OK, I've ordered the new machine - comments welcome

[Rik]

After the debacle with Evesham in February/March, I decided to pause a while before placing an order - partly to make sure the money was back on my card, partly to allow Intel's price cuts to work through. So, I finally got around to ordering this spec from Scan today. Any comments or suggestions welcome, I still have time to change things!


**3XS-CORE DUO HIGH END SYSTEM**

Akasa Mirage-62 Midi Tower Case - Hi-End (Thermo efficient case with front panel door & IO port)

**Intel BLKD975XBX2KR i975X, S775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 667/533, SATA I / II, SATA RAID, ATX, OEM (8 USB2, 2 Gigabit NICs, PS/2 x 2)

Now changed to:
Asus P5W64 WS Professional i975X, S775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 533/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX

700W Tagan U35 Easycon PCI Express, SLi, Molex, EPS 12V, 80% eff.

120mm Akasa Amber Case Fan, 3 Pin, 2 Ball Bearing , Ultra Quiet and Long life

50cm 3XS Round ATA133 Certified IDE Cable

50cm 3XS Round Floppy Drive Cable Certified

Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 S775, 2.67Ghz, 1066Mhz FSB, Conroe Core, 4M Cache Retail

Zalman CNPS9700-NT nVidia Tritium Super Aero Flower Cooler

4Gb (4X1Gb) Corsair TwinX DDR2 XMS2 Dominator, PC8500, 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-15

256MB Sapphire Radeon X1950GT, PCI-E(x16), Mem 1200MHz GDDR3, GPU 500MHz, 36 Pipes, RoHS
They talked me out of a higher spec card as they don't think I need one for my use: Office, web, Photoshop

80 Gb Samsung HD080HJ SpinPoint P80, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 8MB Cache, 8.9 ms, NCQ
Two of these. I was mulling the WD Raptor 10000RPM, but was advised that these will perform as well or better in most circumstances as the Raptors are SATA150. These drives will be Windows/System and applications

750Gb Seagate ST375064AS Barracuda 7200RMP, SATA2, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, , NCQ
Two of these, one for data, one for internal backup.

Mitsumi FA404M 1.44 Black FDD+Int USB2 7 in 1 Card Reader (SM/MMC/SD/CF/MD/MS) Fits in 3.5" FDD Bay

2 x NEC AD7170S-0B 18x DVD±RW/RAM black internal SATA Oem

Creative Audigy soundcard
Don't need anything fancy

Microsoft Windows XP PRO Edition SP2b (Release 2)

23" Viewsonic VP231WB Thinedge Widescreen DVI/VGA 1920x1200 ,16 ms , 500:1 ,250 cd/m2 ,Black PC/MAC
Better for me than 24" Dell. No dead pixels guarantee, can be set to 6500K, next day swap out warranty

Microsoft Black Optical Value Pack V2 - Multimedia Keyboard & Intelli Optical Mouse
Going straight in the spares cupboard

Creative I-Trigue 2.1 3330 Speakers

120mm Akasa Amber Case Fan, 3 Pin, 2 Ball Bearing , Ultra Quiet

Extended Warranty (Insurance-Backed) - 2nd and 3rd Year On-Site Service


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I have to say I was very impressed speaking to them. I got hold of someone who knew what he was talking about and was happy to answer questions and to offer advice. He was also keen to save me money, reducing the spec where I didn't need the power, eg the graphics card. He even updated their website while we were talking to allow the 80GB Samsungs and the 3330 speakers, which weren't in the original spec.

Actually, it was a bit like talking to IDNet.

Interestingly, they install Windows from the CD and apply all the updates before sending it out, activating it and creating the user account with the name you choose - most unusual. All CDs supplied.

[Lance]

Looks a nice spec, Rik. Should last about 4 weeks I reckon!

A couple of notes though, do you really need a FDD? If you have old stuff on floppy disks would it not be possible to use either an older machine when you need the data, or simply archive them to your HDD and transfer them accross the network as and when you need to? You could even share the floppy drive on one machine over a network. I just think that in thi day and age there is no need for them, and the case is a little neater without them. Plus you'll save all of three pounds .

Also, if sound isn't important, could you not make use of the in built sound on the motherboard? This is what I do and it has a minimal effect on the CPU and is perfectly adequate.

Finally, what is the "50cm 3XS Round ATA133 Certified IDE Cable" for? All your hard drives and DVD writers are SATA so do this not use a different cable to IDE drives?

