Hardware What Hardware Should I Buy? - Oct 2008

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/10/02/what-hardware-should-i-buy-october-2008/1

Want to upgrade your system or build a PC this month and don't know what parts to get? We've put together a range of components which the bit-tech staff personally recommend to take the stress out of upgrading or system building that should suit any budget.



Please Digg to share - thanks for your support!

 

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/128047

The cheap mobo aint available

 

thanks it was in stock earlier this morning when I was doing the final edit - I've updated with another retailer.

 

Very nice article, I assume a lot of people will find that helpful and if anyone asks me questions in the new few weeks I will think them here. I already have one friend who wants me to "find him a motherboard and graphics card"

 

I'd swap out the Blu Ray drive you list and replace is with an LG "GGC-H20L" £65 inc VAT (@Aria.co.uk for example) and it does Blu Ray *AND* HD-DVD playback. Along with the usual DVD and CD writing functions. With the current fire sale of HD-DVD films you can pick up a lot of 1080p content for peanuts!

 

Yeah I've read the rest of this and it's great, well done

 

Good idea guys, will come in very handy no doubt.

 

Great article, just the sort of thing amateurs like me will find invaluable!

 

Scan have a Palit 4850 with a different cooler design for £103.40 http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=883439

And a Palit 9800GT with different cooler for £83.41 come to that. http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=863106

 

This is fantastic, while I manage to keep on top of the gpu and cpu market, I rarely know what to buy when it comes to mobo's or cases. This monthly feature really boosts bit-tech in my eyes

 

+1
Great new feature, and makes comparing all the various options for competing products/upgrades much easier! Thanks guys!

 

you cant get much better than the sharkoon rebel series for the price in terms of cases i have a rebel 12 for my home server and rebel 9 for my development pc

 

Very good these are always handy btw hd dvd is only 1080i not p but hes right the movies are hella cheap

 

is this a new thing you're going to be doing monthly, or have you been doing it for a while and i've missed it? either way, great guide. should save a few people from having to ask these questions in the forums.

 

er, retail HD-DVDs are all 1080p, what are you on about?

 

and just to back that up:

"All movie titles released so far have had the feature encoded in 1080p, with most supplements in 480i or 480p. Almost all titles are encoded with VC-1..."

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_DVD#Video

plus, I have 35 HD-DVDs that all play at 1080p

 

It's the first time we've done it and the plan is to re-release an updated version every month. We're already thinking of adding a bit more into it as well but we're keen to hear suggestions from the community on that front.

 

Maybe you could have sub-categories, like, hardware for media centres, hardware for gaming, hardware for serving, and the different price ranges in them. Also bit-tech could push into a high-end server market and get some adepts from that area.

 

I really really like this feature

I have a few suggestions:

1. Make a connection between these articles and the hardware reviews. "will the new xxx from xxx make it into our budget-gaming build?" That kinda thing.
2. I'd like to see one last page that lists the three builds in an overview. Just a simple table with which piece goes in each build that you could copy-paste to the people asking for advice you mentioned on the first page. It would be a true premium if you could build a table that lists and totals the price for each build with those nice pricelinks you use everywhere.
3. Drop the fixed budget, and instead focus on what the numbers represent: Budget, high-end and power user. That way, the numbers will not become silly over time like they did in the Best Buy Guide that your Dutch friends from Tweakers.net compile every two months, and you won't have to make silly choices just to fit a fictional budget.
4. keep doing this!

 

agreed, what a great idea