*Shakes head* I'm not rising to your challenge, Taw .

Edited by - esquilax on 5/12/2004 4:33:19 PM

I inherited a G3 from our webfools who've moved on. No-one else in the firm knows how to use it or even what it does, so I got it. I've had it for few weeks now but was waiting for the right opportunity to drop it into a conversation to thoroughly annoy you and Mustie.

oh, and i'm buying it off the firm too at a hugely reduced price even though it's only 18 months old i think, possibly a bit more.

sweetness sweetness I was only joking when i said, I'd like to smash every tooth in your head..

Comont

Dell, Gateway and now HP have entered into the gaming PC market because, like with cars, if you don't have a performance model they lose some of their "bling."

Alienware is the biggest of the gamin rig makers. They are, therefore, somewhat more affordable than the other hot makes: Voodoo and Falcon Northwest. For the longest time Alienware, Falcon Northwest and Voodoo were the only reliable super rig makers to talk about.

Also, Alienware and the other two as well, make AMD based hot rods too. Go find a computer mag on gaming at the magazine store and check out the ads inside. You ought to be able to find info on Alienware, Falcon and Voodoo fairly easily. There's another make out there but I forget the name. Voodoo is the most expensive of these three.... but then they come standard with special cooling systems either liquid based or a news design which is static based and very quiet as it eliminates almost all fans. Voodoos are really drool material.

Your best buy right now, actually, is a Gateway AMD 64 3400 unit - $2500. Unlike Dell and HP, Gateway boxes are 100% market standard components. No proprietary cases and motherboards (like Dell and HP). This makes them eminently more moddable buy the end user after purchase. It does not perform quite as well as the big three in the gaming world and certainly not as fast as if the CPU were an AMD 64 FX53 but it will hold its own quite well, all things considered. AND, since its innards are all standard industry spec'd parts, you can upgrade on your own and not worry about getting the special Dell or HP configured part.

How about www.hypersonic-pc.com their cases look pretty good and they sound pretty good.

"The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine." - Nikola Tesla

The problem with building your own PC compared to buying one from companies like Falcon and Alienware, is that when something goes horribly wrong, it's YOU that has to deal with it. When you buy a pre-built computer from said companies, it comes with a WARRANTY, which you can use to send the computer back to get it fixed at no charge to you. Warranties are a very good thing.

"If it's our time to die, it's our time. All I ask is that when it's our time, if we have to give these b******s our lives, WE GIVE 'EM HELL BEFORE WE DO!"

most warranties are not worth the paper they are written on because most computer problems are caused by idiot users who don't come with a warranty

those "extended" warranties are even worse, a total rip-off, I know cos I used to rip folk off with them. Money for old rope, sell an extended warranty on a pc/printer package which is being bought on strap anyway, warranty cost about £30, flog it for £130 on credit so you get interest as well.

If youre buying branded you might as well just shove the cash in the salesmans pocket before you start. Go to a proper shop that will build it for you, not stupid Dell or Gateway or PC World or any of that cr*p. Trust Uncle Taw on this, Uncle Taw knows all the dodgy tricks and shady underhandedness that goes on.

Don't go by how nice the case looks. It's what inside and how it is matched up that counts. Of course, if the innards are the same, the exterior appeal may carrry the day but after innards, I go for price.

Don't know much about Hypersonic-PC.

Oh yeah, the other hot rod maker that allegedly is making enough waves to possibly scare Alien, Faclon and Voodoo is called LComputers. They overclock everything that can be overclocked. So, right out of the box, your "Mach L" PC will have no manufacturer's warranty support for those components that are overclocked by them.
Cheapest price is $3K for a P4 oc'd to 3.5gHz. The top line wallet buster is a $8500 P4 OC'd to 3.8gHz, soon to be bettered by one OC'd to 4.0gHz. The OC the video cards too.


PS: Taw's tight on many levels but sometimes the shop you visit is even less scrupulous than the brands because they are more like car shops. If they know you don't know what you're doing, they'll eat you up. Take a friend along who knows his stuff.

Edited by - Indy11 on 5/13/2004 12:01:55 PM

Yeah but I built one on that Hypersonic site and came out with a good 3 keys but it had a 160 gig hard drive. Radeon 9800 XT, 1024 ram upgradeable to 4 gig, it actually had a good mobo too that asus one with hyperthreading 3.4 gigahertz i think. With a Audigy sound card with I think 5 channel support or whatever for surround sound. Looked pretty good by what I saw actually. I didnt buy a monitor cause I saw this really great flatscreen at Fry's, it was like 2k but it was i think 40 inch? not sure but Im hoping to get that one .

"The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine." - Nikola Tesla

So you've got a serious budget then? 3keys PLUS a widescreen flat panel? Nice.
*feels pangs of jealousy* well, the PC market is your oyster then. Don't anything about Hyper so sorry, can't help you there.