I need some advice in buying my new PC.

[BigJim]

I was looking around at www.novatech.co.uk , and found a little gimmick where you can build your own PC online, and have them deliver it to you. I searched for a compromise between cost and top-spec equipment and came up with the package below. Could someone who actually knows about PC's, please tell me if the equipment on this spec is good or not? I think it's quite good, but would be happier if I knew for certain. I use my PC for surfing the internet, playing computer games and minor personal administration, like typing letters. One of the things I'm not clear about, is whether or not I actually need the soundcard I've installed here. I have heard that most mother boards come with integrated sound these days. Does anyone know if the Asus A7N8X Nforce2 Serial ATA does?


Processor
Intel Pentium 4 2.8GHz 800MHz FSB

Case
ATX 300W Midi Tower + Fan (AMD/P4)

Motherboard
Asus A7N8X Nforce2 Serial ATA

RAM
512MB 400MHz DDR RAM

Hard Drive 1
Maxtor 120GB Plus9 8MB Cache

Hard Drive 2
Not Selected

CDRom 1
Sony DWU10A DVD+/- DVD Burner

CDRom 2
DVD-ROM Drive 16x Speed

Floppy Drive
1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive

Zip Drive
Not Selected

Graphic Card
128MB DDR GeForce4 Ti4800 AGP

PCI Card 1
Creative 128 PCI Sound Card

PCI Card 2
Not Selected

PCI Card 3
Not Selected

PCI Card 4
Not Selected

Keyboard
Novatech Black PS/2 Keyboard

Mouse
Novatech Black PS/2 Mouse

Operating System
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition

Software
Not Selected

Monitor
Special Offer LCD 15" TFT Flat Screen Monitor

This package comes to £1,204.19. I think that's the equivalent of $1,900 or therabouts. Another big question is should I get a Pentium 4, or an AMD Athlon CPU? Which one is better? Does either have any advantage over the other?

 

[BigJim]

Or alternatively, there's this beast from Dell.

SYSTEM SPECIFICATION
Dimension 8300 (System Identifier. ZRBTA90H)
Dimension™ 8300 Pentium ® 4 processor 3.0GHz with 800MHz system bus/512K Cache, Integrated Audio & 10/100 NIC

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

System Price £1,799.86
Promotion Discount (£350.01)
Discounted Price £1,449.85
Promotion End Date August 4 2003 05:00 AM Europe/London

Memory: 1024MB (2x512) Dual Channel DDR SDRAM at 400MHz
Floppy Drive: 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Hard Disk Drive: 200GB IDE Hard Drive (7200rpm)
Video: 128MB DDR ATI Radeon™ 9800 Pro Graphics Card
Modem: Dell 56k Data/Fax/Voice Modem
Sound Card: Creative Labs SoundBlaster® Audigy™ 2 Sound Card
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
DVD Drive: 4x/DVD+R/+RW
16x DVD Drive
Software: AOL 7 + Tiscali ISP combo
Dell Movie Studio Essentials for Audigy
Microsoft® Works® 7.0

For fifteen hundred quid, there's quite a lot there. Thoughts y'all?

 

[BigJim]

Actually, sod the Dell one for a game of soldiers. Just found out that that price does NOT include a monitor.

 

[Alex Warfield]

...sod the Dell one for a game of soldiers.

I can honestly say I've absolutely no idea what that means....

At any rate, don't end up with a piece of bollocks, mate.

 

[BettyBoop2002]

HP is my choice

I've always be partical to HP. Never had any problems what so ever and they back their stuff too.

My professor tells us that Dell is highly over rated 🙄 I dunno. I just know that HP is my choice!

Try doing research, like the consumers report they have tons listed there, not just pc's either!
Hope this helps.

Destiny🙂

 

[kurchatovium]

From my experience these people make good computers. Alienware, HP, and MicronPC. BigJim also make sure the system comes with a system recovery disk and/or the Windows XP operating disks.

Also if you are going to do any artwork (especially 3D) then consider getting a 1Gb of ram. If you are not then 512 Mb should work fine. Hope this helps.😀

 

[BigJim]

Ta muchly for the response peeps.

Alex- Oy you long-potted tosser! 😀 "Sod this for a game of soldiers" means, "Fuck that!" Okey-day?

Destiny- I've heard good things about Hewlet Packard too, but they seem to only offer particular packages and at quite high prices too. I think I'd prefer a cheaper, smaller outfit who lets me design my own spec PC. Thank you very much for suggesting it though.🙂

Kurch- I'm assuming that those manufacturers are American based? I can't find them listed over here at all. I'm pretty sure I've found my company anyway. They're called MESH Computers and they do pretty much everything at decent prices. I was more interested in the individual components anyway, as I'm going to have a machine custom-built for me, rather than buy a package that is short in some areas and shit-hot in others. Safest that way I guess.
The biggie that's got me wondering right now, is going to be an AMD Athlon or and Intel Pentium 4? The fastest and most up-to-date Athlon on the market is the XP3200+, which runs at a seemingly pathetic 2.2GHtz, compared to the Pentium 4 3.2 . I have heard however that even though they run significantly slower, Athlons out-perform Pentium 4's, although I have no idea about why this should be. I use my computer for gaming, surfing the internet and personal admin such as writing letters. (Usually to porn producers, wanting to know if they're looking for new talent. 😀) I would also like to start using photography as I'm intending to produce some amateur tickling material for the UKTF in the next 12 months.


