Dell vs. DIY

Posted at: Monday 30th July 2007

You've got a grand for a new PC - do you buy it new? Or do you spend £1,000 on hardware and build it yourself?

Winner: The 1K Wonder

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7 Screens

Dell supplies the Dimension with a 20.1in widescreen TFT. It's the value E207WFP version, however, so it offers no height adjustment and the panel itself isn't as bright as the premium UltraSharp 2007WFP model. Its native 1,680 x 1,050 resolution is ideal for games, video and general Windows usage, however. We matched the screen size of the Dell with the very competetively priced LG L204WT, a 20.1in widescreen panel with the same resolution. In testing, the LG proved itself to be the brighter of the two, which resulted in purer, whiter whites and cleaner colours. Side by side, the Dell screen looked a little murky, especially when viewing photos. In games, there wasn't such a huge difference, but the LG was still the more attractive panel, handing this round to the Wonder.

Winner: The 1K Wonder

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8 Noise

Traditionally, the BIOSes of Abit motherboards have excellent fan management abilities, and the IP35 Pro is certainly no disappointment in this regard. Unfortunately, all of the Antec Nine Hundred's fans are Molex-powered, so they bypass the motherboard altogether. They have their own speed controls, though, allowing you to manually select from three speeds. Even when overclocking the 1K Wonder, we didn't find high temperatures to be a problem, so we left all four fans on minimum speed. As James noted when he reviewed the Tuniq Tower, it's very quiet at low speeds, so the 1K Wonder was reasonably quiet throughout testing.

The Dell was also pleasantly quiet. While speaking to Dell's engineers in the course of researching this article, they confirmed that the BTX layout was the main reason for this. There's only one fan, and it constantly streams cool air over the CPU and graphics card. The clever hole behind the front fascia means that there's good airflow inside the case too, and overall it's the quieter of the two PCs.

Winner: The Dell

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9 Power

Prices of PC components generally vary, and higher prices mean faster speeds or more memory. Cut the price, and down go the numbers. Power supplies, at least to the untrained eye, seem to ignore this rule. Scroll through the prices on YoYoTech, Scan or any online retailer and, while you can pay £100 for a top-brand 600W model such as an Enermax or Seasonic unit, you can also buy a generic 600W PSU for £20. However, we've had plenty of bad PSUs snap, crackle and pop during testing, so we always opt for a quality PSU.

However, these aren't cheap, and competing against Dell means the budget is tight. There are good buys out there though; we opted for a 600W PSU from SilverPower, the SP-600A2C. The only weak spot we found was the slightly weak 5VSB rail. Aside from this, priced at just £50, it was a bit of a star, and its blue LED fan complemented the illuminated fans in the Antec Nine Hundred case.