A Computer Worth Its Weight. Review on Dell Dimension 5100

I will be honest about the capabilities of this system, because as a professional I now this system better than most, which should tell you where I work.......... By the way this system is also known as the E510 (stands for Entertainment 510)

What's Inside The System Tower ?????

Intel® Pentium® 4 5XX and 6XX processors with Hyper-Threading technology

NOTE: Not all Pentium 4 processors support Hyper-Threading technology and/or dual-core processing.

Level 1 (L1) cache 16 KB

Level 2 (L2) cache 1 MB for Pentium 5XXX processors

2 MB for Pentium 6XXX processors

(depending on your computer configuration) pipelined-burst, eight-way set associative, write-back SRAM)

Chip set Intel 945G Express

DMA channels eight

Interrupt levels 24

BIOS chip (NVRAM) 4-Mb

NIC Integrated network interface capable of 10/100 communication.

System Clock 800- or 1066-MHz data rate (depending on processor)

Video : Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 (GMA950)

Audio : Sigmatel STAC9220

Connectors

External connectors:

Video 15-hole connector

Network adapter RJ-45 connector

USB two front-panel and five back-panel USB 2.0-compliant connectors

Audio five connectors for line-in, line-out, microphone/ side-surround, surround, and center/subwoofer connector (LFE channel); two front-panel connectors for headphones and microphone

System Board Connectors:

Primary IDE drive one 40-pin connector on PCI local bus

Serial ATA two 7-pin connectors

FlexBay Drive one USB 10-pin header for optional Media Card Reader (3.5-inch bay device)

Floppy drive one 34-pin connector

Fan one 5-pin connector

PCI 2.3 two 120-pin connectors

PCI Express x1 one 36-pin connector

PCI Express x16 164-pin connector

Physical

Height 41.4 cm (16.3 inches)

Width 18.8 cm (7.4 inches)

Depth 45.7 cm (18.0 inches)

Weight 12.7 kg (28 lbs)

Now based on the specifications a person well versed with computer specifications, you will find it a decent platform for a system. For the naive .... It is a mid range system, not a high end gaming machine (though it can become one with a good graphics card) and not a low end one. It comes in the entertainment class of media centre pc's that has the ability to play live tv (if the system has a tv tuner card installed), play a few games go online and do all of the stuff people do on their home systems meant for the whole family..... It's a pity this is available only in the U.S and European markets......

For those of you located there and looking for a home pc at a medium price, this one system you can consider and trust me when I say this, a four year warranty will take you a long way with hardware technical support for part replacement.

NOTE : DELL does not provide free operating system / software assistance for the Dimension line of systems, because these systems are sold at a low price and software support is not sold as a part of the initial price nor is the buyer charged for the same.