PCSpecialist

[A 'Tuin]

Interestingly a Cyber Power Gamer Infinity 850 came top in the £500- 750 range in the latest PC Advisor just out (given comments elsewhere that mag reviews may be biased). Review machine was Core 2 Duo E6600( 2.4 GHz), 1GbDDr RAM, NVidia 7950 GT512MB PCI, 250GB Serial ATA.
The price of £750 inc VAT also included their Edge10 19" flat panel - this was mentioned as the only slightly weak point, confirming your decision to buy separately. Philips Brilliance 20" and Viewsonic seem to do well in reviews. The other comment on the system was that the 7950 GT, although very fast, lacks DirectX 10 support - only a problem for gamers upgrading to Vista. Don't know if the same applies to the X1950 pro. Also the system had the fastest Worldbench score, although the 2nd placed Arbico came close.
Hope the machine's still performing well!

 

[Mab]

sounds sweet tuin

The only cards on the market that are DX10 compatable are nVidia's 8800GTX and 8800GTS, both of which provide perfomance exceed that of a top-range crossfire config. ATi are expected to release thier DX10 cards during Februrary. However, DX10 will take many months before it becomes the default API, so DX9 will still have life in it for many years to come. Also, moving to the Vista platform immediately after release for gaming is arguably a mistake since all the drivers will be in their infancy, despite being tested for a fair while. This has, so far, had drastic implications with gameplay, with frames-per-second dropping to as much as a quater of what XP provides in Doom 3 benchmarks. This is why i wont be installing my copy of Vista on right after launch.

 

[A 'Tuin]

Hi and thanks for that.


I agree about Vista - bearing in mind similar problems when XP came out, then with SP2.

I'm actually looking at a slightly lower budget than the PC Advisor review model, i.e. E6400, 2.13 GHz, Geforce 7600 GS, 1GB DDR2 RAM, 250MB SATA 7200. Total £596 - oh actually £508 ex VAT as I'm in Guernsey.
Not quite as sweet, but I think should still be a marked improvement over the current 3 yr old Carrera ( remember them?) Athlon 2800, 768MB Ram, 160GB H.disk, upgraded from onboard to Geforce FX 5200. cost: £180! It's starting to struggle running Office 2003, IE 7, a D-Link Broadband wirless network, plus all the games and other junk my teenagers have loaded, and now need to run Rome Total War, World of Warcraft etc.

Still thinking about Novatech though - can't find quite as many positive reviews, and I must admit tempted by the BNPL offer.

Thoughts?

 

[A 'Tuin]

Well I'm now been considering an HP Pavilion T3620 being sold locally for £550 - specs are:



Processor, operating system and memoryProcessor type
Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor E6300
• 2 x 1.86 GHz, Level 2 cache 2 MB, 1066 MHz
Operating system installed
Genuine Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 with Update Rollup 2
Upgradability
Windows Vista Capable PC*
Windows Vista Premium Ready
Platform
Intel® Viiv™ Technology
Chipset
Intel® P965 express chipset
Standard memory
1 GB
Memory type
DDR2-SDRAM
Memory slots
4 DIMM sockets
Internal drivesInternal hard disk drive
160 GB
Hard disk controller
SATA 3G Hard Disk Drive
Hard disk drive speed
(7200 rpm)
Optical drive type
DVD writer
Optical drive speed
SATA DVD RAM and Double Layer ±R/ ±RW 16x/8x max supporting LightScribe technology
System featuresMemory card device
9in1 memory card reader
Modem
High speed 56K modem
Network interface
Ethernet 10/100BT integrated network interface
Video capture interface
IEEE 1394 FireWire® Interface
Video adapter
NVIDIA® GeForce™ 7500 LE TurboCache with PureVideo technology
Video RAM
Up to 512 MB video memory
Internal audio
Intel® High Definition Audio 7.1
Audio connectors
3 front audio ports, 6 rear analog audio ports & 2 rear digital audio ports
Keyboard
PS/2 keyboard and optical mouse
External drive bays
2 external optical drive bays, 1 internal HDD bay
External I/O ports
7 USB 2.0 ports (3 in front); 2 FireWire®-IEEE-1394 ports (1 in front)
Expansion slots
3 PCI (2 free)
SoftwareSoftware - Productivity & finance
Microsoft® Works 8.0
Pre-installed software
Microsoft® Internet Explorer 6.0; Microsoft® Outlook® Express; Adobe® Reader 7.0
Optical drive driver software
Sonic™ DigitalMedia Plus: Sonic™ RecordNow, Sonic™ MyDVD, Sonic™ Easy Archive, Sonic™ Express Labeler; Microsoft® MovieMaker; Microsoft® Windows® Media Player ; RealPlayer ; HP Photosmart Premier ; DVD Play (powered by Cyberlink) with Dolby Digital Playback
Downloadable software
Special offer: for accessories, software and warranty promotions, please visit: www.mypcchoice.com
Software - internet & online
Easy Internet Signup with leading Internet Service Providers
Software included
HP Pavilion on-line user's guide, HP Help, HP Pavilion recovery partition (including possibility to recover system, applications and drivers separately); Optional re-allocation of recovery partition; Recovery CD/DVD creation tool; Symantec™ Norton Internet Security™ 2006 (60 days live update); Magic Desktop powered by EasyBits (Parental Control-Trial Version)

The advantage for me is that the local supplier will honour the HP warranty, but I can't find any performance reviews of this model. I can't find any info on the 7500 graphics card, and the young chap I spoke to seemed to think it was "onboard" although a separate card. This make any sense to anyone?

