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Recently inspired by how easy and cheap it is to shop online from the States and an article in a PC mag, I've decided that it's too tempting just to get a new PC, with XP for my iTunes and A faster processor for my games. However, many queries arose after just a few minutes of investigation.
1) Win XP Pro
against
Win XP Home
What's the difference? I only skimmed over the specs of a couple of comps, but XP Pro seems to merit another 20 or so dollars. What makes it more pricey and would XP Home be perfectly good for my needs (see top of page)?
2) There's a manufacturer called Acer. Never heard of them myself, but do you guys know anything useful; reliability, etc. My current comp is an Evesham, although I would have prefered a Dell, and found out a treasure chest of problems. Like ME's inefficiency with system resources and how Eveshams over heat...
3) Anyone know the HMCE site better than me and can direct me to the import tax for computers or electricals in general.
Any help would be great!
:)
1) Win XP Pro
against
Win XP Home
What's the difference? I only skimmed over the specs of a couple of comps, but XP Pro seems to merit another 20 or so dollars. What makes it more pricey and would XP Home be perfectly good for my needs (see top of page)?
2) There's a manufacturer called Acer. Never heard of them myself, but do you guys know anything useful; reliability, etc. My current comp is an Evesham, although I would have prefered a Dell, and found out a treasure chest of problems. Like ME's inefficiency with system resources and how Eveshams over heat...
3) Anyone know the HMCE site better than me and can direct me to the import tax for computers or electricals in general.
Any help would be great!
:)
Page:
Clazon wrote:
> 1) Win XP Pro
> against
> Win XP Home
> What's the difference?
[URL]http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/choosing2.mspx[/URL]
> 2) There's a manufacturer called Acer. Never heard of them myself,
> but do you guys know anything useful; reliability, etc. My current
> comp is an Evesham, although I would have prefered a Dell, and found
> out a treasure chest of problems. Like ME's inefficiency with system
> resources and how Eveshams over heat...
Acer are OK, not the greatest though. I assume your Evesham is an oldie as your running ME?
Mines just under 3 years old and never had any issues with it at all, apart from blowing the mobo with coffee, but they came out and replaced it for me!
DELL are cheap beacuse of the uge numbers of low specced, under powered machines they sell to businesses, as well as lower over heads. But DELL's have no room for expansion or upgrading as they're built to DELL's blueprints lust like Apple build Macs.
I have an SX260 mico desktop at home, it's OK for office apps and interweb, but other than that, it's useless. In all hoesty, I'd suggest going elsewhere than DELL unless you want to shell out over £1800 for a decent high specc'd one.
> 3) Anyone know the HMCE site better than me and can direct me to the
> import tax for computers or electricals in general.
If it's over £250 then it cannot be classed as a gift and inherits:
17.5% Vat
5-10% Import duty (dependent on value)
+ Shipping costs (Which when adding up value of PC + Shipping insurance can anything up to $200 on top based on shipping options)
Importing from the US is becoming more and more pointless due to the restrictions being imposed by the EU/USA and UK to try and prevent us from shopping about. Some places won;t even let you do that. Apple for instance know UK punters could get their Macs/Ipods cheaper through the US site, but prevent this when you get as far as ordering, where you then get put to the right country for shopping!
> 1) Win XP Pro
> against
> Win XP Home
> What's the difference?
[URL]http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/choosing2.mspx[/URL]
> 2) There's a manufacturer called Acer. Never heard of them myself,
> but do you guys know anything useful; reliability, etc. My current
> comp is an Evesham, although I would have prefered a Dell, and found
> out a treasure chest of problems. Like ME's inefficiency with system
> resources and how Eveshams over heat...
Acer are OK, not the greatest though. I assume your Evesham is an oldie as your running ME?
Mines just under 3 years old and never had any issues with it at all, apart from blowing the mobo with coffee, but they came out and replaced it for me!
DELL are cheap beacuse of the uge numbers of low specced, under powered machines they sell to businesses, as well as lower over heads. But DELL's have no room for expansion or upgrading as they're built to DELL's blueprints lust like Apple build Macs.
I have an SX260 mico desktop at home, it's OK for office apps and interweb, but other than that, it's useless. In all hoesty, I'd suggest going elsewhere than DELL unless you want to shell out over £1800 for a decent high specc'd one.
