[Computer] A Good Deal?

[Taffy]

OK, the time has come for me to try and convince my parents to buy a new computer. It seems right, theres a lot of points for my argument (our XP isnt genuine, spy sweeper wont update, we cant get 'certain security updates' because XP isnt genuine, its being slow, theyre moaning because the 'internet' is slow (but its actually the computer) etc. etc.) So I was doing some pre-battle research, and I came across THIS. In case you can't see my chosen spec, i'll say it to you:

OS: I'll probably get them to buy XP, but do yhou think we should just use the Vista that comes with it?
Memory: 4GB DDR2 667MHz
Hard Drive: 1.5 TB (3x 500GB) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer
Graphics Card: 768MB nVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX
Monitor: None - I'm keeping the one I have now
Sound Card: Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion
Speakers: None - I'm keeping the ones I have now
Mouse/keyboard: None - I'm keeping the ones I have now
Optical Drives: LightScribe Super Format 18x Dual Layer DVD Writer +R/-R/RW/RAM (X2)
Mainboard: PCI-Express Mainboard - SLI nForce 650i - Intel Core 2 Duo/Quad-core - ATX
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core Processor(2.4GHz,8MB Cache,1066MHz)

This spec comes to £1600. Bear in mind that doesn't include speakers, mouse/keyboard or monitor, because I'm not buying them. Does that sound like a good deal to you? Or do you think I'd be better off spending my money elsewhere? Do you think that a 1.5TB Hard drive is a little OTT and that I should go for the 750GB one? Advice from such technological geniuses as yourselves is always useful

P.S Whereas you guys are, I am NOT in any way capable of building my own computer. I can only just find my way around the damn DVD player, so I won't be able to upgrade my current computer (it's beyond that now anyway) or build my own

 

[Ronin Storm]

Yeah, that link does weird things for me in Firefox.

You've not stated three critical components, as far as I'm concerned:

1. CPU
2. Motherboard
3. PSU

You may also need to consider optical drives (DVD+/-RW, etc).

As for building your own, only do it if you find such things fun in an ongoing sense or you've got someone who can help you learn how to do it. It's not actually as hard as it might seem, these days, but I remember being taught the ins and outs of computer hardware by a friend so I'm not sure how one learns without a little leg-up.

 

[SgtFury]

Do not go with MESH. a collegue at my work is still trying to get a working computer 3 months after sending it back to them (it was new) with faults.

Their aftersales is lousy.


Have a look at these guys Novatech Both computers i had from them have performed great.

I spent about £650 if i remember rightly but they have computers like this one

Annihilator Quad Core 8800GTX

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 8MB Cache 64 Bit Processor
Corsair 2048MB DDR2 667MHz Dual Channel Memory
1000GB (2 x 500GB) Serial ATA II Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer
Dual SLi nVidia 8800GTX 1.536GB PCI-E Graphics
16x Dual Layer +R/-R/RW DVD burner
16x DVD Rom Drive
Asus Striker Extreme Nvidia 680I Motherboard
Realtek 7.1 High Definition Audio With Optical SPDif
Gigabit LAN
Logitech Cordless Desktop MX3200 Laser Keyboard & Mouse

For around about £1800.

 

[Haven]

What spec is their old computer ?

 

[Nanor]

I know you said you can't upgrade, but you could always bring it to a computer repair shop and they would install it for you. It may work out a lot cheaper.

If you want to buy the computer, are you sure your parents will pay almost 2 grand for a pc? If they are go ahead and buy that as that PC makes me drool. I believe Piacular bought a phat PC and he thought it was a good deal so maybe you should talk to him. His PC is similar to that. 1.5TB HDD?? That is somewhat over the top, I'd say 750GB is enough. Cut down on some of the luxuries. Maybe get a 8500 (They're about ~60 quid from cannings.co.uk). It seems very good value and it's DX10.

I'd like to see your system specs all the same.

 

[waterproofbob]

I'd have to agree with fury, your best bet is to go for someone like novatech, they make very reasonably priced rigs and don't charge much in the way of build charges, unlike someone of the custom PC companies.
Scan also do some good deals in the 3xs build department.
But for a relatively good priced with a good warranty from a well established company go for novatech. You can't get any custom stuff like overclocking done but as you sound like that might just scare you better to not do it (even if they could do it for you.


Errr in answer to Nanor the 8500 bites large chunks of ass for everything except video editing.
Hard drive wise you're better off going for 2x500 than getting a 750 at the moment. Don't skimp on the graphics card. Get the phat card of death if you can. And remember its actually very hard to have too much hard drive space. I constantly find myself wanting more.

 

[Taffy]

Okay, latest news on the Front is that parents would prefer to 'get a man in' to have a look and recommend what we should upgrade. I basically said we should get a new graphics card, sound card, memory and motherboard. As far as this system's spec goes, I can't really tell you, as our order form was lost eons ago However, I CAN tell you that it is AMD Athlon (an old one), the graphics card is a Radeon 9600 Series, total virtual memory is 2GB and physical memory is 512MB. And thats about it, i'm afraid We got this computer in 2002, so I'm pretty sure that it does need a fair bit of work done to it.

 

[waterproofbob]

best bet is a new build, in all honesty, theres not much you can salvage from that. the most important thing are processor (number one uber important thing) graphics card and memory. This then means however that you will need a new mobo and new PSU and almost certainly a new case. To spend money on a guy to come and tell you this would be nuts. In all honesty its 5 years old and it needs to be completely replaced. Save the Hard drive if you want as transfering stuff can be an ass but other than that that bad boy needs replacing.

