On Thu, 2008-10-02 at 22:25 +0100, Chris G wrote:
I want something like - desktop/tower system, intel core two quad processor, 4Gb RAM (with space for more), 500Gb or thereabouts hard disk. My last system was a 'select the bits yourself' custom build from Komplett but they no longer exist. A company like them would be good.
Sounds similar to the system I built for myself last year. I did it all from ebuyer bits. I ended up with Core2Quad 4GB 1TB of raid5 and a good graphics card for less than £700 using quality bits and I am guessing it would be even cheaper now. Nevermind that over £100 of that was the GFX card.
For business customers we tend to buy off the shelf brand name machines simply because for general desktops it isn't worth our time assembling them and dealing with warranty support etc. But for personal machines I have always built them myself partly because I take pleasure in it and partly because in the interests of Linux compatibility and upgrade paths I like to have full control of the components used.
I think at the time I built my box a Dell of similar spec came out over £1000.
If you are not happy with self assembly then there is http://efficientpc.co.uk/ who I haven't used but heard reasonable things about. I have just roughly spec'ed out my box on their site and it comes to £636 inc VAT