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"Quick question for you"

Hi there, just canvassing opinion here.

Q. If you were going to buy a brand new top of the range PC, what would you expect it to come with? I'm talking all components and parts here, if you'd be so kind.

Weel, the only sort of computer I'd consider buying would not be what a lot of people would term "top of the range":

If I had to build myself a computer now, it'd be something like this:

*XP2400 Thoroughbred CPU (or whatever is cheap and powerful at the time, the ideal compromise keeps shifting month to month)

*ABIT NF7/S Motherboard with SATA controller

*All-copper high-performance heatsink (possibly one of those Zalman flower thingys, I'm looking for zero noise rather than high performance cooling)

*Radeon 9500 Pro graphics card (or whatever else supply deems is both cheap and powerful at the time)

*1024MB DDR400 memory

*A 120GB SATA 7,200rpm HD

*DVD burner/CDRW

*A velly nice case, something along the lines of that Coolermaster Turbonutter recommends or your very own Chieftecs. A 450W or thereabouts PSU which is expensive enough to be extremely quiet.

*Three expensive low-noise case fans

*Whatever speakers Turbonutter recommended - I know FA about PC speakers

*A 21" CRT

This is my ideal computer - high performance, high quality and low cost - no piddling away precious £££ on components that will drop 50% of their value in 3 months. It's not designed for everyone, just me - in fact it's not even my dream machine, as I'd never buy a DVD burner if they were more than £50 or so. I looked on overclockers.co.uk and I put this system together for £1182 (although it only had a VHQ 19" CRT, no speakers, and I'd rather not have a DVD writer if it's going to cost me £200 )O:

Darkus, I still don't see how a Ninja is any different from a staff member, except for the colour...

actually buy. :)

Is the question "what kind of computer would be top of the range" or "what kind of computer would you actually buy" as the two are very different :o

USB 2.0 (4 back, 2 front)
Firewire (front and back)
6.1 Sound
Nforce 2 Chipset
AMD Xp 3200+ Processor
Dual DDR
Serial ATA (this is a must)
Radeon 9700(or higher)/ Geforce Fx 5200 Ultra (or higher)
52x CD RW
DVD Rom
21" Trinitron CRT / 19" Ultrascan TFT
1024meg DDR 3200 memory (2x512)
120gig SATA HD
Decent Case (metal - lots of space - lots of fans)
450w PSU
Decent Keyboard and Mouse
Floppy Disk

XP Professional

And some other stuff I cant remember

ffs almost all the new .13micron Tbred Bs and Barton cores run cooler than a P4. you do realise a P4 3.06ghz puts out 85w of thermal energy? Do you know much 85w is? 85w is proper 1.85v Palomino XP2000 -> XP2200 territory, and that is a real biatch to cool - I should know, I did it.

Well it depends on what the machine is for. Video or sound editing is faster on a P4 due to SSE, so I would go with it at 3GHz+. Plus they run a lot cooler, so more OCing capability.

2Gb RAM, pref RAMBUS as it is faster than DDR, although more expensive.
100Gb+ HDD. Would stick with IDE at the moment as long as it had a high rpm and large cache.
Radeon 9800 Pro. The fastest.
Audigy 2. Sound Blaster is the standard, and the audigy 2 is their top card.
19"+ CRT monitor. Nothing beats 'em yet.
Not sure of what mobo.
Case would probably be a Thermaltake Xaser 3. Black, with all 8 fans.
DVD ROM would be a slot loading Pioneer.
CDRW, ach most brands are the same. As long as it was 52 speed I don't care.
5.1 speakers, with wooden cases if possible. Reduces rattle and vibration.
Would have to still have a floppy drive. Would try get a faster one though.
Would also expect built in or supplied network card, Firewire, USB 2 and a card reader.
Would also like a front panel break out box for audio connections.

Oh, as for cooling, I'd say anything made by Thermalright. AX-7s look impressive, the SLK-series is really only for overclockers.

Mr Snuggly wrote:
> Hi there, just canvassing opinion here.
>
> Q. If you were going to buy a brand new top of the range PC, what
> would you expect it to come with? I'm talking all components and
> parts here, if you'd be so kind.

Core:

Abit NF7-S
Barton XP3200+
1024mb of Corsair or TwinMOS PC3700
120gb SATA Maxtor DiamondMax+9, with the 8mb cache
GeForce FX 5900 Ultra or Radeon 9800 Pro, customer's choice
Terratec DMX 6Fire 24/96 or Audigy 2 Plat, depending on how lame your customer is

Case: Coolermaster CM111

Misc. gubbins:

Logitech cordless desktop MX (keyboard and MX700)
D-Link 530TX NIC w/ WOL
400w Enermax PSU
CD-RW/DVD drive, you don't need info about this

As for monitors and speakers, well, I myself prefer CRT but I suppose the unl33t people would want TFT, so some sort of NEC monitor? I dunno. As for speakers, well, gotta be Logitech Z-680s hasn't it.

Oh yeah, and a DAB card or waverider.

I'd buy whatever I could afford.

It isn't a case of me wanting the correct specs, its a case of me getting the most out of my money.