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"Help a guy out"

I have 1800 nicker to spend on a PC (ready built). I want it to be the best spec you can get for the money, designed for gaming and multimedia applications. That being the case I want a great cpu (preferably pentium 4, no less than 3.2Ghz), motherboard, gfx card and ram, as well as high rpm hard drives, preferably SATA RAID (10,000rpm) or similar, TFT monitor if possible though not essential (no smaller than 17"), good soundcard, DVD writer, second CDROM not essential, usual stuff like network card, front mounted USB ports, other miscellaneous peripherals I can't remember at this point.

I currently have my eye on the XPS systems offered by Dell, Alienware systems are well above my budget. Are there any other online vendors offering top spec PC's at reasonable prices (i.e. within my budget)?

Just thought I'd ask before I commit. I could build one up but the bottom line is that I just can't be bothered. Cheers for any input.

nah mate, I ain't building it, it's coming already thrown together, still a good price. about time, this PC is almost unusable at the moment, just enough of the diseased memory left to post messages to you good people.

That is a seriously nice spec Borat,

So are doing the self build after all... :-) after all the fuss about not being assed... *tut *tut

and thats coming from an Intel fanboy...

I'd expected 3 or 4 pages of back-slapping congratulatory posts by now, confirming my excellence in finding such a great system, but your silence speaks volumes.

The jealousy shines right through ...

*PC arrives*

*tries to boot up PC*

*blank screen*

*unscrews case*

*bricks fall out*

Well after several hours online shopping around, I found a system I'm quite impressed with at a little known retailer called 'the PC man UK'.

Here lieth the speceth :

Power Supply 480 Watt Low Noise Upgrade (PSU/Heatsink)
Case Style Wavemaster Aluminium
Processor Athlon 64 3400+
Memory 1Gb DDR400
Hard Drive 2 x 200Gb SATA (RAID)
Optical 1 DVDRW +/- (Dual Layer)
Optical 2 16x DVD
Graphics 256Mb Radeon X800 Pro
SoundCard SoundBlaster 7.1 Audigy 2 ZS
Floppy Drive 1.44Mb Floppy Drive
Operating System Windows XP Pro Original Disk with COA
Input Devices MultiMedia Keyboard & Optical Mouse
Speakers Basic Speakers
Monitor 19" TFT (LG)
Extra Hardware 4 Way Surge Protector
Extra Hardware Creative Webcam NX
Software Cyberlink PowerDVD
Media DVD-R 8x - 25 Pack
Warranty 1 Year Onsite (UK Mainland only)
Case ATX Midi Tower
Motherboard ASUS K8V SE DELUXE
Chipset VIA K8T800/VIA VT8237
Frontside Bus 800MHz
Memory 3 x 184-pin DDR400 (Dual)
AGP 8x
PCI 5
USB 6x USB2.0
IDE 2 x ATA133, 2 x SATA, RAID0, RAID1
Audio ADI AD1980, 6-channel CODEC
Network Marvell 88E8001 GbLAN
Additional IEEE1394

all for £1,756.88 inc VAT

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

It doesn't have the 10,000rpm drives I wanted, but they are set up for RAID, and I got a 19" TFT thrown in at a good price, as well as the Radeon card. I'm going to buy my surround speakers separately. All in all it's the best value for money I can find short of building it myself, which isn't going to happen.

Cheers for the input guys, warp speed computing here we come.

Yeah. I think the Willamettes had it as well.

Tom's Hardware Guide did a video a few years back of what happened if you lost the heatsink whilst running, Unreal Tournament I think it was.

The P3 overheated and crashed, but due to the thermal protection in it, it survived. The Palomino core Athlon exploded, hitting temps of several hundred degrees.

The P4 just slowed down massively but never crashed. The heatsink was put back on and then everything went back to normal speed. It never even dropped out of the game.

Really, that was one of the best things about P4s, they ran cool. Or at least, Northwoods did. Then there was Prescott.

Notorious Biggles wrote:
> You could, by lowering the FSB.
>
> Or you could just ignore it and let the P4 do its thermal throttling
> thang where it slows itself down when it gets too hot.
>

Do the Northwoods do the same?

You could, by lowering the FSB.

Or you could just ignore it and let the P4 do its thermal throttling thang where it slows itself down when it gets too hot.

Or you could sell it and buy an Athlon 64 with the proceeds. Or even just buy a decent heatsink. Like [URL]http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Thermalright_120.html[/URL] and look at the SLK-948U. I have one. They rock.

Just wondering... Can you underclock?

Say, for instance, you might have a Prescott that is burning itself whenever you play HL2, could you underclock it, from, oh, let's say 3.2Ghz to 3.0Ghz and then solve the heat?

Admittedly, pretty dumb, but hey...

Not sure, but I imagine it would be (FX 55 compatibility). Socket 939 mobo of choice for me is the MSI Neo Platinum 2.

For the last spec I posted, a quick price check on Overclockers UK gives a price of about £1465.

Of course the cheapest way to high performance is overclocking.

cough*e-b-u-y-e-r*cough - it's build it yourself though - just to show you how much better you can get by building yourself.

The only thing I wasn't sure about was the CPU - Biggles, is that OK with that mobo - it didn't list the FX-55 in the list of compatible processors on the page.