Future Proof P.C

helpmepls

Im getting a new PC and want to have the most future proof system for my price range.

Should I go for the best of Kompletts PC Kits with Athlon XP or A Dell P4 System

Im looking to spend around 1600euro and maybe a little more.

Any Links to good systems would be much appricated

Matfinn

If you want a future proof system heres my advice.

1) New motherboards are coming out early in the new year with serial ATA built in onboard. Serial ATA is going to be the new connection standard for adding hard drives ( and other drives ) to your machine. Serial ATA is much better than standard ATA devices these days, and the cable is round also, making things much neater.

2) Go for a motherboard that has at least an 8x AGP graphics card slot. This means you will be able to buy and use the latest graphics cards in your machine, and get the full benefit from them.

3) Go for a motherboard that has a nice fast front side bus speed. If your looking at buying an AMD athlon CPU based machine, then go for the VIA KT-400 chipset motherboards. These motherboards boast a nice FSB speed and will accomodate your fast graphics card nicely. You can also use the fastest DDR Ram available on the market, PC3200 DDR ram.

4) Get a DVD re-writable drive if you can afford it, as opposed to a cdrw drive. Look for DVDRW drives that are both DVD-R ( notice the minus ) and DVD + R compatible. I saw a nice sony one a month ago that had that feature, and its affordable too. DVDRW writing drives have a solid standard set these days, so it should be compatible with most new home dvd players once you burn the disk.

5) Avoid getting the new intel Pentium 4 chips that are due to be released in early 2003. They have built in copy protection. Search for ' palladium ' on the web for more info.

6) If your buying ram, make sure you have at least 512mb of the stuff, and try to get that onto one memory stick, so you have free slots you can add more memory into at a later date.

7) Buy your stuff from www.dabs.com . They are cheaper, they have an excellent range of hardware, and they stock high quality goods.

Hope that helps

Matt

helpmepls

I found this:


AMD ATHLON XP 2200+
ATX 266mHz Motherboard, Socket A
ATX Midi Tower case 300watt PSU front USB
60 Gb Hard Drive UDMA 133
256Mb Memory
64Mb DDR Geforce 4 Mx 440 Agp 4x TV-OUT
48 x 10 x 40 CD Rewriter
16 X DVD rom Drive
3D PCI Sound On board
56K int voice/fax/data modem
1.44 floppy drive
17" CTX SVGA FST Monitor
Ps/2 Euro Keyboard
A4 Tech Ps/2 Scroll mouse
Speakers

€1160.00


Pretty Reasonable as it has monitor.

I could sell the 440 and get a 9700

Anyone have anything better.

Kali

Where is that spec. from? seems like a decent enough price to me.

helpmepls

http://www.dawncomputers.com

All Prices Include VAT @ 21% and are subject to availability. ......

I think its already added on though.

koneko

I would wait for the GeForce FX early next year (doubt it'll be around for christmas).

helpmepls

I have to decide between the two,

One has a 2400+ and no gfx card no cd-rw

the other is 2400+ and has cd-rw and DVD but 256mb less ram.

Im not so worried about ram, I can buy it later.


Ok Ill go with Dawn Computers