$1200 Costco/Dell i7, 2.66 gig, 6gig RAM, 750gig HD ATI 4670 card + 24" monitor.

[Superfly]

Well, this will be the 'box opening' review.

As usual, for the price, the $199 (additional for package) , 24"Dell monitor looks great so far but we'll see.

2 things jumped out at me right away.......NORMALLY IT'S BAD AS WE HAVE BECOME ACCUSTOMED TO DISAPPOINTMENT RATHER THAN PLEASANT SURPRISES IN CORPORATE AMERICA.

1.  There is a power supply fan, sure..........but there is a separate and larger box fan on the back of the computer.  Do you think we're starting to figure out how to make computers?
2.  The ATI Card included claims on some websites to be optimized for CS4 although it's supposedly a price breakthrough for a 512meg card.  ***The card comes with 2 heads (for the new connection which is also provided on the monitor forgot what it's called).  Is it possible this and many/most new decent cards are coming with dual heads?  I am hoping for now it's a dual head card since .....why else would they put 2 connections?    ****If this is the case then I would not have to upgrade the card.

Is Dell still decent?  One thing for sure....HP is still CRAP.
HP wanted $330 to replace the motherboard on my 18month old $895 laptop that I have an additional $300 in replacing the hard drive, etc.  This is my second brutal spanking at the hands of HP....fool me once, shame on me......my first was 15 years ago when they first went out of the computer business.......I sort of thought it would be like an airline......fly the one that recently crashed.....HP=CRAP.  My 3rd spanking is the laptop I bought for my associate and now own that won't capture due to some odd firewire issue.

One additional note.......If you're talking to somebody in India......you've already lost your savings margin and you're pretty much screwed.  I recently thought back and realized that although the people in India are often nice and fairly competent.....that by the time you're talking with them my customer experience is ruined and I am once again thinking about using APPLE to edit with.

Let's add it up.....3 bad HP computers over 15 years...... $3000.....15 hours on the phone .......$1500.....thrown away......

Dell computer with i7 processor.....$1000.....comparable APPLE......not available yet, but if it were.....$6000.  Over the lifetime of a computer.....Apples use better and better matched components.  It does pay for itself.  I am out of time for heartache.  I'll report more on the Dell although I currently expect the worst, but what if?   WHAT IF?

Happy at the moment......if it works with CS4 I will shout it from the hilltops.

Best,

Todd

[HankCastello]

Good luck with it, Todd.  If you run into any problems, give me a shout and we'll see if I still remember enough PC stuff to help you out.

[Superfly]

It's possible that second fan is the processor fan, if so I may add another just to be safe.  I never used to believe that heat was a big killier in PC's but enough people have told me it's true that the cost of a fan is a trivial investment considering the upside.

Thanks Hank for the kind offer.

[HankCastello]

Be sure of what you're doing before changing cpu fans.  There are websites available with photos and your motherboard company probably has a support section.

It is common nowadays to have at least one extra fan inside the case.  In other words, you have your power supply fan, your cpu fan, possibly a video card fan, harddrive fan(s) AND an extra fan in side the case, often mounted on the access door.

[Superfly]

That's a load of fans!  Thanks Hank.

The Dell Studio XPS, i7 6 gigs RAM....experience so far:  Started rough but got better fast.  Tonight I hope to try everything was an issue on my 2 HPs.  The only HP one should buy are the workstation quality units but even then I'm going to recommend you stay CLEAR of HP.

0.  The 24" monitor is freaking awesome considering it was only $199 extra although they are coming down fast.  One thing to note is that vertically a 24" monitor is about the same as a 19" CRT so I am not getting the extra height on my editing bars for smoother audio level and keyframe adjustments.  May take a chance on $329 Hanns-G 28" that people either love or hate through Costco.  90 day return, 3 year warranty may make it worth the grab and will use for editing screen.

1.  For the first time ever I decided to actually create backup disks.  First disk took probably half an hour and the second disk......"Not responding"  It took about 25 minutes to shut down the computer and I finally did a hard shut down and restarted with the ol' "windows did not shut down properly."

