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Dell 8600, for Dell 6400?

post #1 of 6
7/27/06 at 3:02am
Thread Starter 
Hi guys,


Long story short, I am pretty sure I can re-sell my Dell 8600 and buy a discounted Dell 6400 for not much more than 1 or 200$ difference.

What do you guys think? how is the 6400?


Does the X1400 beat my 128mb 9600?
Will the 1.83ghz Core Duo (in the deal I found) beat the PM 1.6 I have by a lot?
How is the build quality, I heard the 6000 is worse than the 8600?
What about the built in speakers, 8600's are quite darn good.

The advantages I'm seeing is me being able to get a "fresh" 3 year warranty - back up to 1000+ days, instead of the 500 or so I have left for my 18 month old 8600.

The HDD is SATA 100gb 5400 - I have a 60gb 7200 but I think I could live with the SATA 5400.

Any comments, what would you guys do, I know you guys really keep up to date with this stuff.
For reference, I'm pretty damn happy with my 8600 overall.
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post #2 of 6
7/27/06 at 3:28am
Does the X1400 beat my 128mb 9600?
Yeah. It is not a massive jump, but it beats the 9600PT quite nicely.

Will the 1.83ghz Core Duo (in the deal I found) beat the PM 1.6 I have by a lot?
Oh hellz yes! Beats the snot out of the old banias/ dothan generation @1.6GHz.

How is the build quality, I heard the 6000 is worse than the 8600?
They are comparable. Neither is fantastic to tell the truth, but it is certainly no worse than the i8600. The main complaint most people have is not liking the white trim... but then again everyone complained about the blue trim on the i8600

What about the built in speakers, 8600's are quite darn good.
Again, comparable. They are essentially the same.

The HDD is SATA 100gb 5400 - I have a 60gb 7200 but I think I could live with the SATA 5400.
To tell the truth, being a SATA interface and having greater areal density the 5400rpm drive is probably not going to be noticeably slower in general tasks. Heavy disk activity may be another matter though. Can't you get a 60GB 7200rpm on the new one for a comparable price? Or are you after the extra storage?...

Any comments, what would you guys do, I know you guys really keep up to date with this stuff.
For reference, I'm pretty damn happy with my 8600 overall.
Well... this is not going to be a massive, massive upgrade for you; but in general it is a faster machine and of course with much more up-to-date components. If the difference between what you can sell the old one for and this is small, then by all means go for it. Otherwise... I would wait out the rest of your warrenty and get the latest and greatest then, cos the setup you have now will be more than adequate for the next year or two.

Stu
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post #3 of 6
7/27/06 at 3:55am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by sakor1
Does the X1400 beat my 128mb 9600?
Yeah. It is not a massive jump, but it beats the 9600PT quite nicely.

Will the 1.83ghz Core Duo (in the deal I found) beat the PM 1.6 I have by a lot?
Oh hellz yes! Beats the snot out of the old banias/ dothan generation @1.6GHz.

How is the build quality, I heard the 6000 is worse than the 8600?
They are comparable. Neither is fantastic to tell the truth, but it is certainly no worse than the i8600. The main complaint most people have is not liking the white trim... but then again everyone complained about the blue trim on the i8600

What about the built in speakers, 8600's are quite darn good.
Again, comparable. They are essentially the same.

The HDD is SATA 100gb 5400 - I have a 60gb 7200 but I think I could live with the SATA 5400.
To tell the truth, being a SATA interface and having greater areal density the 5400rpm drive is probably not going to be noticeably slower in general tasks. Heavy disk activity may be another matter though. Can't you get a 60GB 7200rpm on the new one for a comparable price? Or are you after the extra storage?...

Any comments, what would you guys do, I know you guys really keep up to date with this stuff.
For reference, I'm pretty damn happy with my 8600 overall.
Well... this is not going to be a massive, massive upgrade for you; but in general it is a faster machine and of course with much more up-to-date components. If the difference between what you can sell the old one for and this is small, then by all means go for it. Otherwise... I would wait out the rest of your warrenty and get the latest and greatest then, cos the setup you have now will be more than adequate for the next year or two.

Stu



Sweet, response appreciated, I did just realise it will likely only have the 6cell battery > but still - I might just have to spend a little more to beef it up to how my 8600 is (2600$ when I got it, AUD)

Sounds like a good basic upgrade then and worth it if I can do it cheaply for the fresh warranty and newer components.
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post #4 of 6
7/27/06 at 5:04am
The video card will be slight upgrade.

The processor will be a significant upgrade.

IMO, the build quality of the 6400 is much better than the 8600, I never cared for the 8500/8600 they had to many squeaks and the keyboards had too much flex.

The speakers will sound the same.

SATA 5400 will likely perform the same as your current 7200 drive for reasons listed above.

I would take the 6400 over the 8600 anyday, I would however wait a week or two and see how the Merom launch pans out for Dell systems.
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post #5 of 6
7/28/06 at 12:27am
I had an 8600 once and loved it.

I like the 1505/6400 even better.

the comments above pretty much sum up the advantages. I did get a 9 cell battery because I hate how short the batteries seem to last.
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post #6 of 6
7/28/06 at 1:38pm
In June of 2005 I sold a decked out i8600 with warranty remaining for over $1500 on eBay. I was very happy with the sale. However I suspect the i8600 has lost value since then. How much do you think you can get for it?
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