What do you think of this PC for this price?

From www.pcspecialist.co.uk

AMD® ATHLON® 64BIT 3800 (Venice) 512kb L2 Cache (939 pin)
2048 MB DDR400 PC3200 WITH LIFETIME WARRANTY! (2x1GB)
ASUS® A8N-E: DUAL DDR, S-ATA, x16 slot, 3 PCI etc
SIX USB 2.0 PORTS (4 REAR + 2 FRONT)
SATA II 250 GB HARD DISK @ 7200rpm 8mb cache
Second SATA II 250 GB HARD DISK @ 7200rpm 8mb cache
RAID = NONE
16x +/- DVD WRITER (8x +/- Dual Lyr) (5x DVD-RAM) (40x CD-RW) (£22)
512MB RADEON X800GTO PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT
SoundBlaster Audigy 4 7.1 24-bit Player: £33
10/100/1000 NETWORK CARD FOR BROADBAND
INTERNAL 23 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD FORMAT) (NO FLOPPY)
Stylish Black X-Plode Case + 2 Front USB
500W (Peak) Super Quiet Rail PSU + 120mm fan & CPU Cooler (£45)
3 PORT FIREWIRE CARD. (£9)
Widescreen 19 Inch TFT Sil/Blk 1440 X 900 RES: 8MS (£169)
1 Year Return-to-Base Warranty + 1 Year Free Collect & Return: £5


£865.53 ex VAT.
£1017 inc VAT and Delivery.

Seems pretty good to me but what do you guys think? Any items there you'd say let the whole down?


Other info:

Nero CD/DVD creator and Power DVD software is included is included with all DVD Writers.

Each computer comes with a parallel (printer) port & 2 x PS/2 ports.

Where necessary your computer will come with extra case fans fitted.

Our memory comes with a 100% tested lifetime warranty!

All our drives come in either silver, black or beige and are all of a
high quality & matched brand. We don't just buy the cheapest brands and throw them together into a computer.

We offer lifetime hardware technical support during normal office hours.

All our TFT monitors come with a 3 year onsite warranty covered by the monitor manufacturer.

A power cable, all drivers, manuals, and a heatsink & fan are included with every order.

Our computers come fully assembled & thoroughly tested. We are so confident
in the quality of our computers that we offer a free collection and re-delivery service* should you ever have a problem with your computer.

If you order an operating system it will come fully installed with the CD and licence key.

Sounds way too expensive. However I make all my own machines and have some very good trade contacts so anything more than trade price is too much :)

What he said. Could easily get that down by £200 at least by shopping around and building your own.

Really? I've read a few posts on these boards saying that building your own is not really any cheaper these days. Plus I don't have any trade contacts... I don't mind building my own at all, in fact I'd like to. The only thing I'd be wary of in doing that is unforseen hardware conflicts - any tips on avoiding those? Also, any links to shop around for components at decent prices would be a great help :)

CCL are the cheapest I've found, although I generally use DCS - slightly more expensive but its only a couple of miles from where I live. If i'm on a big spend like an entire system, I'll drive 40 miles to CCL.

I think building your own is a good choice, as you save abit (not as much as you used too), plus you can slowly build and upgrade it, rather than buying a complete system.

For example, you would probably only need a new Mobo and CPU now, and use your existing stuff, and slowly upgrade other companents as you go.

I used to build my own, I can't be arsed these days... but I do like specifying every component for a custom build.

LOL, thats exactly what I'd say. After 7 years of working in a computer shop I have zero passion for building the things ever again. I'd much rather buy one off the shelf these days.

Looked at CCL, and put this together. (Think I'd just get the parts, have to build it myself). What do you think? Any components that jump out as being poorly chosen? Think this is good value?

Total: £742.13 (inc VAT and shipping)

MOBO:
Asus A8N5X
£49.87
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?id=6586

CPU:
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ OEM
£ 113.09
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?id=4691

Cooler:
Asetek VapoChill Micro - Ultra Low Noise
£35.24
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?id=3624

Case:
CoolerMaster Praetorian 731
£59.46
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?id=5918

RAM:
Corsair Twin X XMS4000PT 2GB
£144.84
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?id=4651

PSU:
420W Tagan TG420-U02
£52.60
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?id=1793

GPU:
256MB XFX GeForce 7600GS XT
£96.16
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?id=6418

HDD:
250Gb Seagate Barracuda 7200.9
£58.42
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?id=3293

DVD:
Plextor PX-760A
£65.73
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?id=5799

(I can use the monitor, keyboard, mouse, WinXP, Firewire card etc from my old machine)

Thanks for all your help :)

