help! choosing PC

PlayaFlow

i need to buy a pc for with a budget for around E1,400ish.

at the moment im using only a laptop and im getting sick of how slow it is, so basically i need a pc that fast.
something like this:

1gb ddr ram
3.4 ghz
256 bit graphics
150gb hd

any suggestions?? ...i was lookin at the Philips freeline in PC world , is this any good???
thnks.

yawn

custom built pc

u will actually save money this way

Bamboozled

I cant say what to get, but i can say what not to get - stay away from iqon. I've had nothing but trouble with laptops and desktops - got both on a deal and cant change them right now.

gaui3d0pnbz86o

50% - 70% of those phillips machines come back as faulty at some stage(usually sound or mobo problems. stay clear, unless you want to take a chance. also the sound quality from the speakers is terrible.

sorry if its not what you want to hear.

for a budget of yours there are many other fine machines to choose from(compaq maybe), or as suggested custom build if you have the know how and are so inclined

Fibonacci

yawn wrote:

custom built pc

u will actually save money this way

Right when I saw the header, I knew the second response was going to be "build yer own".....

Not that I knocking that, nor those who are more skilled than I. But could someone tell me, how Joe Bloggs, with the purchasing power of one, has the economies of scale to leverage lower prices that dell who build 100,000 laptops a week and have a JIT supply chain that is the paragon of efficient business?

Nukem

PC World with you all the way:rolleyes:

What do you want the PC for is the main thing.

nukem

uberpixie

www.dell.ie

PlayaFlow wrote:

i need to buy a pc for with a budget for around E1,400ish.

at the moment im using only a laptop and im getting sick of how slow it is, so basically i need a pc that fast.
something like this:

1gb ddr ram
3.4 ghz
256 bit graphics
150gb hd

any suggestions?? ...i was lookin at the Philips freeline in PC world , is this any good???
thnks.

Have a look on the dell website in the dell outlet store.(returned/canceled orders).

Saw a p4 3.ghz + 6800 256mb + 1gig pc3200 for €700 or so.

Wont be precisely what you want, but with the other €700 of your budget you can add in better hard drives, dvd burner, ram what ever you need....

Outlet store is a very mixed bag and what you see is what you get.

Worth considering

aidan_walsh

Playaflow wrote:

256 bit graphics

:eek: Rendering at absolute photo-realism, are we?

Jammer

Eddie Red Eyelid wrote:

50% - 70% of those phillips machines come back as faulty at some stage(usually sound or mobo problems. stay clear, unless you want to take a chance. also the sound quality from the speakers is terrible.

No they dont. Speakers are a bit crap, but what do u want for the price?

The Freeline Mt2100 (think thats the best model philips they do up there) is a decent machine for the money. The TFT with it is 500:1 contrast, 250c/d2 and 12ms so its a very decent TFT.

If your going PC World, go with the Advent T9103...spec:

3.4GHZ Pentium 4
1024mb PC3200
256mb X600Pro
GB Lan
Wireless G Lan
Wireless Keyboard/Mouse
Built in TV Tuner
17" Flat Screen

and its €1349

On the right day you can get a better deal from dell..

BloodBath

That's still crap. You would build a better system yourself with much higher quality parts. For example

case 85e
PSU 70e
Mainboard 140e
Processor202e
Graphics card 300e
16x dual dvd burner 67e
200gb HD 108e
Keyboard 25e
17" TFT 250e
mouse 40e

Total 1287e




Memory from www.shop4memory.co.uk

1Gb kit DDR PC-3200 Level1 Dual Channel Mushkin 2-2-2-3 - 179e

They offer free delivery.


Overall total - 1466e

Now that's a high end rig with much better quality parts than any crap you buy from the likes of pc world. You could easily knock a couple of hundred euro off that price by getting a cheaper mobo, ram with slower timings, analog only tft, smaller HD ect and you would still have a superior rig for a few hundred less.