 

[Taffy]

That's what I thought, Sir Bob. Mkay, i'll go shopping for a new system. Keeping an open mind on price until Saturday, I just bought my first lottery ticket

Thanks chaps, your help has been very valuable.

 

[Ronin Storm]

and physical memory is 512MB.

That's probably one of your biggest bottlenecks right there.

 

[PsiSoldier]

Off-topic, is it possible for a GPU to bottleneck a CPU? Or is it only a 1-way-street?

 

[thatbloke]

With regards to your operating system I would recommend Vista, not XP.

Why? XP is soon going to be out of action. Microsoft are beginning to be complete asshats and are releasing games that will run on DX10 only. With the kind of hardware it looks like you will be getting, you will be able to take full advantage of the DX10 features that will come with Vista. Yes there are certain compatibility issues with some older hardware and Vista atm but with the kind of stuff you got there it really isn't gonna be an issue.

Just in case you don't know, DX10 is Direct X 10. Direct X is the graphical framework that Microsoft have developed that is part of all windows systems and is what most games use to actually run these days. In fact if you are browsing this on Windows right now it's probably using Direct X graphics to do it.

Direct X 10 is the next version of this graphics framework and is available in Vista only (btw make sure you do NOT get Vista Basic, Get either Home Premium or Ultimate).

Also, make sure you shop around. Things are coming down in price ALL the time. You may also want to make sure that your Motherboard is SLi so that if you want to upgrade your graphics in future you could just whack another card in your current system

 

[BiG D]

With regards to your operating system I would recommend Vista, not XP.

I disagree. Strongly. Does Vista even have working video drivers for all the major video cards yet?

It is going to be a couple of years before Vista overtakes XP, and until then it's stupid for a developer to limit themselves to the tiny market. (Microsoft, though, has a vested interest in vista-only games. To the point where they just hardcode in a restriction. Shadowrun actually works no problem on XP with a tiny bit of cracking...) I wouldn't worry about games not being compatible.

Vista itself is still too young to be recommending. There is still plenty of hardware that is not compatible, so you risk not being able to use your existing stuff.

Sadly, if you buy a prebuilt computer from one of the major retailers, you probably won't get a choice.

 

[Taffy]

Why? XP is soon going to be out of action. Microsoft are beginning to be complete asshats and are releasing games that will run on DX10 only.

Well I figured that, seeing as new computers come with Vista, i'd keep that on disc and just bung my current OS on the new computer (once its validated, of course) until the time is right. Then I'll get out the Vista CD and put that on instead. Best of both worlds

 

[waterproofbob]

Yeah I'm not touching vista for at least 6 months. its all very pretty but the gamers choice has to be xp still for a while yet.

 

[SgtFury]

I have a Vista machine and it runs everything no problems.


Think its this one http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/pcrange.html?ISM

Isys Max 8600 Core 2 Duo

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 4MB Cache Dual Core 64 BitProcessor
2048MB 667MHz DDR2 Ram
500GB Serial ATA II Hard Drive
nVidia 8600GTS 256MB PCI-E Graphics
16x Dual Layer +R/-R/RW DVD burner
Intel 946GZ Chipset MicroATX Motherboard Motherboard
Realtek 7.1 High Definition Audio
Gigabit LAN
Novatech Keyboard & Optical Mouse

Set up 2 monitors with it and its working great .

 

[thatbloke]

I disagree. Strongly. Does Vista even have working video drivers for all the major video cards yet?

It is going to be a couple of years before Vista overtakes XP, and until then it's stupid for a developer to limit themselves to the tiny market. (Microsoft, though, has a vested interest in vista-only games. To the point where they just hardcode in a restriction. Shadowrun actually works no problem on XP with a tiny bit of cracking...) I wouldn't worry about games not being compatible.

Vista itself is still too young to be recommending. There is still plenty of hardware that is not compatible, so you risk not being able to use your existing stuff.

Sadly, if you buy a prebuilt computer from one of the major retailers, you probably won't get a choice.

I knew I'd cause trouble by recommending Vista. There may still be a FEW teething troubles in certain ares but seriously, going with it now will save you a headache when you do eventually want to upgrade from XP to Vista in future.

The reason I suggested going with Vista is because by the looks of it he is not intending on using any of his current hardware... therefore no compatibility issues will be present.

The Video card drivers will catch up very quickly as new models are released so I really can't see an issue there with that and any current games on the market either.

 

[Haven]

*despises vista with a burning passion*

 

[BiG D]

The reason I suggested going with Vista is because by the looks of it he is not intending on using any of his current hardware... therefore no compatibility issues will be present.

The Video card drivers will catch up very quickly as new models are released so I really can't see an issue there with that and any current games on the market either.

I'd have no problem agreeing that drivers should catch up quickly... Except when vista was released, there was nothing. They had a 2 year beta, but still couldn't get proper video drivers for release? This does not instill confidence.

As for current hardware, you're assuming that he doesn't have a printer, gamepad, scanner, etc. that he wants to hook up. If he does, he could be screwed if he gets vista.

 

[PsiSoldier]

Dual boot XP and Vista .
I know I won't be getting Vista for a long time because it's got alot of compatibility problems with some of the old games I play (Namely Planetside).