 

[chelseafc2007]

whats the customer support like with cyberpowersystems mab?

 

[Mab]

Quite good, from what i have seen so far. I sent an email about a month ago using the form that is on their website and got a responce very quickly. I will know more about their customer service pretty soon as I am having trouble claiming the vista upgrade, and have sent them an email to try and resolve the problem.

 

[A 'Tuin]

Hi again

I'm also interested in this as I'm about to place an order - probably a Gamer Infinity 850. So far the couple of e-mails I have traded with them asking for info have been responded to well and promptly. It must be said that I'm still a potential customer at the moment though! Any views on whether the Geforce 7950 card, as per the spec I gave earlier, would be significantly better for games such as World of Warcraft, and viewing digital images, than say the 7600 GT - also more cooling needed?

 

[chelseafc2007]

ok good luck with the vista situation i made a last min uturn and went with www.wired2fire.com cost a little more but there pc,s i was told comes with better makes such as bfg g.cards
specs isDiablo Xtreme
Case: SilverStone Temjin
Power Supply: Tagan Turbojet 900W
Processor: Core 2 Duo E6700 4MB cache
CPU Cooler: Zalman Ultra Quiet CNPS7700-Cu Cooler
Graphics Card 1: BFG GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB PCI Express (Check Case Dimensions)
Graphics Card 2: None
Memory: 2GB Corsair DDR2 XMS2-6400C4 TwinX
Motherboard: Asus P5N32-E SLI Plus Socket 775
Hard Disk Drive One: 400GB Caviar SE16 SATA 300
Hard Disk Drive Two: None
Optical Drive One: BTC DVD-Rom x16
Optical Drive Two: NEC 4570A DVD-RW
Removable Storage: None
Sound Card: Onboard sound
Speakers and Headsets: None
Monitor: None
Keyboard: None
Mouse: None
Miscellaneous Adapters (may require free PCI slots): None
Software: None
Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic
Warranty: Collect and Return Warranty (1 year + 1 year labour only)
for £1760.

 

[Mab]

Tuin, check these pages out concerning your graphics card

http://tomshardware.co.uk/2007/02/06/the_best_gaming_video_cards_for_the_money_uk/

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/graphics/charts.html?modelx=33&model1=529&model2=581&chart=224

Both cards should be more than adequet in viewing and editing digital photography, but in terms of gaming performance, the 7950GT will be undoubtedly the better of the two. However, The 7950GT retails at around £100 more than the 7600GT, so its more of whether you are willing to part with your cash than anything else. If your motherboard allows it, you could always get another 7600GT in the future and put the two into SLi mode when you want more power.

More cooling shouldnt be necessary providing there is already a good airflow going through the case.

And chelsea, thats a nice spec you got there

 

[A 'Tuin]

Hi thanks for that Mab - hadn't seen that site before. I can upgrade the spec to a 7950GT with 256MB for £35, or with 512MB for £63. However, the spec currently includes a 420W power supply, and Cyberpower recommend a 500W supply for 7900 cards and above, which also adds £40, and possibly more noise / heat/need for fans.

I understand from all I have read that the 7600 will run most current games without problem, and probably for the next year ( World of Warcraft being the one my son currently runs on an Athlon 2400 machine with a Geforce 5200FX card) but the 7950 would be more future proof. As WoW ran OK, but did slow the rest of the PC applications open, I imagine the 7600 would be sufficient for us for now, and in a year once we've upgraded to a hopefully problem-free Vista, can look at an upgraded card, possibly running DirectX 10 with Vista drivers. Or add another card as you say.

I think we will still see a quantum improvement over the existing system, and after all the idea is to have a family machine which will cater for everyone, so within our budget I think we will have quite a good compromise with this system.

 

[Mab]

For family use, the 7600GT should be fine. And you should see a 'quantum improvement' overthat existing system. I certaintly see a significant difference compared to what i used before (Athlon XP 2800+, 512mb PC2700, 6800GT).

 

[A 'Tuin]

Well have now received the system on Wednesday, and overall the experience with Cyberpower has been very positive. It was ready after 7 days, rather than the 10-14 days quoted, and arrived within the expected 48 hours quoted for the Channel Islands. The sales staff, particularly Jake, were very responsive and helpful.

Unfortunately, there was a glitch on setting up - after going through the XP setup, I got a blue screen and it wouldn't then re-boot. But the technical support were great, and took me through various checks, finally narrowing down the problem to a faulty RAM module. Luckily, I had ordered 2X 512 MB, so the system was able to boot and run normally - already a vast improvement over the old system.
A replacement module was sent out yesterday immediately by courier, after completing a RMA form by email, and should be with me today or tomorrow, on exchange for the faulty one. The support people are very helpful, and usually answer the phone immediately - no queuing system. The only time I got the answerphone was after 5 pm, when they probably have a peak time of people calling from home after work.
The only slight niggle I would mention is that there are no overall setup instructions, including a guide to the bits and cables etc. supplied - e.g. the DVI to VGA adaptors, which I hadn't realised would be needed as I ordered a system without monitor, so I can use my old CRT one. Anyway, it hasn't really been a problem, but for a novice they would probably be better buying from Dell or the High St. if they want something ready to go out of the box with full instructions. It does mean though that I haven't quite sussed out how to set up TV out or surround speakers.
Overall then, I'd recommend Cyberpower highly, and their systems look top notch and well built. Thanks to all the people on this forum who suggested them in the first place, and gave me lots of advice on specs. etc.