BloodBath

BobTheBeat

There is no doubt.. you would save a pile of cash if you bought the components and put the whole thing together yourself... However, you will have to know a bit about computers and hardware to do this as well as to support your machine in the future, should anything go wrong.
The good thing about buying from a shop/manufacturer is the support contract. As bad as Dell may be, at least you'll have someone at the end of a phone to help you if you have trouble. Also, if you experience hardware failures within the first year, or if you buy an extension to this, they'll come to your house and change it out if needs be.

So, in summation, if you know your stuff about computers, knock yourself out and buy all the components individually, otherwise go with the best hardware/support deal you can get from a shop or manufacturer. Best of luck! :cool:

Jammer

BloodBath wrote:

That's still crap. You would build a better system yourself with much higher quality parts. For example

case 85e
PSU 70e
Mainboard 140e
Processor202e
Graphics card 300e
16x dual dvd burner 67e
200gb HD 108e
Keyboard 25e
17" TFT 250e
mouse 40e

Total 1287e




Memory from www.shop4memory.co.uk

1Gb kit DDR PC-3200 Level1 Dual Channel Mushkin 2-2-2-3 - 179e

They offer free delivery.


Overall total - 1466e

Now that's a high end rig with much better quality parts than any crap you buy from the likes of pc world. You could easily knock a couple of hundred euro off that price by getting a cheaper mobo, ram with slower timings, analog only tft, smaller HD ect and you would still have a superior rig for a few hundred less.


BloodBath

You do realise that u built a system with very similar specs, and without any warranty, for over a hundred euros more, don't u?

Advent use gigabyte boards (not too bad), use corsair value ram (not too bad) and come with a warranty. If your not too techy minded, its a good sytem.

"any crap from pc world" --? Have you ever got a pc from there? Granted, the eMachines brand is tripe, but HP, Compaq and Advent put decent quality stuff in their PCs.

BloodBath

Ok for starters it's not a similar spec machine. The one I built is far better. Practically every component is better. That dfi board is pretty much the best you can get. An x800xl is pretty much twice as good as x600. The timings on the ram I listed are almost as good as it get's, the mouse is far superior, the list gos on. If you knew what you were talking about you would see this. Like I said you could knock at least 200e off that price by getting ram with lower timings, a cheaper moobo ect to make it cheaper and it would still be a lot lot better than that one. Every part comes with it's own warranty, cpu 3 years, ram - lifetime, most other parts 1 year. Not to mention the case itself is a hell of a lot more attractive thana the generic crap you get with shop pc's.

Secondly yes I have bought a pc world pc years ago and it was the biggest rip off that constantly had problems, needed a HD replacement twice, monitor once. 1400 pounds for a mid spec pc at the time. If your not inside their radius you have to post the whole pc back to them as they won't send a technician out. If your gonna buy from somewhere buy from Dell. PC world are a joke.

BloodBath

Optikus

If i had e1400 to spend id go for bloodbaths choice of components. Most of them do actually have their own individual warranties providing they are OEM.
If its tech support your after then go with something from the likes of PC World you will actually need it then.

Nukem

Im sorry have to interupt - said id have a look in Dell for a similar spec.......ROFL they want to add 450euro to go from a 3.0GHz to a 3.4Ghz CPU????? Sorry had to laugh.

On your computer picking try www.Jes.de for some deals-try the Dell Rebate for some more good deals, just add a TFT or if ya wanna build go the route bloodbath has its not bad at all.

Nukem

Optikus

They actually have some very reasonable priced high end pre-built pc's. Not to sure what the story is on their warranties being valid over here as they are germany based firm. Only bad thing is the german keyboard and OS, but thats not too much of a problem.

Jammer

Lads the OP said he doesnt want components, he wants the whole thing.

Bloodbath, i do know what i'm talking about, and i know the position that the OP is in, he, like so many other people (even if u dont realise this, its still true) doesnt really care if the motherboard is made by NIKE or DFI or HEINZ, he wants a computer, built up and with a support contract. That list of components would not perform any better then the advent, well, enough for an average person to notice. Maybe in benchmarks it would. Do u notice RAM timings, if u go from 2-3-3-6 to 3-3-3-8, do u really notice? i dont.

