I’ve just ordered this, after some advice from some more hardware-literate friends. I’m no idiot, but PC purchasing is fairly unknown territory to me. Is this a decent spec (it’s intended for general home use, 56k browsing and limited gaming, but not the top-of-the-line shooters). If anyone can take a stab at assessing the price that would also help.
(before anyone notes, I didn’t want Works but Office was too damn expensive)
Matrix 3000+ Deluxe
[ul][li]Case: MESH ATX MidiTower +360W PSU with tool free access [/li][li]Motherboard: ASUS A7N8X Deluxe nVIDIA nFORCE2 with 10/100 Ethernet LAN[/li][li]Motherboard Features: 2x (1394 Firewire, Serial ATA, 10/100 LAN) & S/PDIF[/li][li]Processor: AMD Athlon XP ™ 3000+ with Quantispeed Technology[/li][li]Memory: 512Mb PC2700 DDR Memory 333MHz[/li][li]Floppy + Portable Storage Options: 1.44MB Floppy Drive + 256MB Pen Drive (USB) at £69[/li][li]Hard Drives: Upgrade to 120Gb Ultra Fast with 8Mb Buffer (7200rpm) at £15[/li][li]Video Card: 128MB nVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 - TV Out + DVI[/li][li]Monitor 1: 17’’ Sharp TFT Flat Panel Monitor (black) (Analogue)[/li][li]Optical Drives: 48x24x48x16 CD-RW/DVD-ROM Combo Drive[/li][li]Sound: Onboard Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound[/li][li]Speakers: Stereo Speakers built in to Sharp TFT monitor[/li][li]Modem: 56kbps V92 Modem, featuring data and fax.[/li][li]Keyboard & Mouse: Logitech Internet Keyboard & Optical Mouse (Black)[/li][li]Operating System: Upgrade to Microsoft Windows XP Pro Edition at £50[/li][li]Video Editing: Pinnacle Studio 8 SE (OEM)[/li][li]Software: Microsoft WorksSuite 2003[/li][li]Warranty: 3 years On Site Warranty (Mainland UK only - Terms Apply)[/li][li]Delivery: Insured Saturday Delivery within Mainland UK at £54[/ul]*Price Including VAT + DEL: £1277.22 *[/li]
(that’s abour US$2,084.54)
That piece of crap? It was out of date minutes ago!!!
In all seriousness, I cannot really say if it’s a good buy or not, since I don’t know about other UK factors like taxes and whatnot. For the US it would be a bit pricey; I could build the machine myself for 1/3 to 1/2 of that price.
Cheers all. I decided “in for a penny, in for a pound”, since I don’t plan to spend on any new parts for many years. Most of the specs were pretty self-explanatory to me, but the “motherboard features” and the choice of AMD vs Pentium led me down the garden path. Not to mention the different graphics cards.
Last time I was involved in buying a PC all I had to worry about was whether it had VGA graphics and a 3.5" floppy drive.
Not bad. But in my not so humble opinion you’ve got too much processor, not enough ram and really about twice the hard drive space that you’re gonna need. I would have saved a few bux and gotten the 2500+, an 80gig fast HD and added another 512Mb of RAM.
I don’t build em for a living, I build them to live with, I just finished a system for a friend like above with a 40gig and 17in LCD for $1600 all black and silver with 2 windows 5 lighted fans a couple CCFLs and custom fangrills.
The extra ram made a big difference in the gaming experience.
The extra lights made a big difference in the factor.
Ah…I did wonder about that. I was advised that a 2800 would have been a cheaper, equally good option, but didn’t act on it. I’m assuming the RAM is upgradeable in time; if it’s not going to cause me any hassles in the short term I’ll stick with 512mb. Or is it likely to cause noticeable performance issues?
(although compared to my current 64mb Celeron I’m expecting much better things)
I don’t think you need to worry, the ram is easy to add and you’ll be very happy with what you have for quite a some time. maybe more ram as a Christmas present? It is and will be a kick a$$ system for quite some time, well at least 6 months :dubious:
S’ok, but you should get a full sized tower, and skip the combo drive and get seprate dvd and cd-rw drives. The onboard sound isn’t bad, since you can easily buy a sb audigy. The speakers built into that monitor wont be good quality, i can tell you that now. And “Works” is a ripoff, MS Word is better, but you can always download OpenOffice which is free, and almost as good as word. As for XP, i dont see the reason for the Pro version, you would be better sutied with W2k pro for security and stability. Everything else is great, your just missing a zip drive. God i love zip drives.
Oh, btw. The processor in that is excelent, CISC rules. The only draw backs to having your IEE 1394 (firewire) and your NIC onboard is if one goes out, you have to replace the Motherboard to replace it.
Heh…I did wonder about the zip drive, but the pen drive has the added benefit of being usable with my Windows 2000 work laptop. I can transfer back and forth to my heart’s content!
Sounds wasn’t a big deal to me (my current machine relies on the PC speaker beeping away only), although I can upgrade to an Audigy (whatever that is). Works was free where Office was overpriced, although I can get hold of a legit CD of SmartSuite in an emergency. The O/S was a choice between XP Home and Pro, and I was warned off the former (plus I rather like the teletubby ClearType interface). I decided to go for the pre-built route rather than the custom design this time. I plan to tinker with it once I get the time, though.
VenusProbe: I’ve placed the order and had delivery scheduled for 26th (the nearest Saturday date they’ll do, since I can’t be at home during the week). Can’t wait!
Heh. I’m actually more or less neutral when it comes to that little debate. I’ve used and appreciated both, but am more familiar with PCs. And I doubt I could get Championship Manager, Sim City and Halo (eventually) on the Mac!
There is a dearth of Mac games, but I have two consoles (GameCube and Xbox) to deal with my game habit. The computer is for work, artistic expression, and (shortly) school… again.
And Halo is not worth the wait. It’s very well done, but just not my thing. I sold my copy.
It really depends on what one wants to do. There will always be the folks that say you need to get the latest and greatest PowerMacs when buying a Mac, and they go for US$2K - $3K. Powerbooks go for $US1.5K-$3.2K. However, I am perfectly happy with my little iBook, which starts around US$1K. (I got mine for $500 new. It was a good deal.)
Really, unless one is doing high-end graphics work, heavy-duty gaming, or other types of media processing, the majority of computers out today can hack most normal tasks such as work processing, web surfing and email. As I mentioned, I bought the console sysytems to handle my gaming habit, and I have been creating HTML and Flash web sites on my little 600MHZ iBook. Sure, it would be faster and more awesome to have a new G5, but I know that I can’t afford it right now. Maybe after law school…
I just finished ordering parts to build my SO’s computer. Only cost me about 500$US. 2200+ only(I’m on a 2100+ here and it still flies through all apps/games). I’m against combo drives since I had a bad experience with one, hopefully this one will serve you well though.
I need to strongly advise against getting a full-tower. I bought one of those cases that Alienware formerly used thinking “Awesome, this thing is going to be a beast.” and ever since I’ve been trying to tame this “beast”. There’s absolutely no good way to carry it and no way to put it on top of anything. I recently purchased a mini-tower(quite a big leap from the full tower eh?) and can’t wait to carry that thing around like it’s a lunchbox.
I like how it looks Crusoe , hope she serves ya well.
factor. 
I believe he has removable media covered with the 256MB Pen Drive.