Dell Dimension B110 in depth review
Just got a Dell Dimension B110 (2.53Ghz Celeron D, 256M DDR400,80G HD, DVDROM/CDRW, 15" LCD" for $345 shipped to my door..
I chose the 15" LCD option as i already have a 173FP, so i went with the 156FP option instead, to knock $50 off the price. Honestly, the 156FP looks like a 2001FP, just baby sized..
Has a nice crisp picture, with good colors, for a small analog 16mS LCD anyway..
As for the B110 itself:
It's got an Intel OEM i865GV motherboard, with Sanyo Oscon's, United Chemicon, and Sanyo caps on it.. I doubt if this little guy is going to have cap problems..
No AGP slot obviously, but that's true for all 865GV boards. It's standard microATX, so it's easily changed out if desired, the only non standard connector is the one for the front panel audio, and even that could be rewired. I dropped another 256M DDR400 module in to bump the RAM to 512M and enable dual channel mode, which the BIOS reports. Motherboard has the ICH5 southbridge, so there's a pair of SATA connectors if you feel like replacing the stock ATA/100 drive. The board should be capable of operating 800FSB northwoods as well as some of the Prescott core chips..
The 80G Drive i received in my B110 was one of the new black cased Western Digital 800BB's, with 2M cache. Seems passibly quiet, and decently quick. The CDRW/DVDROM is a Toshiba/Samsung drive, which is quite good enough for a system in this class..
The one thing that really stood out is that this little guy has a solid 250W Delta NPS series power supply, which is quite nice for a budget class system.
Like i said before, if you don't like the integrated graphics in the 865GV, putting a PCI vidcard in is possible, as well as a motherboard swap..
The USB keyboard included is quite nice, though i don't care much for the non-optical USB mouse included, though a optical Logitech was a $20 option.
System only has an additional 92mm Nidec Beta V thermistor controlled cooling fan, with a duct over the large passive heatsink on the CPU. Even with Prime95 cranking away, the air coming out of the 92mm grille is just lukewarm..
Most annoying part was cleaning it's OS image up to remove the crap that OEM's like to have at startup, though none of the programs removed gave any trouble uninstalling. If i were lazy, i would have just burnt the drivers folder to CD and loaded an XP Pro image on it, but i wanted to operate it with the stock XP Home image first.
Verdict:
Quite a nice little box for web/office/music/mom box.
Performance/gaming enthuiasts wouldn't be quite happy with it, though it can be upgraded to be a nice little LAN gaming box with a new motherboard.
I chose the 15" LCD option as i already have a 173FP, so i went with the 156FP option instead, to knock $50 off the price. Honestly, the 156FP looks like a 2001FP, just baby sized..
Has a nice crisp picture, with good colors, for a small analog 16mS LCD anyway.. As for the B110 itself:
It's got an Intel OEM i865GV motherboard, with Sanyo Oscon's, United Chemicon, and Sanyo caps on it.. I doubt if this little guy is going to have cap problems..
No AGP slot obviously, but that's true for all 865GV boards. It's standard microATX, so it's easily changed out if desired, the only non standard connector is the one for the front panel audio, and even that could be rewired. I dropped another 256M DDR400 module in to bump the RAM to 512M and enable dual channel mode, which the BIOS reports. Motherboard has the ICH5 southbridge, so there's a pair of SATA connectors if you feel like replacing the stock ATA/100 drive. The board should be capable of operating 800FSB northwoods as well as some of the Prescott core chips..
The 80G Drive i received in my B110 was one of the new black cased Western Digital 800BB's, with 2M cache. Seems passibly quiet, and decently quick. The CDRW/DVDROM is a Toshiba/Samsung drive, which is quite good enough for a system in this class..
The one thing that really stood out is that this little guy has a solid 250W Delta NPS series power supply, which is quite nice for a budget class system.
Like i said before, if you don't like the integrated graphics in the 865GV, putting a PCI vidcard in is possible, as well as a motherboard swap..
The USB keyboard included is quite nice, though i don't care much for the non-optical USB mouse included, though a optical Logitech was a $20 option.
System only has an additional 92mm Nidec Beta V thermistor controlled cooling fan, with a duct over the large passive heatsink on the CPU. Even with Prime95 cranking away, the air coming out of the 92mm grille is just lukewarm..
Most annoying part was cleaning it's OS image up to remove the crap that OEM's like to have at startup, though none of the programs removed gave any trouble uninstalling. If i were lazy, i would have just burnt the drivers folder to CD and loaded an XP Pro image on it, but i wanted to operate it with the stock XP Home image first.
Verdict:
Quite a nice little box for web/office/music/mom box.
Performance/gaming enthuiasts wouldn't be quite happy with it, though it can be upgraded to be a nice little LAN gaming box with a new motherboard.
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