[Rik]

Hi Lance

This is the first machine with a floppy that I've ordered for a while. The reason being that if Acronis True Image has problems booting from DVD, they ask for a file to be written to a floppy, and only an internal floppy (ie non USB) will do. As it's combined with a card reader, it seemed a good idea. I would guess that's where the IDE cable goes.

On the soundcard font, I did consider using the mobo, but it was only £15 or so, so I thought 'compatibility'.

[RobMc]

but what colour is the case and does it have those nice perspex windows in them so you can see lot's of flashing lights? 


Seriously that sounds like a real monster of a system . I've been using scan for many years and have always found them helpful over the phone and a couple of times when I went to their site to use their counter service when I positively had to have something same day. I've got three of those 120mm akasa fans in my case and the system as a whole is as near silent as makes no difference.

Rob.

[Rik]

Black and no, Rob.

I was speaking to their systems manger, who was helping out on the phones. I couldn't get over the fact he wanted to save me money! Thanks for the information on the fans, I'm trying for silent but deadly... powerful. 

[Inactive]

Wow Rik, that is some monster of a PC, my only observations are;

( 1 )... I didn't see any Firewire Ports listed ( unless I missed them ).

and ( 2 ...) I had a Viewsonic LCD Monitor that had serious backlight bleed, I changed to a Dell, no problem whatsoever, I am still using it.

Keep us updated on progress. .

[Rik]

Hi Inactive

I didn't bother to list the Firewire ports, very remiss of my - 2.

This will be my third Viewsonic, and I've had no problems so far, but there's always a first time - let's hope not. The inability to set colour temperature, at least according to the Dell spec, counted greatly against it. For reprographics work, everything is calibrated at 6500K.

Oh, and I've decided overnight that, with all the money they've saved me, I might as well go for 4GB.

[siege2]

Hi Rik
Nice specs, it even outdoes mine,now that would be simular to my specs if I I was going to upgrade within the few weeks
:-)

[Rik]

Don't worry, Siege, it will be obsolete by the time it's delivered!

[siege2]

  true it will always be the Case :-)

[Rik]

Tell me about it. If you can buy it today, it's either obsolete, about to become obsolete, or about to have its price cut two days after you purchase. The story of my life.

[Mr Booh]

Great Machine.  Beats my Amstrad

[Lance]

I find my Amstrad a bit BASIC these days!

[Inactive]

I find my Amstrad a bit BASIC these days!

G.......R.......O........A........N

[RobMc]

10 PRINT "GROAN"
20 GOTO 10
RUN

Ahh memories....

Rob.

[Lance]

Lol. The amstrad was my first computer, when i was about 4! It had the wonderful green screen and tape drive, i think it was a cpc 464, but not sure.

[Inactive]

I can go back even further Lance, my first computer was a Sinclair with 1kb of memory, all it did was a ping pong game and Basic, as far as I recall, connected to a TV, all in glorious B&W.

I won it from Shell for buying central heating oil from them.


Next was a Texas Instrument with 16kb of memory and colour.


Then some cut down BBC thing with 32kb.

Next was a Sony Hitbit with a massive 64kb of memory, it is up in the loft somewhere.

Then an Ollivetti with two floppy drives with DOS.

Then my very first PC, which was a Dell, running W95, it cost a staggering £1400 at the time.

One IBM and 2 Medions have me up do date.

[Rik]

10 PRINT "GROAN"
20 GOTO 10
RUN

Ahh memories....

Now, if you were a BBC BASIC man, you'd have written that as a PROC.

[Ray]

My first Computer was a Dragon 32 and you had to save and load everything using a cassette tape.

My first PC was an Amstrad and this was followed by 2 Evesham machines in the days when they knew what they were doing.

My current PC is self built one.

[Rik]

this was followed by 2 Evesham machines in the days when they knew what they were doing.

A fellow traveller, Ray!

[Rik]

Scan are waiting for stock of the Intel board originally specified, and have recommended the Asus P5W DH Deluxe i975X, S775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 533/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX details here and review here.

They say it offers slightly better spec, which is hard to judge on the details available. It does seem to offer an extra gigabit LAN port, built-in wireless adapter, external SATA, of which I see the latter as the most useful.

Comments welcomed.

[Lance]

I've only read good things about that board, so it can't be that bad!

[Rik]

But is that only because you haven't read bad things, Lance?

I'm still trying to work out how they are going to connect 6 SATA drives with 5 headers, but I'm sure they know the answer. What was interesting was that the web page had an FAQ on it, one of the questions being about optical drives not working with the JMicron controller - as fitted by Evesham!!!

[Dolph146]

so how much has this all cost you out of interest?

[Rik]

£2711.02, plus new software, UPS etc...