"al" wrote in message
...
"Peter Crosland" wrote in message
...
Unless you are into gaming in a big way you don't need to spend even £1k
let
alone 2!


I very much beg to differ!!! If you want to even look at any new games in
a
year's time, such a machine won't even run them.

The most expensive bit is usually buying the latest chip. If you go the true
d-i-y route and use a good motherboard, you can get quite a lot of life out
of a build by replacing the CPU once in a while. Few games need the very
latest chip to work and, by the time most games need that chip, it will have
dropped a lot in price. For example, the P4 3.2GHz 800FSB chip has dropped
from over £400 + VAT to about £250 +VAT since the P4 EE chip (£590 + VAT)
has come onto the market, but I don't have any games that won't work happily
with a £175 + VAT 3.0GHz 800 FSB P4.

Colin Bignell