Home Forums General Discussion Getting a performance PC in Ireland?

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    • #6038
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Im considering buying a tower soon. But I find that catalogue deals and the like just don’t accomadate for users like animators (we are a tiny market I guess) and I have no experience in building one and cant see myself doing so. So, does anyone know of any company that sells strictly towers with specs that you can arrange yourself? I’m looking for a 512 graphics card, and as much ram and cores as I can afford…anyone know of anyplace? (That is also reasonable?)

    • #37014
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Most of the Alienware and the Dell XPS range are probably your best bet. While neither will offer you the same bang for buck as a custom built machine they’re still beasts. :)

      Just be careful what you put into it though. Even something as simple as only ordering one hard drive and getting the rest from Komplett to put in yourself will save you money.

    • #37015
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      I found it fairly easy to build my own PC, you just need to do a few hours research, see what parts go with what.

      You will save money, get a better PC and have a nice sense of satisfaction :)

      I plan to build one for my brother too (as it is cheaper than buying one). He already has a monitor so I save on that straight away.

    • #37018
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      i have a xps and i loves it:D:D:D:D. deadly machine. the new notebooks can be overclocked too which is deadly. 2.33ghz to 3.33ghz i think it is.(official from dell btw)

    • #37020
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Also, if your going to be spending a lot of time at your machine, you may want to have a look at minimising noise from your machine. I nearly sure that Dell are the only mainstream supplier of machines that pay any attention to noise reduction (and not that I’m a big fan of Dell either!!). Just something that you may want to think about before you finalise your new machine.

    • #37021
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Building your own pc is alot easier then you probably think it is Squash-n- stretch.

      The motherboard socket type you get depends on the processor. After that as long as all the hardware you are buying is current everything else should generally be hunky dory.

      Processor
      Motherboard (socket type depends on processor)
      Ram
      Video Card
      sound card (most motherboards have onboard sound so this is optional)
      Power supply (faster cpu’s and builds with a customisation like neon lights need bigger power supplies)
      dvd drive/burner
      Case (Tower)

      If you have a friend in the know beside you when you are ordering stuff and building the cpu its a no brainer. By that I mean somebody who isnt just out to show their indepth knowledge of technology for the sake of gloating.

      Building the pc yourself leaves alot more cash in your pocket compared to buying ready made high-end pc’s, which in turn means you get a better pc.

    • #37022
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Yep Barry is right; first choose what CPU (AMD\INTEL…then what one can you afford) you want then that dictates what motherboard you can have. I went with AMD and the Asus motherboard I got had built in sound so that was cool.

      With the money saved splash out on a top gfx card or more RAM (also dictated by motherboard you bought but it will more than likely just be whatever the latest RAM there is out there)

      So the way to go about it is….

      CPU>MOTHERBOARD>EVERYTHING ELSE

      By building your own you also dont have to pay for mandatory windows (they still do that yeah?) that manufactures charge you.

      Stuff like motherboards tell you what type of CPU they can take [dictated by the socket(s)]

    • #37024
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      i Built this my lasd desktop myself , most parts i got from komplett.ie , good website, you can order all the parts , or they can put it together
      still works out quite cheap

      i Built this my self, most parts i got from komplett.ie ,

      Motherbroad
      Gigabyte GA-945P-S3, I945P, Socket-775

      Processor
      Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHz cache 4MB

      Hardrives x3 +1

      Internel

      Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB SATA2 16MB 7200RPM
      Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB SATA2 16MB 7200RPM
      Samsung SpinPoint T133 300GB IDE ATA/133 8MB 7200RPM

      External
      Freecom 300GB usb drive
      = 1,600GB of space
      yes thats right i have almost 2 terrabytes of hard drive space.

      Graphic Card
      XFX GeForce 8800GTS 500M 640MB GDDR3

      Memory
      4 x Corsair TWIN2X 5400 DDR2, 1024MB , 4gb( i can only use all four on vista , but its worth it for rendering in max ).

      Screen ( i love this screen its brilliant)
      LG 20" LCD L204WT TCO-03 Black/Silver 1680×1050, 5ms, 2000:1, DVI/VGA

      .

      Other stuff
      Case – NZXT Apollo Black, steel Chassi w/ window, Screwless design ( brilliant case no need for screws , nice window , with blue led fan , and it has two hugh 140cm silent fan

      +NorthQ 4775-500S, ATX 500W Silent, 140mm Fan , that makes 3 big ass silent fans , plus the one on the graphic card , even i was suprised at how little sound the pc makes when under full load , and keeps everything nice and cold .

      i think all that cost me about 1,500 euro , so not bad ,

    • #37028
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      I was going to suggest komplett too. I reckon builiding is the way to go. I bought an Alienware laptop almost 2 years ago, cost almost 4 grand and its been back to the depot 3 times, thats after MANY out of hours phonecalls to their their tech support in COSTA RICA. Despite having paid an extra 300 quid for an extended warranty, they still expect you to take apart your laptop for troubleshooting over the phone.

    • #37031
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Go with a second monitor too. They are cheap and a far better productivity gain than a few extra megs of ram or processors.

      Dave

    • #37038
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Yep, if you do end up building your own definitely go for Komplett. they have a great range, decent prices and their returns policy is very good too. MemoryC are a smaller company but also have some great deals on memory and a few other bits and bobs.

      Odd that you were talking to people in Costa Rica Pete given that their EU Tech Support center is in Athlone. :?

