Ok guys my flatmate is moving out and taking his computer with him so I best get myself set up. Might as well go for something that is quite tasty for games and relatively future proof so I've set myself a budget of not a penny more than £1500 but I'd prefer about £1300 (all in price, inc vat, delivery, etc).

Can anyone suggest a system or specify a custom build somewhere that meets my criteria:

Must have relatively fast processor/motherboard - I think I'd prefer the AMD Athlon

Must have 1GB of Ram

Must have a 120GB HD or more (pref fastish HD)

Must have CD burner and DVD burner would be nice

Must have good quality 17" TFT flat screen with 16ms response or faster

Must have 9800XT graphics card or faster

Would like a good speaker set up maybe with surround and a subwoofer

Must have wireless keyboard and mouse

Other than that you I'm pretty open to suggestions

 

take a look on http://www.overclockers.co.uk/

lots of good stuff and lots of info about kit.

also suggest you have a look around their forums and maybe register and make a few postings....

loads of helpful and knowledgeable people so you can then decide to buy from wherever.....would always recommend buying bits individually and getting it put togther.....no doubt you know someone who would do this for u....... can choose all the best bits you want then....

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/index.php?s=

 

Probably better to build your own custom spec computer. Plenty online retailers that are pretty good, www.scan.co.uk www.dabs.co.uk www.aria.co.uk. You could always try Dell too, they do decent computers. Also Ebay is worth a look.

 

Kenny,

What do you need to use it for?

One of the lads from work just bought a brand new Dell P4 3Ghz with 512Mb, 120Gb ATA drive, DVD-ROM, DVD-ROM + CD R/W, 128Mb NVidia 5800 card all for £450.

He managed to get it off eBay from a guy in Manchester who buys direct from Dell and then sells them on eBay. They are PC's returned to Dell after the customer changed their mind or couldn't afford them. This one had never been used with everything still in shrink wrap.

Ok, it never came with a monitor, but at < £500 for a brand new PC he wasn't complaining. At the rate these things depreciate I wouldn't blow £1500 on one.

Have you considered a Mac? £1500 will get you a good bit of kit and (if you listen to Angrynorth) they should keep their value.

Stefan

 

Thought I'd chip in.

Wait till after June 28th for G5 prices to drop then buy yourself a nice Dual 1.8 or Dual 2.0 G5.

http://www.apple.com/uk/powermac/

You will not regret it.

PS they hold their value very well

 

If it's got to be a PC, then I'd strongly suggest building your own, apart from feeling a fair bit of pride that you made your own PC, it can work out substantially cheaper, plus you can build it to exactly your spec.

If you're not totally against Macs then have a good look at them, If it's a desktop you want then it has to be a G5, there might be some floating around on ebay, but I doubt it, as AN says, wait a while as there is going to be a price drop soon, and *maybe* a speed bump, but that's not written in stone.

As for holding value, compared to a PC (unless it's some Alienware kit, or other v high end stuff), it will hold it's value very well, you'd be amazed what people will pay for a year old G4 system, mad buggers

 

It will primarily be used as a game machine and to play online poker on and surf. It *may* also be used to download music and video's that I have already purchased purely for backup purposes It may have to run several poker modules at once and they can be both memory and processor intensive. I need a powerful graphics card for playing games, etc.

I'm a big mac fan and have a G3 laptop which at the time was the fastest laptop in the world. The problem with getting another mac is that they are still behind for games and most critically because few online poker sites support Mac OS. This is of critical importance because ultimately online poker will pay for the computer

I'd be happy to go to a site and specify all the various components (i'd appreciate advice on what would be a good set up (i.e. which motherboards, chips, hd's, etc) for this). I don't really have the time to collect all the parts and assemble them given that I need to be set up pretty much as soon as my flatmate leaves as every day without a computer is lost online earnings.

 

Good point I forgot you were a gambler Probably best with a PeeCee then, only other alternative is using Virtual PC 7 when that pops out.

