received multiple calls from Dell and Dell Financial over the same item. Each time I would get them to reverse the charges and (supposedly) send me a letter saying it was accomplished. Each time one or the other company would contact me 6 mo. to a year later saying I owed them a fee as well as 6-12 mo. of back interest. Every time I was assured it was their mistake and that it was fixed. During this time they informed 2/3 credit bureau's that I was 180 days deliquent on payments. Also no matter how many times I updated my address and phone they continued to call my father's house and leave rude messages saying that I owed money. Eventually they sold the account to a collections agency. I called Dell and asked them what the hell was going on told them to check the notes over the last four years. I was told that since the account belonged to a collections agency they could not legally access it and I had to contact the agency. I contacted them and explained I was trying to buy an apartment building and that the credit rating was hurting me. They said they couldn't do anything about that Dell had to and that they wouldn't bother trying to collect the debt because it was to small to worry about. That of course didn't help me. I contacted Dell again and was told basically that the perosn who said they couldn't access the account was a complete liar. He went into my account assured me it would be fixed. He also faxed me a letter saying that he contacted the credit bureaus. To my understanding everything is now right with the world except for my bad credit rating for almost 4 years as well as the 40 hours or so I spent on my personal cell phone trying to work things out with Dell. I sincerely hope you encourage people not to use Dell and ask if you could provide me with the address of the person at Dell you contacted so I can send my experiences to them as well. Jarrett Peterson Buy the HELL t-shirt @ SplitReason.com Have comments on this article? Send an email to feedback@cheatsearch.com! Some feedback may be posted right here. Be sure to include the name of the article with your comments (so we know what you are talking about).