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"More questions for SR about MAXX PC's..."

Not quite sure which of the FoG's this should go in, so excuse me if it's the wrong one...

I've already asked about the GeForce3 graphics card, and that's pretty much been sorted... it's now available as an upgrade, and I'm just waiting for you to get some stock in.

But now I have some questions about the hard drives installed in the P4 1.7GHz MAXX machines...

1. What hard drive do they come with? The latest club mag says 40Gb U-DMA 100, but the only 40Gb drive listed in the mag is a Fujitsu U-DMA 66 at 5400rpm - not really U-DMA 100.

2. When ordering and selecting the various upgrades, it lists an "Additional 40Gb hard drive". I assume this is the same as the standard fitted drive, but clicking on "View Details" shows the 40Gb Fuji drive mentioned above, but lists it as U-DMA 100, with a 66.6Mb/sec transfer rate and a speed of 5400rpm - as I said above, not really a U-DMA 100!

I don't see the point in crippling such a fast machine by fitting such slow drives! I'd rather drop the standard installed drive and go for the true U-DMA 100 IBM DeskStar 75Gb with a transfer rate of 100Mb/sec and a speed of 7200rpm.

Unfortunately, this is not an upgrade option! As Penelope Pitstop might say... HAAYUUUUULP!

Neither do I, go to www.annandtech.com and read their review on the P4, they'll tell you!!

True, but of the two people I know who have ever bothered with non-Intel CPU's, they've both had nothing but trouble with their systems. One even sold his CPU just three days after buying it!

The fact is, most software is primarily designed for a Windows/Intel setup - so that's what I'll always go for. As with the consoles, it's personal preference... I really don't want to get into a 'CPU wars' discussion here! :-)

This would lead me to believe that it will also be an Intel Motherboard. Why, even if it will be a P4, all of the major industry trials have shown it to be slower than the Athlon at current clock speeds, only when the new socket is release for the P4 can it recieve the throughput it needs to be effective at higher speeds, it would be like buying a Slot 1 processor a couple of months before the socket 360 was released.

I Bought my PC from Time, oh how I regret it. I will definately get a custom built or a MAXX next time, the hardware they use is sub-standard. Oh dear.

PS, read my While Wookie talks.............. its about MAXX laptops, or the possibility of them!

Oh, and the other compnents are top-spec too. What they put in is what I'd buy anyway!

I believe the motherboard will be an Intel D850 but only SR can confirm for sure...

Building your own PC can work out more expensive because on the whole the components are better quality, will these MAXX PC's have decent motherboards in them?? Like an Abit/Gigabyte, probably not. Then if you are seriously looking at UDMA 100, you are much better off getting a board with a dedicated controller like the Highpoint or the Promise, not built into the Northbride, as these are faster and allow you to connect more devices.

Time, basically.

And cost. Buying the components works out a little more expensive than getting it pre-built, and as I'm looking at spending over £2,300 already...

Wookie, if you know this much about PC's why don't you just build your own, then you would know exactly what was in it, thats what I did!!

Armatige Shanks wrote:
> Maybe SR could introduce a build your own PC thing... where the
> customer can specify the components... and SR build to spec?


That would be absolutely ideal, and I think they'd do a lot of business through it.

I found a site that does exactly that, but they don't have all of the components I want, and their prices are a bit higher than SR.