Yes you make a point. But AMD is still better bang for your buck.

You should definitely build a pc feline.

feline......Hi,i am a fellow Brit and i have fitted quite a few computers up for people who like you want to buy a package from a retailer.

The most important thing in my opinion is quality of components and after sales care.

For quality of components and for that matter price (which is also important).....and i have seen many machines recently.......go for a MESH. Pop down to your local supermarket or newsagent and pick up a computer mag like Computer Buyer and you will see that MESH have a large 10 page advertisement and you can just pick the system you want. They will also add any add-ons you want as well. They also have a good website that is worth visiting. Their systems are constantly tested in the labs by various mags and they consistantly do very well. Their customer support is very good and they are one of the few manufaturers that offer a 3 year ***on site*** warranty which is included in the price of your system. That says a lot about the confidence they have in the systems that they build. MESH have also been around for many years so you will not have to worry that they are one of these 'fly by night' companies.

I cannot speak highly enough about MESH and the system i am using now is a MESH which is 3 years old and which i have recently upgraded myself.

As Boxxi said DELL are good also and if you catch them right you can get some very good deals but on the whole when you compare a DELL and a MESH system at the same price the MESH usually has better quality components but occassionally DELL do some stunning deals which outgun anything else on the planet so do not rule DELL out.

I hear what FUZZY says about ADVENT and PCWORLD but you can get more components and quality elsewhere.

Good Luck

MESH http://www.meshplc.co.uk/updated/index.htm

Athlon 64 FX

yes I was talking about that one!

paxx RAM makes a difference without question, but you have to know how to make use of it otherwise it gets rather pointless.

Outlook with a pst that is almost 2 gigs loads blazingly fast as do all other Office apps.

Photoshop set to swap to a 512 meg ram drive is blazingly fast.

Setting things up so Photoshop runs from a 512 meg ram disk and so it swaps to another 512 or 1 gig ram disk is so fast it shocks most people who have never seen it.

So more RAM is a solid thing to get at anytime, learning how to utilize it is a must...

When your considering loading from a Hard Drive in milsec's and loading from a Ram Drive in nanosec's you do notice it

The new FX51 is also $800 for just the chip...

The P4 3.06 is only 100 bucks cheaper. no big saving there

Kona.....3.06 P4 in Oz is $705 AUS.....NOT US..... 490 USD, or 210 bucks cheaper.

Personally, since the 8086 chip, I've only used Intel....and had exactly ZERO problems with them.....so I'd be a blithering idiot to change to an unknown quantity for some nefarious gain AND at a premium price.

ANYTHING you buy now is going to be obsolete eventually.....the trick is to choose NOW, not site on the kerb watching the traffic fly by.

Kona.....3.06 P4 in Oz is $705 AUS.....NOT US..... 490 USD, or 210 bucks cheaper.

I know it was not US dollars you were speaking of.

Here at my local electronics store the 3.20 Ghz P4 goes for $$$

http://shop4.outpost.com/product/3682175

I know it is not the 3.06 but that's not much cheaper either.

You can buy a complete system for the price of $490 - LOOK-

http://shop4.outpost.com/product/3797006

Kona....as they say, I don't give a rat's arse about buying a complete system for the price of a cpu.....my choice was for one level down from the current 'top-end'...as that is where the best value for money is, hence the 3.06 over the 3.2....there is a significant saving, for stuff-all speed difference.

Well each to his own but I would have got a whole system and saved some $$

Oh well... back to the drawing board!

Um... All this talk about I do not like Dell and I just... BOUGHT ONE!

It is a older Optiplex

Pentium 3 733 mhz
256 megs of RAM
DVD drive
Superdisc Drive
Nvidia Graphics

And to top it off I bought a 52x24x52 CD RW Drive for it!

I guess I will open my mouth and insert foot!

Kona...before inserting foot you'd have to remove the one there already first....

yes that's true. But it beats the crap out of my Dell notebook as far as power! It will work until I get enough money for the top of the line.

BTW Feline you might want to check out ebay. Dell does alot of business there.

Thompsons Computer Warehouse Online
http://www.tcwo.com

INTEL Pentium 4
Product Name Summary Price
Pentium4 1.7 256k Retail Box 3 Yr Manuf. Warr. $127.00
Pentium4 1.8A 512k Retail Box 3 Yr Manuf. Warr. $129.00
Pentium4 2.0A 512k Retail Box 3 Yr Manuf. Warr. $151.00
Pentium4 2.2A 512k Retail Box 3 Yr Manuf. Warr. $204.00
Pentium4 2.4A 512k Retail Box 3 Yr Manuf. Warr. $173.00
Pentium4 2.4B 512k 533FSB Retail 3 Year Manuf. Warranty! $166.00
Pentium4 2.4C 512k 800FSB HT Retail 3 Year Manuf. Warranty $189.00
Pentium4 2.53B 512k 533FSB Retail 3 Yr Manuf. Warr. $198.00
Pentium4 2.66B 512k 533FSB Retail 3 Yr Manuf. Warr. $206.00
Pentium4 2.6C 512k 800FSB HT Retail 3 Year Manuf. Warranty $223.00
Pentium4 2.8B 512k 533FSB Retail 3 Yr Manuf. Warr. $262.00
Pentium4 2.8C 512k 800FSB HT Retail 3 Year Manuf. Warranty $279.00
Pentium4 3.06B 512k 533FSB HT Retail 3 Yr Manuf. Warr. $382.00
Pentium4 3.0C 512k 800FSB HT Retail 3 Year Manuf. Warranty $407.00
Pentium4 3.2 512k 800FSB HT Retail 3 Year Manuf. Warranty $614.00