I don't know whether a spend £1500 on a PC is needed though, everyone on here is always talking about self builds and for that sort of cash you could probably self build a NASA launch control system

If you are buying already built. The only PC I would consider would be Alienware

 

Alienware is VERY but also VERY £££££

"Good point I forgot you were a gambler " - its not gambling

I have the first version of Virtual PC and whilst I'm sure its come on a long way I can't imagine it would be able to handle all the windows functions that I'd need it to Besides if I ever wanted to do anything efficiently ( to PC fans) or any DTP or graphical stuff I'd just use the laptop

 

well, if it's for games then it has to be a PC, as you're quite right, the mac just does not cut it when it comes to games

 

The next version (7) is supposed to be hardware accelerated, meaning it will use that graphics card and other stuff to speed the performance. Allegedly it should allow for almost native like performance. Whether its true or not is a different matter.

The Alienware Area 51 Enthusiast is a snip at about £1200. For what will be a very well built machine, the AXP is also out soon no idea how much that will be but its a liquid cooled monster.

 

You have a PM m8

 

How about this bad boy?

I custom specced it with the brand new ATI Radeon X800 Pro and its a tad over my budget at £1650ish all-in. However, the 19" TFT is bright, has a 16ms response time, and is well reviewed, it seems to have no weak links and it will be graphically awesome with that card. Any reason not to place my order?

 

Built a PC the other month. Shuttle case (small form factor, and very quiet - also has blue leds), AMD Athlon 2.5GHz (Barton), 512Mb ram, 160Gb hard drive, 2 x firewire, USB2, cd-rw, all for £300.

Took about 30 minutes from getting it from the courier to it powering on and XP being installed.....

This is how it looks, obviously without a dvd drive in....for what you need, does everything....

 

PS If you really want to spend £1500, spend the MOST on your monitor. This is the item that will be with you through many systems, and it is what you look at all day.

The rest is pretty much disposable by the time your next system comes around - the HD will be too small, DVD-RW's will be superceded by something else, and memory will be tiny in comparison to your next PC. Cases are so cheap, no point worrying about them either.

 

Here's something I knocked up using ebuyer (not the cheapest for the Shuttle case), and it comes in at £499 inc vat. Just need the monitor on top.....chose the Seagate barracuda HD as it is nice and quiet.

Shuttle XPC SN41G2 AMD Socket A Aluminium Barebones System
051053
200
£148.99
£148.99

Seagate ST3160023A 160gb 7200rpm 8mb Cache Barracuda 7200.7 Plus - OEM
052158
108
£62.00
£62.00

2 x Crucial 512 DDR333 PC2700 DIMM
042149
372
£52.00
£104.00

Sony 8x DVD+R 8xDVD-R 4x DVD+RW 24XCDRW IDE Burner OEM
059300
269
£48.85
£48.85

AMD ATHLON XP2500+ 333MHZ FSB 512 L2 Cache Barton CPU - OEM
047843
119
£42.99
£42.99

Chic Wireless Office Keyboard & Optical Mouse Deluxe Version
048769
978
£13.10
£13.10

- remove item
Cart Total:
£419.93

*
**Shipping Band:
£4.99







Approx Cart Weight: 9.66Kg
Shipping Surcharge:
£0.00

SubTotal:
£424.92

VAT:
£74.39

Total:
£499.31

 

Change the memory for 400mhz and overclock to 400mhz FSB - voila 3200+


Have had this running fine with crucial memory on my two render slaves for nearly 4 months - no glitches so far.

 

Lightning - yes, was only a very quick shopping basket of stuff i put together for an intial idea....

Very pleased with my Shuttle. Works a treat.

 

Build your own. You'll have a sh*t hot PC for £1500. As mentioned earlier a good monitor is most important. I bought an Iiyama Vision Master Pro 454 (CRT), 19", max res 2048x1536 @ 80Hz. You can't get a TFT that does that, and its very bright.

As for future proofing forget it, give it a year or so and you'll be hankering to upgrade. Go for the stuff thats recently been superceded and save loads, e.g. 9800 pro instead of X800, upgrade to X800 in a year when the X??? comes out.