Advice pls on new A64 rig

[tfboy]

Right, I've had a couple of recent emails with him. As he's a trusted mate, I'll happily pay for it myself and he'll pay in stages, interest free of course

With that in mind, I'll get a nice monitor, and maybe stretch the budget a bit to something he's happy with (and won't need more than a month or two to pay me back).

I'll try and sort something out for him when I get back to the UK roundabout the 14th. In Beirut at the moment, having an awesome time...

[Firelord]

Right i wouldn't bother with a 19" CRT I would get a 17" TFT. Same real estate on the screen but much smaller foot print

TFTs have dropped a lot recently and will do some more after xmas

I would suggest this -->http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Product...69&GroupID=449



I have its big brother the VX912 and they are stunning! Far better vfm than a CRT. That screen has DVI as well for crystal clear images

Other than that tis a good choice.

What about a SuperLanBoy case? They are real nice made from ali and look great. Plus cheaper than the P160 A decent case does make a difference to how a PC looks and the quality feel of the system. Cheap cases make the systems look cheap. If I supplied cheap cases to my customers they wouldn't be too happy (unless on a real tight budget)

[Thorsson]

Why not go the whole hog and get the P160? On MicroDirect the price has already dropped to post-Xmas levels:
http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Product...5472&GroupID=8

I've noticed a lot of other stuff that's dropped in the last few days on MD and Scan. I was going to wait until after Xmas too, but I've started shopping around now.

[tfboy]

Hmm.
I'm now back and will probably want to sort this out soon.
Thanks for the heads-up Thorsson. Will have a wander on MD's site.

Anyone know of a retailer with an nf4 mobo in stock? Or should I stick to the msi neo platinum one?

[BUFF]

Scan are saying that they expect the A8N-SLI on the 16th December.

[tfboy]

Well, I've managed to source myself a wonderful Sony 19" CRT (I think it's the multiscan 400) for 30 notes A nice big saving of 200 quid which I can now use elsewhere.

I'm on holiday for crimbo in SW France, but it's turned out to be a bit of a disaster - managed to crash my pride and joy about 30 miles from arriving so don't know when I'll be back to build this thing Fortunately, I'm OK but have no idea how / when I'm going to get back to the UK... I'll probably get round to building it mid Jan - beginning of Feb so will wait to see what is available by then and take it from there.

[tfboy]

Well, the bits have been purchased.
Trying to find in stock someone with all the bits was impossible, so I ended up having to purchase from three different suppliers. Initial worries of paying a lot of delivery in the end weren't too bad. Total budget available was £1000 to include monitor but exclude speakers / keyboard / mouse

In the end, he opted for a CRT, despite my praise for some of the latest 17" panels. I think his major concern was lag for FPS games. I thought the latest low-response-time panels were pretty decent?

The Sony monitor mentioned in previous post is going to be passed on to his older brother for whom I'm building another S939 but on a real tight budget.

Soooo, here's the final list.

Ordered from Scan:
SilverStone TJ04B-W black alu front / secc body with window £67.99
470W Enermax Noisetaker £51.95
Floppy drive £3.65
NEC ND-3500 Black 16x dual layer dvd burner £33.86
Asus Black 16x dvd drive £14.59
160Gb WD Caviar SE 7200rpm / 8MB cache SATA £53.01
Total: £225.05
Delivery: £10
Total inc Vat and delivery: £276.18

Ordered from CPU city
Asus A8N-SLI (standard) £86
A64 3000 retail (so that includes cooler I believe?) £98
XFX GeForce 6600GT PCI-E £123
Twinmos PC3200 512MB DDR400 CL2.5 £46 - 2 of ordered. Seems cheaper and better spec than corsair value. Any thoughts?
Total: £399 +VAT
Delivery: £9.88 inc VAT
Total inc deliv and vat: £478.71

Ordered from morecomputers.co.uk
19" Iiyama Vision Pro 454 (the daddy!) £195.42
Delivery: £4.95
Total inc vat and delivery: £235.43

Total cost for all the kit: £990.32

Questions/Comments:
CPU City were the only retailer with the A8N-SLI in stock. Admittedly, it's the standard, not the deluxe, but I'm not too bothered about that and I don't think he'd have had the patience to wait for the deluxe version.

Twinmos RAM seems pretty good value for money. Don't know what the o/c like but it was cheaper and I think better spec than corsair value which I believe is CL3 whereas this is CL2.5 Anyone care to comment on twinmos sticks?

Finally, it does amuse me how much people charge for delivery. I do find it ironic that the bulkiest and heaviest item (that monitor weighs in at around 25kg in the box I think) is the cheapest to deliver.

All items were in stock so hopefully, by tomorrow, Wed, I should have the bits required to keep my busy for an hour or two

[|{££|"]

Good move. 1600x1200 on a 19" will be a bit squinty mind, I only run my 21" at 1280x960

Rich :¬)

What! lol 21" at 1280x960 Crazy
I run 1600x1200 on desktop on my dell 19" and its fine LOL.
Infact some people use 1600x1200 on 17" now that is crazy

[Thorsson]

470W Enermax Noisetaker £51.95
Asus A8N-SLI (standard) £86
XFX GeForce 6600GT PCI-E £123

Unless they got new models in the last 2 days you'll find you have the wrong connector for the mobo and no PCI-E connector with that PSU.

[tfboy]

Unless they got new models in the last 2 days you'll find you have the wrong connector for the mobo and no PCI-E connector with that PSU.

Hmm I was wondering about that, but then again thought that the 6600gt would come with the relevant power adaptor because it's a boxed product. I know Scan talk about an OEM gfx pci-e card and they point out that you need the power adaptor that's sold seperately but they don't mention it on any of the boxed ones iirc.

I'll find out in the next couple of days...

edit: I think I'm alright - looking at the spec here, they talk about a "An available hard disk drive power dongle (smaller floppy disk drive connector is not sufficient)." which I gather is the standard 4 pin molex jobby

[Thorsson]

Looks like you're right. Still will have a "20" mainboard connector rather than a "24" though.

[tfboy]

Well, the order from CPC arrived today - it is the standard A8N-SLI board along with the Iiyama monitor. Feck me it weighs a ton!

However, Scan have failed me yet again. I had multiple horror experiences with them some time ago and resorted never to use them again. However, following recent feedback and actually getting through to them on the phone, I decided to give them a try, ordering on Saturday afternoon a list of kit, all of which was in stock. Big mistake