Returneth the Chu

[sdtPikachu]

HI there chaps - some of you may remember me. Sorry I've totally disappeared over the past few weeks, but:

a) I got a new job working as an IT consultant to a legal firm here in London

and b) I've got loads of cash and have just built myself a dogs bollocks computer and so have come here to gloat...

Athlon XP 2200
Gigabyte GA 7VAXP (KT400 chipset)
512 MB DDR 3200 RAM
Gainward GF4 Ti4200 Golden Sample
Zalman Flower Heatsink
Adaptec SCSI Card
18 GB Seagate Cheetah 15,000 RPM HD (Main OS's)
40 GB Seagate Barracuda 7,200 RPM (in Lian Li removeable hard drive caddy)
Twin 120 GB Western Digital 5,400 in RAID 1 (Mirrored)
Pioneer DVD-ROM
Pioneer DVD-RW
Philips CD-R
Creative SB-16 Soundcard
All wrapped up in my Lian Li case, booting Redhat 7.3 and Windows 2000

My venerable P3 has now put back in its old case and been turned into a Linux Samba server, with 240 GB RAID 1 storage

Thw two PC's are linked to the same keyboard and monitor and mouse via a Belkin KVM switch

The whole lot is connected to a 2 Mbit DSL connection via my DrayTek 2600 Router, and the house is all wired up with Cat 5e, shared with 2 other people.

My computer is pretty cool now

[Shadow_Link]

You bastard..!

I'm gonna wait till Doom 3 comes out and get me my uber computer

I still reckon you could have gone with more RAM though .

But all in all, that's a mad computer you got there you lucky sod!

By the way, which shop do you work in?

... And how much did that computer cost you, I'm guessing around the region of say... £2800+?

[-apu-]

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
*starts making muttering/cursing noises about how his computer will one day take over the world with its integrated TNT2 video card*

[sdtPikachu]

CPU: £140
Mobo: £116
RAM: £78 (No, I don't need more...! Linux never uses more than 256 MB, and if windows is properly configured it won't use more than 500 MB even with all my mem-hungry apps open - plus with a SCSI swap file, extra RAM gives you sod all benefit compared to virtual mem)
GF4: £175
Heatsink: £30
Ultrawide SCSI-3 LVD card: free
Segate Cheetah: £188
Seagate Barracuda: had already
Twin 120 GB: £280
DVD-ROM: had already
DVD-RW: £222
CD-RW: £50
Soundcard: had already
Case: had already
Win2k: had already
Linux: free

4 120 GB hard drives: £300 s/h
RAID card: £79

DrayTek router (seriously cute): £189

KVM switch: £35

Plus about £25 postage and packing

That comes to about £1900. Not bad, eh?

Anyone else wanna argue why you should always build your own?

[Shadow_Link]

Originally posted by sdtPikachu
CPU: £140
Mobo: £116
RAM: £78 (No, I don't need more...! Linux never uses more than 256 MB, and if windows is properly configured it won't use more than 500 MB even with all my mem-hungry apps open - plus with a SCSI swap file, extra RAM gives you sod all benefit compared to virtual mem)
GF4: £175
Heatsink: £30
Ultrawide SCSI-3 LVD card: free
Segate Cheetah: £188
Seagate Barracuda: had already
Twin 120 GB: £280
DVD-ROM: had already
DVD-RW: £222
CD-RW: £50
Soundcard: had already
Case: had already
Win2k: had already
Linux: free

4 120 GB hard drives: £300 s/h
RAID card: £79

DrayTek router (seriously cute): £189

KVM switch: £35

Plus about £25 postage and packing

That comes to about £1900. Not bad, eh?

Anyone else wanna argue why you should always build your own?

God damn, if only I knew how to build my own computer...

Do you know of any good places in London that would build a computer for me if I bought all the parts, while not charging me a hefty amount?

And where did you purchase the parts from?

(Sorry for the 20 questions )

[-apu-]

get them off the english black market

[Mushlafa]

I just got this 1.8 ghz cpu.. and i go to intel.com.. and see that there are almost 3 ghz processors

[sdtPikachu]

Originally posted by Shadow_Link
God damn, if only I knew how to build my own computer...

I know it'll sound really repetitive, but it really is a piece of p1ss. I first considered building my own about 4 months ago, and since then I've hepled my flatmate build his, built my own and done a shedload of computer upgrades through work.

It's just a matter of deciding what you need and then looking about for stuff on the net, or in shops. These days, it's much easier - components are all standardised, and just so long as you buy decent stuff that follows proper standards and are able to get hold of all the neccesary drivers and know how to install your own OS, you're laughing.

Originally posted by Shadow_Link
Do you know of any good places in London that would build a computer for me if I bought all the parts, while not charging me a hefty amount?

No, I don't. I know a few places on TCtRd that build bespoke machines, but they all seem to insist on supplying their own components and charge and arm, a leg and some black market body organs for their services. The longand the short of it is, if you want your own computer, you need to build it yourself.