Or this from www.vantagecomputers.co.uk

£700

System Case: Vantage Inspire Midi Case (4 Bay)
Power Supply: 430W TR2 Quiet PSU (19dB)
Motherboard: Asrock 939NF4G-SATA2 Motherboard (Skt 939)
Processor: AMD 64-Bit 3700+ (Skt 939)
System Memory: 2Gb DDR400 PC3200 Dual Channel Memory (2x 1Gb)
Hard Drive One: 250Gb Serial ATA300 7200RPM
Hard Drive Two: 250Gb Serial ATA300 7200RPM
Removeable Storage Devices: Floppy Disc Drive
CD Device One: DVDRW Drive (16x +/- Dual Layer)
Video Card: GeForce 7600GT 256Mb DDR +DVI/TV
PCI Devices: Firewire 1394 Card
System Warranty: Ad-Vantage 5 Years Return to Base Warranty
Additional Support Services: One Week Trial 24/7 Unlimited Telephone Software Support

If you could afford to splash out an extra £28, I'd get a really, really, nice Wave Master case instead. It looks so much better and is really well built (CoolerMaster). - Just a thought...

http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=6401&category_id=237&manufacturer_id=0

Build your own is the same price - ie 600-800 for a full system, however the CHOICES are WAY BETTER.

I build systems for £600 that companies sell for £1000. So I guess you do "save" a hell of a lot of money building one.

Dont forget that the components are accurate. For starters the broadband ethernet is built into the motherboard. Secondly that monitor is in all likelihood, crap.

Finally, I thinkt that cpu could be a dual core if you built it yourself and the monitor could be higher quality for the same price.

Damn - I was going to say that your setup wasn't a bad price! I guess I'm just used to being ripped off here in the Ukraine :(

Also look at

www.scan.co.uk

www.aria.co.uk

I have had long experiance from both of them without any problems and they are usually the cheapest around. Cases are more personnal preference things than anything else in the rig. The only thing I would say is don't get anything with flashy panels and lights on the front. You never look at them and if you have your computer in your room they can be annoying if you try to sleep with it on.

Changes to spec:

Athlon 3700 with 1MB cache instead of 3800 with 512KB. It's a newer revision and will clock to 3800 speed without blinking an eye (will clock to Athlon FX55 speed if you want, plus it will have the same amount of cache as one).

Pioneer 111D DVD recorder http://svp.co.uk/products-solo.php?pid=1020 £23.99+p&p (get the black one - better quality burns due to reduced jitter). You're paying way over the odds for that Plextor.

Also, I'd consider a DFI LanParty motherboard. Widely regarded as the most overclockable (and therefore the most stable) boards. MSI are also a good choice, but I've never used one myself.

Motherboards with on-board LAN are fairly ubiquitous these days. Granted, I don't use mine (rather use my D-Link than the NForce4 thingy, due to lightweight driver) but it would be useful if my PCI NIC died.

Shopping for TFT's is a difficult task. You never really know what you're getting until you've had a look at it working. All the tech-specs in the world don't really tell you what it's going to look like. Guidelines only.

I'd probably go for a dual-core, if I had the money. Not sure I'd make good use of all that power though, my 3700 still serves me well and I haven't thought about needing anything faster since I bought it (before Christmas).

Useful comments there, thanks - will check those links tomorrow, right now I'm heading to the cinema to see Brick. :)

Like several people have already mentioned, if you're building one today, you'll probably want to go dual core.

Also the PSU you want is this one: http://www.acryan.com/_powersupply/index.shtml

Other than that, neither of the prices you've mentioned seem particularly unreasonable.

I'll mention the same as other people... go dual core. Even with the slower core speeds it's well worth it for the way windows acts. So much snappier all around. And with software that supports both cores it'll spank pretty much any single core solution.

The only other thing I can see is that you are pretty weak in the video cart department on every system you've shown. At least if you are building a system you want to last. Splurge on a GOOD video card and it's one less thing you'll have to upgrade in a year or two. 7800GTX should be coming down in price since the 7900GTX is out in numbers now.

I'll have a look at dual cores then... I understood it to be not so great for games just yet?

Flameduck, I had a look at a review for that PSU, which wasn't glowing... still I like the idea of the cabling solution.

Vinylpusher, that DVD drive looks great, thanks for that.

As for the 7800gtx, I'd love to but £300 is out of my current means.

Does anyone have a link to a good step by step of building a PC? I know how and I've taken mine apart and put it together several times, but I'd appreciate filling in the gaps in my knowledge such as exactly what power connection cables I need etc.

dual core is fine for games, amd 3800+ is still around the speed of a 3200+ in games.

Well most games aren't written in a way to support multithreading. That being said, the CPU is rarely a bottleneck in game performance these days, the graphics card is several orders of magnitude more significant.

Yeah the cable system is awesome. I've had mine for about 8 months now (since my Antec one blew) and I wouldn't swap for anything else. Each to his own I suppose

The GeForce 7900GT is faster than the 7800GTX and it costs less.