P.S. Why in the living name of arse do AMD Athlons run at speeds that nowhere near match their model numbers?😕 And why do they come nowhere near the speed of Pentium 4's and yet seemingly out-perform them?😕 😕 😕

 

[BigJim]

By the way Kurch, no retailer here will offer me the actual OS software disks. Something to do with combatting piracy I think. They do offer a recovery disk though.

Also I do have my heart set on 1024mb of DDR Random Access Memory. Probably pointless, but it's summat to boast about, eh? 😉

 

[AphxA]

advice

I would go with the amd athelon processor. I believe is faster than the pentium 4. Also, especially with windows machines. The processors slows down which ruins the performance of the computer. I wouldnt go with dell. Dell is kinda pricy. do they have a best buy where you live? I dont know if they have best buys over seas!

 

[kurchatovium]

As long as you have a recovery disks that is OK I think.

As for the memory if you can afford always go for more you never know when it might come in handy. I did not anticpate me getting so heavily into 3d artwork now I wish I had some more RAM.

Athlons run close to the Intel Pentium 4 performance even though the listed frequency is lower. Many people who make gaming computers can get higher fps (frames per second) rates out of the Athlons than the Pentium 4's like you said. If you have to make a choice I would pick the Pentium4's right now as they are better overall. Athlons tend to be better at graphics and hence games but not quite as good in other things. However neither is really a bad choice. The reason for the difference in terms of frequency is the performance of a CPU depends not only on how fast it thinks but also on how fast it can get data in and out of the chip. At least I think that is why there is a difference.

The places I listed do offer Custom built computers however I don't know if they ship to the UK.

 

[BigJim]

The places I listed do offer Custom built computers however I don't know if they ship to the UK.

Even if they did, it'd cost a fortune mate.

 

[BigJim]

Re: advice

I would go with the amd athelon processor. I believe is faster than the pentium 4.

Actually, no they don't. The two biggest processors both companies have on the market are the Pentium 4 3.2 and the AMD Athlon XP3200+. The Pentium 4 3.2 runs at (unsuprisingly) 3.2 gigahertz, but the AMD Athlon XP3200+ runs at a meagre (in comparison) 2.2 gigahertz. Athlon's processors excel in areas other than clock speed though, so I still might go for one.

 

[The Pianist]

Hmmm... I would personally like to suggest that you get a macintosh... but I know you probably won't listen to me though 😛

 

[TKpervert]

Only two suggestions:
keyboard--- Logitech (cheap and very nice)
mouse: -----Microsoft optical mouse (about $25 Yankee)

Good luck !

 

[BigJim]

Hmmm... I would personally like to suggest that you get a macintosh... but I know you probably won't listen to me though 😛

Correct, I wont.


Wanker. 😛

 

[DutchTickler]

Errr...I'd advise you to re-think the configuration you've chosen. That Asus motherboard is for AMD processors, and it definately will not work with the Pentium 4 processor you selected.

And the reason AMD's are faster than Intels in some ways (mainly floating point calculations) is that they get more done in 1 clockcycle, compared with a Pentium.

Intel Itanium and AMD Opteron processors get even more work done in 1 clockcycle; 1.5 GHz models of those processors easily outperform Athlon 3200+ and Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz processors.

I would also consider an ATI Radeon 9700 or 9800-based graphics card instead of a GeForce-based card.

 

[DutchTickler]

And by the way, you certainly won't need THAT soundcard. Nearly all modern motherboards have on-board sound that is easily as good as that of the card you selected.

The reason some people do get a separate sound-card is that they need the additional options of a separate card like the Creative Audigy 1/2 or higher end cards.

Also, such a card as the Audigy 2 takes some computational load off the CPU when rendering (surround) sound in a computer game. But even this is not really an issue anymore with todays fast processors, as the difference in fps it yields is only about 10-15 fps at most.

The Creative PCI 128 is a cheap-ass card that definately has no advantages whatsoever over the on-board card of motherboards.

I would go for an AMD Athlon system and use the integrated sound of the motherboard.

 

[BigJim]

2 very good points DT, thanks. Amazing what these bastards will try and flog you, isn't it?

I've never heard of the Itanium and the Opteron though. Are they next generation processors that have just come on the market? If they're that good, then I'm stunned I never came accross them before.

 

[BigJim]

I would go for an AMD Athlon system and use the integrated sound of the motherboard.