If you want, just ask and I can give you a list of components. I'm currently speccing mt flatmates girlfriends new computer, and I expect that to cost me about £650 (the expensive bit is that case - which makes up about £150 of the price. Another of the gorgeous Lian Li's again...).

Originally posted by Shadow_Link
And where did you purchase the parts from?

Quite a few places (includng Micro Anvika, Maplins and a few other places dotted about TCtRd), but here are all the online vendors I used:

www.kustompcs.co.uk
www.overclock.co.uk
www.scan.co.uk (that DVD-RW was a bargain)
www.dabs.com
www.crucial.com/uk (they have a great tool so that if you don't know what type of RAM you need you can find out easily - I got mine cheap cos it went through with a bulk buy via the company)

Don't be scared of building your own - the fun is in picking the components, the agony only comes when you try to get the f*#$&ng heatsink on the CPU!

[Shadow_Link]

Thanks for the help and advice Pika!

But if I do go ahead with building my own computer, I think I'll have to stay away from Linux since I don't know jack about operating it. And so I will probably need to get the 1 gig of DDR RAM .

[sdtPikachu]

Long and short of it is, Win2k and XP will both run quite happily on 256 MB.

More importantly, and much less well publicised, is that short of buying a server board (and this is not what you want; server boards are great, but they're not optimised for stuff like games) is that adding RAM can actually slow down your system. This is cos the Northbridge was never designed to optimally handle that amount of RAM.

If you go over ~750 MB of RAM, your memory controller isn't going to be able to handle it properly and at best you'll see a minimal performance increase for a large financial outlay.

Alternatively, you could buy a server board... I did think of it for a while, but they were too expensive really. Mmm, Tyan Tiger dual processors... :slurp:

Linux really ain't that hard to get into just to fiddle about with... most of the desktop stuff you can do just with a point-and-drool interface, it's just the really really funky stuff that happens in the command line. Not to say I don't prefer a GNOME desktop to windows any day (ah, the configurability!), and imagine you'd be right at home with a KDE desktop (it's very similar to windows, which is one of the reasons I don't like it that much).

Some things can be a bitch however (playing DVD's is almost impossible for instance, since it's officially illegal to make a Linux DVD app), and there are times when it makes me kick and scream.

Then I just think of the smug smiling face of Bill, and plough onward...

[Xantar]

Darnit! I've been chasing sdtPikachu all these years, even going so far as to actually travel to London and seeing UCL. And still I haven't found him. Why? Because it turns out that he's moved to a job as an IT consultant.

I'll get you one of these days, you yellow rat!

Some nice places in London, by the way. I rather like it.

Any chance that I'll see you on ICQ once in a while?

And what are you doing still staying up into the wee hours of the morning?

[sdtPikachu]

Hey, you were in London?! Dang it!

You might see me on ICQ once in a while if I ever get any time of work (which, incidentally, is what I'm doing in the wee small hours of the morning, but thankfully there's a 24 hour bagelry just up the road as well as a rather excellent coffee place, not to mention the entire warehouse full of platicised bodies).

There are indeed some very nice places in London, there are also a great many horrible bits too! But thankfully, you probably didn't see most of the grime and squalour that I have become accustomed to... living for any time in London makes you develop these bind spots that make most non-Londoners scream when they see things.

Not to mention the apples and pears.

[Shadow_Link]

Originally posted by sdtPikachu
Long and short of it is, Win2k and XP will both run quite happily on 256 MB.

Unfortunately, if I want to run Doom 3 at its optimum, I will have to get 1 GB DDR RAM... Anyway, RAM is dirt cheap, and will probably be even cheaper by the time Doom 3 comes out, so I guess it's no big problem.

About London, yup, Xanny came and went.

[sdtPikachu]

To run doom 3 optimally, you'll also need a quantum processor, dual GeForce 12's, a 3D holographic VR headset, a spinal chord implant and a singing frog (for luck).

I think spendinng a fortune on a gig of RAM just to get one game to run 10% better than it did on 256 MB is a waste of money perfectly. problem with large amounts of RAM is that you lose the benefit after a while. Your memory controller actually ends up spending more time looking for the data than it would do coming out of a fast indexed swap file.

Spend the money if you want, I just don't think the end justifies the cost.

[Shadow_Link]

Originally posted by sdtPikachu
To run doom 3 optimally, you'll also need a quantum processor, dual GeForce 12's, a 3D holographic VR headset, a spinal chord implant and a singing frog (for luck).

I think spendinng a fortune on a gig of RAM just to get one game to run 10% better than it did on 256 MB is a waste of money perfectly. problem with large amounts of RAM is that you lose the benefit after a while. Your memory controller actually ends up spending more time looking for the data than it would do coming out of a fast indexed swap file.

Spend the money if you want, I just don't think the end justifies the cost.

So you're telling me that 512MB DDR RAM will work more efficiently, and hence quicker than 1 GB DDR RAM? Well since you've more experience than I have, I'll go with your advice. And in the future if I do need 1 GB of RAM, I'll just buy another 512MB slot .