Maybe its just me but I wouldnt hand over £1600 for a pre-built.

To reiterate just how high a sum that is for PCs these days you could put together a Dual Xeon 8 core system for that much.

£250 - Dual S771 Xeon motherboard from Tyan/Supermicro
£350 - 2 x 1.86GHz Quad Core Xeons
£200 - 4 x 1Gb DDR2-667 ECC DIMMs

Thats £800

Then spank the other £800 on graphics, sound, drives, case, psu...


I dont see the point in going for anything more than a Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600. At £160-170 its impossible to beat for the amount of performance youre getting, not to mention its very easy to overclock. I also dont see the point in not going for 4Gb of RAM and a 64bit OS. RAM is dirt cheap these days, you can pick up 4Gb of DDR2-800 for £75!

As youve got the money and you want drive speed Id definitely go for RAID-5 or RAID 1+0 using 500Gb drives. If you really want you can slap a Raptor on top as your boot drive but theyre not that quick these days compared to some of the larger drives. Dont skimp on the case and PSU, get something with a well thought out cooling system. As far as graphics go its your choice between the 8800GT and Radeon HD 3870 right now, I wouldnt bother looking at the GTSs/GTXs and Ultras. Unless youve got great onboard sound (i.e. it has Dolby Digital Live OR DTS Connect) go for one of the Auzentech cards theyre pretty much the best.

You do realise that its just one socket inside there serious?  The Quad core is in 1 CPU.

Edit, Doh  Didnt see the tyan as an MP board.

just chucked this together to give you something to work off.



the 512mb 8800gt is better and cheaper but they where out of stock.

Thanks again.

Just talking to myself here for reference.  In view of advice, a slightly down-specd DELL system...

Dimension TM XPS 720

Intel® Core™ 2 Quad-Core Q6600 processor (2.40GHz, 1066MHz, 8MB cache)

Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - English (no XP64 option - best place to buy?)

No Monitor

4096MB 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [4x1024]

1TB Serial ATA RAID 0 Stripe (2x500GB 7200rpm drives with DataBurst™ cache)

16x DVD+/-RW & 16x DVD Drives

GRAPHICS CARD SINGLE 768MB nVidia® GeForce® 8800 GTX

Sound Blaster® X-Fi Xtreme Music PCI

Creative Inspire T7900 7.1 Speaker System

19-in-1 Media Card reader

No Modem

Base Warranty - 1 Year XPS Premium Hardware Support (incl. Gaming and On-Site Support)

£1,449.06

------

The thing that narks me about dell is they dont say what brand stuff is... and that makes me uneasy...  :?
 

 
Im actually drawn to DELL because weve over 30 systems at work and theyre all absolutely rock-solid, no messin.

Anyways, further ramblings (tell me if Im getting warmer):

MESH Xtreme 8XGT

Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core Processor(2.4GHz,8MB Cache,1066MHz)
Digital / Analogue TV Tuner PCI Card
Aluminium ATX Midi Tower + 550W PSU
SLI nForce 680i SLI(C55XE) - Intel Core 2 Duo/Quad-Core - ATX
4GB DDR2 667MHz Memory ( 4 x 1GB SS)
1TB (2x 500GB) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer
LightScribe Super Format 18x Dual Layer DVD Writer +R/-R/RW/RAM (why would I want two?  Bizarre...)
512MB nVIDIA GeForce 8800GT
No monitor
Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Sound Card (whatever)
Logitech S500 - 5.1 Speakers with Subwoofer
Multi-format Memory Card Reader
1 Year On Site* - UK Mainland Only

£1181.50

Simple really. And looking better on price too.

A lack of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

 
Im actually drawn to DELL because weve over 30 systems at work and theyre all absolutely rock-solid, no messin.

Anyways, further ramblings (tell me if Im getting warmer):

MESH Xtreme 8XGT

Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core Processor(2.4GHz,8MB Cache,1066MHz)
Digital / Analogue TV Tuner PCI Card
Aluminium ATX Midi Tower + 550W PSU
SLI nForce 680i SLI(C55XE) - Intel Core 2 Duo/Quad-Core - ATX
4GB DDR2 667MHz Memory ( 4 x 1GB SS)
1TB (2x 500GB) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer
LightScribe Super Format 18x Dual Layer DVD Writer +R/-R/RW/RAM (why would I want two?  Bizarre...)
512MB nVIDIA GeForce 8800GT
No monitor
Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Sound Card (whatever)
Logitech S500 - 5.1 Speakers with Subwoofer
Multi-format Memory Card Reader
1 Year On Site* - UK Mainland Only

£1181.50

As far as I can tell this is the same spec but £80 cheaper;
 
Elite Q4 FX (includes upgrades - click to view)  
 
System Base Price: £ 594.89
Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core Processor(2.4GHz,8MB Cache,1066MHz)
Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium Edition
Digital / Analogue TV Tuner PCI Card + Vista Remote [upg £ 14.54]
New MESH Midi-TowerATX Case + 550W PSU
PCI-Express Mainboard - SLI nForce 680i SLI(C55XE) - Intel Core 2 Duo/Quad-Core - ATX [upg £ 80.00]
4GB DDR2 667MHz Memory -( 4x 1GB )
1TB (2x 500GB) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer [upg £ 75.00]
LightScribe Super Format 18x Dual Layer DVD Writer +R/-R/RW/RAM
512MB nVIDIA GeForce 8800GT - Dual DVI, HDTV, TV Out [upg £ 155.00]
Without 19" Widescreen TFT MESH Monitor [upg £ -75.00]
Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Sound Card (oem) [upg £ 55.00]
Logitech S500 - 5.1 Speakers with Subwoofer [upg £ 25.00]
Logitech Cordless Keyboard & Cordless Optical Mouse
Free Microsoft® Works® 8.5 + 60 Days Microsoft Office Trial
Free Cyberlink Video Editing Suite - 7 titles (oem)
2x IEEE1394 Firewire (onboard)
1x Gigabit LAN (onboard)
Belkin Wireless G USB Network Adapter - External (F5D7050UK) [upg £ 17.02]
Multi-format Memory Card Reader (ATX)
Free Upgrade to 1 Year On Site* - UK Mainland Only (Repairline Ltd Warranty)
 
Subtotal: £941.45
vat: £164.75
Order Total: £1106.20

You could save another £80 by going for the cheaper motherboard (I dunno the diff) and save more by getting stuff like the soundcard & wifi seperately.
 

 
Im assuming XP64 will be ok with this.  No details on mobo so unsure of upgradeability - do DELL screw you with this?

Dunno about retail ones but on business pcs they do a bit - cheap, cheerful and not very upradeable/tweakable. Reliable though. Might be worth a Google to check the retail stuff.