Intel D865PERLK w/ Pentium4
Product Name Summary Price
INTEL D865PERLK DDR MB/1.8AGHZ P4 3 Year Manuf Warranty! $283.00
INTEL D865PERLK DDR MB/2.0GHZ P4 3 Year Manuf Warranty! $305.00
INTEL D865PERLK DDR MB/2.2GHZ P4 3 Year Manuf Warranty! $358.00
INTEL D865PERLK DDR MB/2.4BGHZ P4 3 Year Manuf Warranty! $320.00
INTEL D865PERLK DDR MB/2.4CGHZ P4 3 Year Manuf Warranty! $343.00
INTEL D865PERLK DDR MB/2.4GHZ P4 3 Year Manuf Warranty! $327.00
INTEL D865PERLK DDR MB/2.53GHZ P4 3 Year Manuf Warranty! $352.00
INTEL D865PERLK DDR MB/2.66GHZ P4 3 Year Manuf Warranty! $360.00
INTEL D865PERLK DDR MB/2.6CGHZ P4 3 Year Manuf Warranty! $377.00
INTEL D865PERLK DDR MB/2.8CGHZ P4 3 Year Manuf Warranty! $433.00
INTEL D865PERLK DDR MB/2.8GHZ P4 3 Year Manuf Warranty! $416.00
INTEL D865PERLK DDR MB/3.06GHZ P4 3 Year Manuf Warranty! $536.00
INTEL D865PERLK DDR MB/3.0CGHZ P4 3 Year Manuf Warranty! $561.00
INTEL D865PERLK DDR MB/3.2CGHZ P4 3 Year Manuf Warranty! $768.00

Might look here, service on RMA's is easy and not a hitch, but it is also some place to
look over pricing for compairing and such...

Below is an example of what I was saying about the lastest and greatest possibly being overkill
on the budget when you can go back one version and get a lot more bang for your buck.


FIC ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB VGA/DVI/TV
US$ 349.00
http://www.tcwo.com/cgi-bin/webc.cgi/st_prod.html?p_prodid=3162&sid=44oBmP0mU7ONDau


FIC ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128MB VGA/DVI/TV
US$ 181.00
http://www.tcwo.com/cgi-bin/webc.cgi/st_prod.html?p_prodid=3170&sid=44oBmP0mU7ONDau

I think somehow you all missed the title of this thread. All these USD prices are irrellevant and off topic!

So PC World http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0387446443.1066901720@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccgadcjjiljhjjcflgceggdhhmdfif.0 may not be the cheapest place, but the one I have has worked flawlessly for a year plus I can take it back if it does go wrong. One tip to remember is all the kit on display can be bought base unit only - you just have to ask.

I'd rather sacrifice a (negligible) amount of speed for reliability. You get what you pay for...

Hmmm, link didn't work quite right...

/me is going to think about this a bit

first, to try and side step some of the more energetic suggestions, i am not going to buy anything cutting edge, it is simply to expensive.

it seems that one of the key things to do with 1 gig or more of ram is to make a ram disk. interesting point, so i will leave off extra ram for the moment, and simply make sure i can add more once i have a working machine.

re quality of components, where i work sell computers, but i am not sure i trust the quality of the components. once burnt, twice shy. on one memorable occasion they had a load of cheep ram, and most of the company brought some. a couple of months later, and a LOT of machine crashes later, over half of the ram had been returned! nearly everyone had at least one bad stick. an extreme, but not unheard of event

so, i am very loath to buy a machine from work, even with the staff discount. i prefer to pay more for better quality.

AMD vs INTEL, i have NO strong opinion, and am not about to be converted to either side i have had both over the years, and the last 3 CPU's have been AMD simply due to price. ignoring the current **** main machine (no one knows the problem, so blaiming the CPU doesnt help anyone), AMD have been fine for me.

buying online, i tend to be cautious when spending many hundreds of pounds, and prefer a shop i can go and shout at in an emergency

Voodoo_FreaK - here's good choices of Full systems. I shop here quite alot and really recommend their stuff such a big range.

a few people at work have also recormended overclockers.co.uk , so i will check them out for a price comparison, thanks

at the moment, i will probably just buy something at PC World IF i can find something close enough to my needs at an ok price. not a very exciting solution, but i have had more than enough hardware excitement with the current machine

feline

I can understand that about the cutting edge considering there are laptops that are twice as powerful
as the hottest server of a couple of years ago.

Fuzzy

just kidding, point taken



ok ok, though there is an exchange rate to compair pricing from

/me plops down
after a LONG and rather epic day, i have a new computer!

it took a while to replace winXP Home with winXP pro, and now i am hunting for drivers, etc.

more news when i have had time to work out what food is

feline............Hi where did you get it from.........and what are the specs

Hope this one works much better for you

Fuzzy......my bet is that feline went down your road and went to PCWORLD

Want a fiver on it?
[Message Edited]

I see you edited your post...hehehe
[Message Edited]

Yes, nearly a very embarrassing error of judgement