If I wanted to do some video editing, would integrated sound be enough?

 

[DutchTickler]

Well, the Opteron is new. The Itanium has been around for about 1.5 year now. These 64-bit processors (as opposed to the 32-bit Athlon XP and Pentium 4) are meant for use in servers, supercomputers and professional workstations, and the chips themselves will set you back about three times as much as a high end Pentium 4. Not to mention motherboards.

Also, to really take advantage of their capabilities, you need software that is designed for 64-bit processors, and such software simply isn't available on a large scale on the consumer market.

This will change when AMD will introduce their Athlon 64 processor come september or october. This is the consumer-desktop version of the aforementioned Opteron.

And yes, the integrated sound would be quite sufficient.

 

[BigJim]

How long do you think a consumer-intended Athlon will be effective for private users in a world where the Athlon-64 is readily available?I'm happy to shell out £1,500 on a new Athlon based computer, but just how inneffective will the new 64 chip render it?

 

[BigJim]

What about this one then?


Matrix 3000+ DVD Burner (sep03)
(Base Price: £ 1129 ex VAT)
Case: MESH ATX MidiTower +360W PSU with tool free access (Beige/Black)
Motherboard: ASUS A7N8X Deluxe nVIDIA nFORCE2 with 10/100 Ethernet LAN
Motherboard Features: 2x (1394 Firewire, Serial ATA, 10/100 LAN) & S/PDIF
Processor: AMD Athlon XP (TM) 3000+ with Quantispeed Technology
Memory: Upgrade to 1024Mb (2x512) PC2700 DDR (333MHz) at £60
Floppy + Portable Storage Options: 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Hard Drives: 160Gb Ultra Fast with 8Mb Buffer (7200rpm)
Video Card: 256MB nVIDIA GeForce FX 5600se - TV Out + DVI
Monitor 1: 17'' Sharp TFT Flat Panel Monitor (black) (Analogue)
Optical Drives: SONY DVD-RW Multi Burner + 16x DVD-ROM (2 Drives)
Sound: Onboard Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound + Creative Inspire 5300 5.1 Speakers
Speakers: New - Creative Labs 6.1 Inspire - 6700
Modem: 56kbps V92 Modem, featuring data and fax.
Keyboard & Mouse: Logitech Internet Keyboard & Optical Mouse (Black)
Digital Cameras: Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000 at £59
Printer + Cable: Lexmark X1150 - Printer/Scanner/Copier - Scan 600x1200 at £67
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Video Editing: Pinnacle Studio 8 SE (OEM)
Software: Microsoft Works 7.0
Warranty: 3 years On Site Warranty (Mainland UK only - Terms Apply)
Delivery: Insured Del within Mainland UK (+ £39) at £39
Price Excluding VAT: £ 1354

Price Including VAT + DEL: £ 1590.95


There is a quite unreasonable price jump of about £150 between the 3000 and the 3200; I presume this is to capitalise on people who decide they want the best chip on the market and go for it, no matter what. There's only a 30 Mhtz speed difference between the two, so I reall can't be arsed playing games with these people. There's a similar (but wider) occurance with the 3.0 and 3.2 Pentium 4.


I know there is a graphics card on this model DT, but it comes as standard and they don't offer a downgrade. How good is it do you reckon? It ain't no Radeon.

 

[DutchTickler]

If you always wait for new technology to arrive, you will never buy anything. You will spend your life waiting.

If you can get 80 fps in Half-Life 2 or Doom 3 with your new Athlon XP or Pentium 4 system, you will still get 80 fps in these games on these CPU's when the Athlon 64 is introduced.

So I don't really see the point of waiting. There's always this 'next big thing' just around the corner, but it won't diminish the performance of present technology.

 

[DutchTickler]

The price difference is indeed explained by what you suspected. The money for research has to come from somewhere.

It's a good configuration. I would choose Windows XP Professional Edition though. And the onboard soundcard is 5.1 so an additional 6.1 speaker set is no use. Stick with the Inspire 5300.

I'm not a big fan of Geforce cards and a Radeon 9700 Pro will perform better than this Geforce, i should think. Still, games will run fluently on the card in this configuration, so it's not that big of a problem.

 

[t s s]

you`ve got far too much time on your hands knobber,lol.i`ve just got an H P computer and it seems pretty steady,well,apart from gates` latest super duper os,you know the one i mean mate....the much hyped XP,the customer support from H P scores well in the computer magazines here too,and they`re cost effective..re;pretty cheap.you a gamer jim?if you are a shit load of memory and good graphics card should be a priority,if you just want it for general perving and surfing i`d forget about the latest chips that star trek voyoger would think were overkill and buy a bog standard,but reasonably specced one.if you do any digital photography make sure you get at least 512 memory or it`ll drag it`s arse something rotten!btw,if you get another new one next year bags i the one you`re about to buy now,lol.😀 😉 😛 🙂