2.  Deleted Microsoft WORKS and MCAFFEE although McAffee implored my not to do so saying that my computer had a free 15 month subscription.  McCaffee and Norton have been my worst nightmares so off they go!  Creative Cow forums call Virus programs "NLE KILLERS."

3.  No need to run Adobe Clean Script I believe because no prior installs.

3.a.  Installed CS4.  What the hell.

4.  Turned on eSATA.  Not working.  Went to install hardware....bzzzzt.  Won't find it.  Went into bios...sees the hard drive.
 
5.  Using same hard drive via USB.  Last computer SATA recognized after using same drive on USB so hopefully that will work later.  This worked.

6.  Program is up and dragging cursor back and forth along time line 50 times at great speed.  No problems.

7.  Variable fans are really nice.....get's really quiet when editing, etc., but they really ramp up when rendering.

8.  Media Encoder Opened!  First Time!
 
9.  WOW!  I just rendered a 24 minute DV project to DV Avi in 9 minutes.
All 8 (cores?  Threads?) were maxed initially in the Task Manager where my 2 processors showed up on my Core 2.  I thought i7 was a 4 core.  Is it 8?

10.  6 Gigs will probably have to become 12 for HDV which I believe may be the max for this computer.  I hope there are extra slots so i don't have to toss the existing RAM.  Always painful.

11.  Plugged camera into firewire for capture.  Immediate auto-detect and I did not have to go in and change ANY settings.  It was automatic......this NEVER happened with either of the HP computers.

Tonight's conclusion compared to the HP experience which is my only point of reference:

Well, that was a FAR better than expected first install experience.  I did everything that always plagued me on the HP computers and now after badmouthing Premiere CS4 it appears that at least half that blame should go to HP although I still think software should be compatible with the most popular computer in the world (HP).

1.  Easy FAST initial setup of computer software.  About 15 minutes compared to about an hour on the HP system with the same OS.
2.  Ultra fast, seamless install of CS4.
3.  Edited and slid timeline marker around in an attempt to crash program but to no avail.
4.  Media encoder opened with no issues unlike Both HP which would not open CS3 ME period and would only open CS4 ME on 1 of 2.
5.  Captured seamlessly with no dropped frames unlike 1 of 2 HP computers.  Possibly bad firewire port.
6.  Dual head video card not specified and a VERY PLEASANT surprise as I had planned on replacing.
7.  Monitor came with both digital and VGA cables though the video card does not do VGA.  Free cable.
8.  Inputs and outputs:  6 USB in back, 1 SATA, 1 Firewire, 6 audio i/o although I don't know what they all are.  Front has flip down door with 4 different types of card readers, 4 more USB, 1 more fireware, headphone out and microphone in.  **Cool front doors hide DVD drives and flip down with a button although I like to peek in sometimes to see if I'm burning.
9.  Variable speed fans which I suspect are standard now.  Go from very quiet to somewhat intense when rendering but they sound very warm and smooth for now.  We know how that goes.
10.  NO BLOATWARE?  Unlike the HP product, the only bloatware on the machine was MS Works and McAfee....Is Java bloatware?  Should I remove or keep?  I love Sun Open Office.

I have not tried any of the other adobe products and I have yet to try Sony DVD Architect, but I suspect that it will render quickly and NOT recognize my DVD burner since Sony is famous for not updating DVD drivers apparently.

For first night, first impressions?  This could all go ugly very quickly of course but this is nothing like my first impressions of HP.  Honestly?  On a scale of 1-10 I sincerely give this a 12.  It is very rare anymore that you actually get MORE than what you expect and in this case I got it.  Even Fed-X bent over backwards and treated me like a KING when I asked to pick it up on a Saturday at the hub rather than having it sent to work.  Costco support was very good.

So far so good.  More in a week or so.

All the best and happy computing.  Could this really be the one that works?

Todd.