[Johnny Brown]

Hey y'all. Some of you may have noticed I've been conspicuous by me absence recently.... yeah my pc is at death's door. Obi-wan resurrected it last night but it looks like time fo an upgrade. Seeing as you is all right geeks, hopefully you can help me understand what's hot and what's guff.

Already have CD-r, nice monitor, keyboard etc. Mainly editing pics up to 100mbish. Looking to spend £300...

Advice so far:
80Gb hard drive
512mb RAM (both ideally bigger)
Processors - bit confusing ... NOT AMD Sempron or intel celeron apparently - any ideas?????

Cheers y'all. Any offers of help building wouild be cool :wink:

[dobbin]

the two chip types you listed are the ones geared at your more web browsey home user type - i.e. they have less oompf (in terms of cache) but would still do the job. Memory will make all the difference to you - the more you can put in the quicker the images will be able to load into memory.

Consider getting a DVD-RW too - they're only about 50bucks these days and then you can burn DVD's.

I could build it for you but it won't be quick!

[Johnny Brown]

Two options, any informed opinions on value etc?

http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=9898&GroupID=242
http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=301152&cks=PRL

[Jim]

word,
I've just purchased the components to build a new one for my dad, its gonna be a flying machine, with a p4 3gig hyperthreading chip, 512 3200 geil ram, 120 gig hard drive, 17" tft dvd rom & dual speed writer, card reader, case etc... all for about 500 notes.
Is it just the Pc you want or monitor, keyboard, mouse etc...

Dobbin I just got one of these bad boys t'other day for just less than 30 bones DVD Writer Dual layer

I get all me stuff from Microdirect which is in the MCR.
I could get all the bits for you or alternatively my mate who has a trade account with them can get stuff even cheaper, will build it to your requirments and budget and put it together for you for £20

[dobbin]

JB - the second one is a better deal I reckon. Both are reet reet cheap mind!

There's no soldering in modern PC's mate, and the connectors all fit one way only, so theres pretty much no potential to get it wrong! Am happy to help but you'd need to bring it to me (as I can't walk).

[squeek]

Microdirect is a top shop, i get my stuff from there too.  I'd recommend memory as your priority (like Dobbin), you probably want 1 gig, and could get a system with 512MB then add another 512MB at a cost of about £25.  Hard drives are pretty cheap too 80 isn't that much if you store films/mp3s/big pictures on it, so you'd probably want to spend £15 more and get twice as much space (160Gig).  If you're not going to play any games on it you don't  need a fancy graphics card and could save money there.

DVD writers are cheap and probably a lot more useful than Cds for backing up or transfering a few 100MB image files.

[Johnny Brown]

Cheers Guys, just the info i need!

Used Microdirect before, yeah they're the dogs and always good to prop up the Mcr.

Jim, your mate sounds like a legend. Twenty quid! Wanna spend bout three hunned - just on the mutha, RAM, HD n box basically, already have fly monitor, fairly new CD-RW, keys, rat etc. So maybe similar to yo Dad's wiout the monitor and DVD? Reckon I can pick up the DVD later, a gig of RAM, and fast processor are the main tings methinks...

[Jim]

I'll sort you out yo, give us a nod and a wink when your ready (as good as each other to a blind man!)

[cofe]

building a pc is very much like making love to a beautiful woman. first you take your bits, rid them of packaging and carefully insert them into her box. then, and only then do you turn her on.

not as big as mine paul. not as big as mine.

[Johnny Brown]

Paul? eh?

Just cos when you asked this question you didn't get a single sensible reply....

[cofe]

swiss. tony. swiss. tony. swiss. tony. swiss. tony. swiss. tony.

[Johnny Brown]

Ah you mean his sidekick? N there was me thinkin you were confusin Charlie with Paul

[a dense loner]

put it together for you for £20

bearing in mind jim will have absolutely no idea cos he doesn't have a clue how much things cost when planet jim isn't involved. let me see... his mate will go to manchester n pick up all the parts then take them home n put it together all for £20. kind of reminds me of the time when he told me his mate was a dirt cheap roofer. came round to have a look n quoted £250 for what would have been 2 hours work. he obviously didn't do it

[Jim]

Ah, I see now, you've become a roofer and a computer builder as well as a handy man. Bearing in mind they did my full re-roof for about half the price a guy 3 doors up had his done for, I'd say they were pretty cheap and good.
whats wrong with £20 for puttin together a pc anyhow? bearing in mind he gets the parts at trade and all  
ps don't bother droppin that vid of tomorrow cos im in the lakes