"al" wrote in message
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"Peter Crosland" wrote in message
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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.

Even going for the latest chip but the 2nd fastest speed can give a huge
drop.

Years ago I wanted to get an AMD K6 233MHz which was the fastest K6 chip at
the time. It was priced at about £250 at the time but in short supply. I
ended up getting the 200MHz one for just over £150 I think.

The same principle was there when I got my 1.13GHz Athlon (which I'm still
using!).

D