> 3) Anyone know the HMCE site better than me and can direct me to the
> import tax for computers or electricals in general.
If it's over £250 then it cannot be classed as a gift and inherits:
17.5% Vat
5-10% Import duty (dependent on value)
+ Shipping costs (Which when adding up value of PC + Shipping insurance can anything up to $200 on top based on shipping options)
Importing from the US is becoming more and more pointless due to the restrictions being imposed by the EU/USA and UK to try and prevent us from shopping about. Some places won;t even let you do that. Apple for instance know UK punters could get their Macs/Ipods cheaper through the US site, but prevent this when you get as far as ordering, where you then get put to the right country for shopping!
"pop"
Miserableman wrote:
> To the original poster: this is why you don't build your own computer
> if you don't know what you're doing. Buy a DELL wholesale or
> something.
Hehe.
> To the original poster: this is why you don't build your own computer
> if you don't know what you're doing. Buy a DELL wholesale or
> something.
Hehe.
Yarr, it's the fan problem.
As for contacting Gainward - yes. Twice by e-mail, countless times on their support forums and many by phone. There's been not one reply.
They may have a good reputation for their products, but their customer service is the worst I've ever seen.
As for contacting Gainward - yes. Twice by e-mail, countless times on their support forums and many by phone. There's been not one reply.
They may have a good reputation for their products, but their customer service is the worst I've ever seen.
Mav wrote:
> Oh, and my system is up and running fine - it's just this damn
> graphics card that's giving me grief. I still have a few ideas
> though, so fingers crossed.
Is is the fan problem?
Have you contacted Gainward? (forgive me if you have posted your actions below, but I can't be bothered to trawl through some of the insanely long threads in here)
> Oh, and my system is up and running fine - it's just this damn
> graphics card that's giving me grief. I still have a few ideas
> though, so fingers crossed.
Is is the fan problem?
Have you contacted Gainward? (forgive me if you have posted your actions below, but I can't be bothered to trawl through some of the insanely long threads in here)
Oh, and my system is up and running fine - it's just this damn graphics card that's giving me grief. I still have a few ideas though, so fingers crossed.
Alright, fair enough.
If you were making a reasonable point I would be more than happy to argue sensibly. You make random statements about things you have no idea about though.
Let me get this clear...
When I talk about having the right amount of specs I don't mean to play games and run things with a miss match of low-medium and high settings to compensate for weaker areas of the system, I talk about being able to load a game, crank everything up to the highest available settings with 1280 x 1024 resolution and still maintain not only a solid/playable frame rate but also a smooth experience.
Over the last 14 months I have read posts and listened to people who know what they are talking about and yes NB is one of those people. I have had the money to implement those ideas and have tested a hell of a lot of stuff in the past year to 14 months.
I have owned a mid range Athlon 2600 XP with 512mb DDR333 in single channel. I have owned a mid-top range Pentium 4 3.4GHZ with 1GB DDR400 in Dual Channel and now arguably the best PC money can actually buy at the moment with the Athlon 64FX53 and 2GB of the best RAM coupled with the best graphics card and the two fastest hard drives running together. I have ran low range, mid range and now the best RAM and I know what a difference the extra RAM makes and also the timings of the RAM.
On this basis alone I know that 512mb isn't enough to even run the likes of Deus Ex Invisible War on high settings, let alone Far Cry, Doom 3, C&C Generals, Thief 3 and a host of other titles. It is a simple fact that I am sure everyone on this forum apart from you would agree with, I fail to see any arguments or points that would suggest otherwise.
You have been into PC gaming for a very short while, have owned one system, one you haven't even managed to get properly up and running yet and you are already making completely unproven statements about limited hardware when you really have no idea. I fail to see where the problem is though, I was more than happy to listen and take note of what people said and I wouldn't have even thought about making comments on hardware when I had only been able to use what was available to me at the time.
I would find some bench tests to back this up however after a quick scan I can't even find the latest bench tests running anything other than 1GB and upwards.
Contrary to popular opinion, I don't waste money on hardware that I won't benefit from and for the last week and a half I have been running 2GB RAM with my system and granted it has only brought maybe a 1 or 2 second frame rate gain in most games, this however does not account for how smooth the game actually runs and how less 'jerky' the games feel with extra 1GB RAM, mainly referring to Doom 3 and Far Cry which now pretty much run flawlessly with everything on top settings.
