"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. I'm not looking for some
cheap heap that surfs the web and loads MS Office quickly!

I have asked a few questions in this group in the past, now a post has
come up where I have alot of knowledge, thought I'd give something
back! :-)

I have worked in the PC industry for many years now and during my time
have visited many of the tier one and smaller suppliers' facilities.

I can tell you that contary to what many people proberbly beleive, the
tier one suppliers *do* test their products compatibility and
reliability for some time prior to releasing them to market. This is
done (in the main) to reduce their after sales costs, the more
reliable their product, the more money they make!

They have teams of people carrying out this testing, working alongside
the suppliers of components to produce the best quality product they
can that meets the price points expected by the market (i.e. us, the
customer).

Why am I telling you all this? Well, if the OEM sells less than 100k
units pa, they have no chance of obtaining the kind of support offered
to the major OEMs. Which means PCs purchased from the smaller players
[ 100k units pa] have more chance of failing or causing compatibility
issues than from major suppliers [statistically] generally speaking.

I have heard the term 'Optimising' used in this thread, unless you
have strong links with the component manufacturers, there is very
little 'optimising' that can be carried out on todays hardware. (Major
OEMs can have drivers re-written, firmware changed, BIOS's re-written
etc... simply put small OEM's don't have a hope of competing with them
on 'optimising' for both speed *and* reliability).

Perhaps I should lay out some of my bare minimum requirements:
Intel or AMD - don't mind, but no more than one down from current fastest
CPU
At least 2GB of *FAST* RAM (not cheap no-brand crap ... really Corsair are
my favourite here)
2 HDDs - one about 60GB, the other about 160GB - both SATA, min 7200rpm
Optical - one reader (all formats), one writer (all formats - including both
DVD!)
ATi Radeon 9800XT 256 graphics card
Sound Blaster Audigy 2ZS sound card
Decent speakers - at least 5.1 sound

That spec of PC if built by a major OEM would proberbly retail around
1,500 UKP. 2k should get you bigger HDDs and faster processor. The
problem will be finding a major OEM with your exact requirements.

However, banging the bits together in a warehouse does not make a good PC
necessarily! High end manufacturers spend a lot of time testing and working
with the OEMs to produce stuff that works really well together. VoodooPC
win tonnes of awards in the US - I'm trying to find a UK equivalent to
compare with.

For the record, I would not personally consider VPC to come close to
the major OEMs in terms of testing and reliability. Trust me, any OEM
can win 'awards' if they provide the *reviewer* the right hardware at
the right time!

If I were spending 2k on a PC, I would _only_ buy it from a major OEM.
I like the comfort of knowing that it has been tested by a *team* for
compatibility / reliability, have backup incase of issues arrising in
the future e.g. software / driver / firmware updates but most of all
the warranty in case of failure.

L.N.

P.S. For those wondering, NO, I don't work for any of the major OEMs
but I have visited the manufacturing facilities for 90% of them!