On 19 Jan 2004, al wrote
"Chris Oates" none wrote in message
news:400c5ec1$0$13345$cc9e4d1f@news-

£2000 - crikey I'd want a Laptop bunged in as well.
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/PCS.html

Had a look there ... they look a bit budget to be honest. I'm
looking for a quality PC builder who puts time & love into the
models they spec - not a big warehouse that stuffs things together
and sells them on the speed specs alone.

Testament to that is my last PC, the one I'm using now, that I
bought 5.5 years ago. It's a PII 400 with 448MB of RAM in it, top
end sound & video cards from a few year back. Go out and buy a
£500 machine now which on paper has all the figures you think
count and this one will still kick its arse in many areas.
Motherboard and drives are where the main speed is lost now on
this old machine.


FWIW, I don't think you should be looking at on-line/national type
operations -- your specs and knowledge are too good for that.

You could undoubtedly source and build this thing yourself, but if you
don't want to do that I figure you should ask around in your area for a
local "geek guy company" PC builder; discuss what you want with him --
you know pretty well as much as he will, so it's not an uneven
discussion; set a reasonable budget (my guess: a *lot* less than 2K);
and have him put it together and get it running for you.

That way, you:

(1) know precisely what you're getting

(2) can customise it with somebody who knows the merits of "this MB vs
that MB" and "this card vs that card"

(3) have a legal comeback if something's not right

(4) forge a link with a grateful "local geek company" if something
needs fine-tuning in the future.


My tuppence, anyway...

(And, no: I'm not a local-geek-company. But I've used them...)

--
Cheers,
Harvey

For e-mail, change harvey to whhvs.