    • #37039
      Anonymous
      Inactive
    • #37046
      Anonymous
      Inactive
    • #37048
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      And then all that leaves you with is your price range. This is what I always ask mates first of all when they’re building a PC as once you’ve made that decision nearly everything else falls into place.

      If you want just give me a shout as to what it is and I can pick out some parts for you. It’ll give me something to do anyway. :D

    • #37051
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      I forgot to add, the Motherboard (mobo) I got came with a Gigabit LAN adapter and sound card built in.

      Sound and Network both worked ace on it!

      It looks like we can help you select your components if you have a price range in mind and want to self build ^_^

      CPU
      Mobo
      RAM
      Hard drive
      Network Adaptor (get it on the mobo!)
      Fans
      Case
      Sound (get it on the mobo unless you are some sound fiend!)
      GFX
      DVD drive

      (assuming you already have a monitor\keyboard\mouse)

    • #37053
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Sound (get it on the mobo unless you are some sound fiend!)[/quote:a4f4202d62]

      eeeew… mobo sound. latency baaaad!

    • #37055
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Odd that you were talking to people in Costa Rica Pete given that their EU Tech Support center is in Athlone. :?[/quote:64ebb1be2d]

      If their lines are busy the calls overflow to Costa Rica and all out of hours calls go straight to Costa Rica too. Seems their EU Tech Support centre closes before 6

    • #37057
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      I use onboard sound meself..
      Mind you my onboard sound is 5.1 .Not that I use the 5.1 part .

      As for latency? ..I personally have only seen that affect cubase and such.

    • #37059
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      I think mine was 5.1 (my ex has it as part of the settlement :p) and I had no problems. Meant I had more cash to spend on a sweet GFX card.

    • #37061
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Anyone have an X-Fi card? While I’m perfectly happy with my Audigy 2 ZS I’ve heard that the newer cards really improve mp3 quality through decent speakers. They’re too pricey though and the lack of availability of a higher end card without the breakout box bugs me. :?

    • #37064
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      As for latency? ..I personally have only seen that affect cubase and such.[/quote:a424983f6d]

      Yeah but I use my rig for audio work. This can affect certain games however.

      I’ve had a XiFi card for a year now. The sound enhancing stuff really does work, you’ll notice it especially on the bass and drums of any song. Plus the virtual 9.1 it does is amazing too. It doesn’t restore the lost audio info, but it does a very good job of enhnacing what is there.

      When you have shit loads of audio gear (2 external pro-audio sound cards and a few MIDI devices) to wire up as well the drive breakout box thing is very useful.

    • #37069
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Ah, so you would be what I refered to as a "sound fiend" 8)

    • #37072
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Oh and if you buy certain ATI cards you get Half-Life2 Black Box

      (TEAM FORTRESS 2!)

      http://www.steampowered.com/activateATI/

    • #37202
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Cool, lots of info. Cheers for taking the time to type all that out guys :D I’ll definitely look more into building myself now, maybe with the help of someone who knows a bit. I’ll check komplett out too. I’ll update soon :D

      What kind of a saving did you guys make on your desktops?

    • #37246
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Squash,
      I would also agree with the lads on the thread here, and recommend that you build your own rig. However, I would also suggest that you wait for about a month before you make your purchase. Intel is set to cut the price of its Core 2 range, so if you wait for a while, you’d be able to pick up a very good processor for a fair bit cheaper

    • #37266
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Squash,
      I would also agree with the lads on the thread here, and recommend that you build your own rig. However, I would also suggest that you wait for about a month before you make your purchase. Intel is set to cut the price of its Core 2 range, so if you wait for a while, you’d be able to pick up a very good processor for a fair bit cheaper[/quote:855f1fd075]

      Muchos gracias. I’m leaning more towards an AMD processor though…which is better?

    • #37269
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Not anymore I’m afraid, Intel are dominating the market with their Core 2 Duo CPUs. All AMD have been able to do is cut prices in order to compete. Currently the AMD64 6000+ is their best desktop processor and it only comes close to the (admitedly awesome) mid range Intel E6600 CPU. That said the new AMD Phenom processors which are on the way are looking rather nice however there have been no solid benchmarks as of yet. If it was me I’d probably wait abit before investing a lot of money into a PC however if you want to build now or are on a tighter budget just go with Intel and the afformentioned chip.

    • #37274
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      And I can get that chip in dual-core format yeah? Is it simple to instal two of them to effectively have four cores? Or does it not work that way? When companies advertise these chips, do they advertise by the Ghz outputted by each chip, or both combined?

    • #37276
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      You only have one processor per computer. Its just the way its done.

      Not 100% on the multicore output question.

    • #37314
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      I just saw this http://www.komplett.ie/k/ki.aspx?sku=330169

      Will this price go down in afformentioned price cut? How come komplett have a dual core Intel Core 2 for 800 euro in the page before? This on is 8MB Quad core but the 800 euro one is 4MB Dual Core.

    • #37318
      Anonymous
      Inactive
    • #37319
      Anonymous
      Inactive

      Hey Squash
      The difference between those two processors on komplett (apart from the price), is the clock speeds and the Cahce. Generally speaking, very little separates them though. Like Gizmo said, the Q6600 may be over kill, but that depends on the reason your buying the rig.
      Like I said in my previous post, you should hold off until the price goes down. I believe that Intel will be re-branding one or two of their chips on the 22nd of July. The QX6700 will fall into their other naming convention of the Q6700. The price will prob drop then
      This might answer one or two of your questions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core_2#Quad_Core_Kentsfield_2

      HTH

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