I had a 2500+ with 512mb of RAM about a year ago, and it surfs the net, writes word documents and reads email just as fast as my current 3.4GHZ. They are the uses most people have for their PCs, and thats why components inside don't matter to 80% of people with PCs. Thats why PC World are opening 11 new shops in this country, before the end of 2005. Unfortuneatly, thats how it is. If u think any different, we'll just agree to dissagree.

Stoner

uberpixie wrote:

www.dell.ie


Have a look on the dell website in the dell outlet store.(returned/canceled orders).

Saw a p4 3.ghz + 6800 256mb + 1gig pc3200 for €700 or so.

Wont be precisely what you want, but with the other €700 of your budget you can add in better hard drives, dvd burner, ram what ever you need....

Outlet store is a very mixed bag and what you see is what you get.

Worth considering

I agree with uberpixie, i have bought pcs for the family there, great site

BloodBath

Bloodbath, i do know what i'm talking about, and i know the position that the OP is in, he, like so many other people (even if u dont realise this, its still true) doesnt really care if the motherboard is made by NIKE or DFI or HEINZ, he wants a computer, built up and with a support contract. That list of components would not perform any better then the advent, well, enough for an average person to notice. Maybe in benchmarks it would. Do u notice RAM timings, if u go from 2-3-3-6 to 3-3-3-8, do u really notice? i dont.

No but you will notice a graphics card that is practically twice as good almost doubling your frame rate. He never said what he needed the pc for so maybe he doesn't need a good graphics card at all. If I was spending my money i'd want to get good value for it. Not the typical rip off Ireland approach that most of these shops take. If he wants his on site warranty i'd recomend the Dell outlet over PC world anyday. Alternatively Jes have some good pre-build pc's like optikus said.

Hi end graphics 1200e

Mid graphics 1000e

Like he said though the OS and keyboard will be german. It's simply a case of using the cd key from the german version with an english copy of xp and getting a replacement keyboard for about 10-20e.



BloodBath

funny

I might be selling my alienware PC pretty soon for 1100 eurons with the following awesome spec;

-Asus K8V deluxe
-AMD 3200+ Clawhammer
-512mb dual channel ddr
-Radeon X800pro
-SB Audigy 2 ZS
-120gig seagate barracuda HD
-dvd drive
-cd writer drive
-480w Power supply

less than a year old...



so...

!

ya know

Horsefumbler

I'd buy that off you.

Mutant_Fruit

Depending on what you wanted the computer for, you should be easily able to build one from €700 that would preform well in everything.

A year ago i got an AMD XP 2500+, 512mb ram, 160gb HD, NF7 motherboard, ATI 9600Pro, monitor + case all for €660 inc postage. All with at least 1 year warrenty.

To be honest, i doubt anyone can notice the difference between 2-3-3-6 and 3-3-3-8 timings. You can pick up 1gig of ram for just over €100. Thats a saving of €80 straight off.

Graphics card: The best of the best is NEVER good value for money. I think a slower card would be better value for him, unless he really is a hard-core gamer.

All in all, i think he could get a good PC for €800, that would be just what he's looking for.

But could someone tell me, how Joe Bloggs, with the purchasing power of one, has the economies of scale to leverage lower prices that dell who build 100,000 laptops a week and have a JIT supply chain that is the paragon of efficient business?

Because joe bloggs isn't looking to make enough profit that he doesn't go bankrupt, and joe bloggs doesn't have to pay several thousand world-wide employees. Building your own is ALWAYS cheaper than going with Dell. The only thing is you have to sort out the warrenties and returns yourself (not that hard).

BloodBath

He said he has a budget of 1400e. Why do you keep going on about the timings? If your going to do that at least get it right. The ram I listed has 2-2-2-3 timings which means 2 things. a) it performs better at stock speeds b) it can overclock quite a bit. Now he never said what he wanted so if this wasn't his cup of tea he could get cheaper ram like I said earlier. I was only demonstrating that you could get much higher quality parts for the same money. The graphics card I listed is not the best. It is a quality buy for 300e though performing pretty much on par with a 6800gt and should be alright for the likes of Q4, unreal3, ect. That is if he's a gamer at all.


BloodBath