Octopus Overlords

If anyone is looking for a decent desktop, this seems to be a pretty good deal: click me, Seymour!

3.2 Pentium, 528 meg ram, Radeon X300SE (not the greatest, I suppose, but servicable), and the kicker - a free 19" LCD monitor and free shipping. Total price after mail-in rebate - $770. The monitors by themselves cost $500 at Dell, I think.

Yeah that special led me to the GotApex site, wherein I was persuaded by an amazing deal to do what I thought I would not do. Ummm dude, I bought a Dell.

I found a coupon for 30% off any system over $1799, which alone is an insane deal. But then when you also get free shipping (mail in rebate), a free doubling of RAM, and can upgrade to a 20" 2001FP lcd flat panel for only $382 more and pair it with some Klipsch Promedia Ultra 5.1 speakers for $263 we have a most excellent deal indeed. At 30% off I bit the bullet and went for the PCI-E Radeon X800 XT for a video card, I might have just gone for the GeForce 6800 but it doesn't have tv out and I somehow convinced myself that the faster memory and better connectivity made it worth it. And for some bizarre reason the order confirmation email from Dell came in $100 cheaper than the online estimate.

I also would have gone for the same components on the cheaper 8400 Dell but my 30% coupon code didn't seem to work on that system when I tried it and so it ended up being cheaper for me to go for the XPS route.

Per the GotApex site my coupon is now expired. But... it says on my Dell order confirmation that the coupon expires on 2004-11-18 05:59:59am

So just in case anyone else would think this is a ripping deal, here are the codes (enter them after you add to cart in the coupon spot). Who knows if they will still work but it would be worth a shot

# 25% off a $1299+ Dimension desktop. Use code: M60LDQM2TH?N37
# 30% off a $1799+ Dimension desktop. Use code: 3TB6R405280WT1

I have foregone upgrading twice in the past so I feel pretty excited. When we got married and then bought a house it basically shot the money I had saved to upgrade two times, heh. So now I will be going from a PIII-450 to a PIV 3.6 and the wife was totally supportive of me going for a good one.

Edit to note I am not counting my chickens before they hatch with this being such a good deal, I hope Dell doesn't reneg on the deal. Does anyone with experience of ordering from Dell know at what phase can I be sure my order will be approved for said price? I have already gotten an order acknowledgment and an order confirmation email, does that mean I will get this price for sure?

The best reason to "Go Dell," Enough, is that you know you're going to get top-notch components inside your box, too. Dell makes us, as hardware suppliers, jump through so many more hoops than say for the components we shuffle off to "Distribution" (Best Buy, Fry's, DirtCheapDrives.com, etc.). I can only assume what they put their video card providers, et. al. through.

~Neal

They got a basic 3 Ghz, 512 MB RAM machine there for $370. Good lord that's cheap.

congrats Enough!! Bet yer excited!

Edit to note I am not counting my chickens before they hatch with this being such a good deal, I hope Dell doesn't reneg on the deal. Does anyone with experience of ordering from Dell know at what phase can I be sure my order will be approved for said price? I have already gotten an order acknowledgment and an order confirmation email, does that mean I will get this price for sure?

I've never heard of Dell cancelling an order. I've even had out-of-stock things replaced with better versions for the same price. (I ordered a 2.4Ghz laptop and got a 2.6Ghz laptop. They even sent a polite email asking if the substitution was okay. Hell, yeah, that's okay.)

P3-450? Ack. I've upgraded 3 times since then, and am thinking about upgrading again. And that's only counting full system replacements, not new graphics cards.

congrats Enough!! Bet yer excited!

Oh man you have no idea. My plan is to break it in with HL2.

I've never heard of Dell cancelling an order. I've even had out-of-stock things replaced with better versions for the same price. (I ordered a 2.4Ghz laptop and got a 2.6Ghz laptop. They even sent a polite email asking if the substitution was okay. Hell, yeah, that's okay.)

Cool, that's great to hear. And I figure if they wanted to rescind the deal it would have happened by now since I ordered on Sunday. Thanks for the info.

P3-450? Ack. I've upgraded 3 times since then, and am thinking about upgrading again. And that's only counting full system replacements, not new graphics cards.

Believe it or not I am able to play games like WC3, RON, NOLFII, etc pretty much smoothly. Of course I have wanted to upgrade for eons, but getting married and saving up to buy a house can slow down the upgrades ya know. At least I will get to enjoy the whiplash of going from a P3-450 to a P4 3.6! I'm giddy with excitement. Build my PC now damnit!