I play PC games to play the best-looking games on the market, no other reason. 90% of the time I far prefer console gaming and if it wasn't for the massive gulf in technically quality I would play console games all the time. As I have stated above, I know 2 x 256mb RAM just isn't enough from my own tests, not what people say. If you had tested other hardware and ran a really top end PC you would know this.
Let me get this clear...
When I talk about having the right amount of specs I don't mean to play games and run things with a miss match of low-medium and high settings to compensate for weaker areas of the system, I talk about being able to load a game, crank everything up to the highest available settings with 1280 x 1024 resolution and still maintain not only a solid/playable frame rate but also a smooth experience.
Over the last 14 months I have read posts and listened to people who know what they are talking about and yes NB is one of those people. I have had the money to implement those ideas and have tested a hell of a lot of stuff in the past year to 14 months.
I have owned a mid range Athlon 2600 XP with 512mb DDR333 in single channel. I have owned a mid-top range Pentium 4 3.4GHZ with 1GB DDR400 in Dual Channel and now arguably the best PC money can actually buy at the moment with the Athlon 64FX53 and 2GB of the best RAM coupled with the best graphics card and the two fastest hard drives running together. I have ran low range, mid range and now the best RAM and I know what a difference the extra RAM makes and also the timings of the RAM.
On this basis alone I know that 512mb isn't enough to even run the likes of Deus Ex Invisible War on high settings, let alone Far Cry, Doom 3, C&C Generals, Thief 3 and a host of other titles. It is a simple fact that I am sure everyone on this forum apart from you would agree with, I fail to see any arguments or points that would suggest otherwise.
You have been into PC gaming for a very short while, have owned one system, one you haven't even managed to get properly up and running yet and you are already making completely unproven statements about limited hardware when you really have no idea. I fail to see where the problem is though, I was more than happy to listen and take note of what people said and I wouldn't have even thought about making comments on hardware when I had only been able to use what was available to me at the time.
I would find some bench tests to back this up however after a quick scan I can't even find the latest bench tests running anything other than 1GB and upwards.
Contrary to popular opinion, I don't waste money on hardware that I won't benefit from and for the last week and a half I have been running 2GB RAM with my system and granted it has only brought maybe a 1 or 2 second frame rate gain in most games, this however does not account for how smooth the game actually runs and how less 'jerky' the games feel with extra 1GB RAM, mainly referring to Doom 3 and Far Cry which now pretty much run flawlessly with everything on top settings.
I play PC games to play the best-looking games on the market, no other reason. 90% of the time I far prefer console gaming and if it wasn't for the massive gulf in technically quality I would play console games all the time. As I have stated above, I know 2 x 256mb RAM just isn't enough from my own tests, not what people say. If you had tested other hardware and ran a really top end PC you would know this.
To the original poster: this is why you don't build your own computer if you don't know what you're doing. Buy a DELL wholesale or something.
Good lord you get aggrovated easily. Ever considered taking a step back, a deep breath and trying to reply with an intelligent counter-argument rather than playground insults and name-calling?
Oh, and I believe it's just you that's telling me to "close my ass hole". I don't pretend to be the fountain of all knowledge, and if it seems that way to you then I'd suggest that's just your overly argumentative mind reading me wrong.
In fact, I mentioned earlier on in this very thread that it would be foolish of me to pretend I know any more than NB, but the knowledge behind my choices and points is reliable and logical. Whereas NB welcomes debate, you seem to take it as a personal insult.
After all, what we want to find here is the truth, or best solution. Arguing will bring points into question and then reinforce or break them. It's a common scientific principle and healthy in situations like this; differing opinions should be welcomed, not disgraced.
Oh, and I believe it's just you that's telling me to "close my ass hole". I don't pretend to be the fountain of all knowledge, and if it seems that way to you then I'd suggest that's just your overly argumentative mind reading me wrong.
In fact, I mentioned earlier on in this very thread that it would be foolish of me to pretend I know any more than NB, but the knowledge behind my choices and points is reliable and logical. Whereas NB welcomes debate, you seem to take it as a personal insult.
After all, what we want to find here is the truth, or best solution. Arguing will bring points into question and then reinforce or break them. It's a common scientific principle and healthy in situations like this; differing opinions should be welcomed, not disgraced.
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