What Hardware Should I Buy? - June 2009

I built a system for a friend using this pre-overclocked bundle:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-029-OE&groupid=701&catid=339&subcat=

Very much like the entry level system but comes with faster RAM

Added a GTS 250 and cranked on 3Dmark06 to watch it chomp through the benchmark like a zombie through brain matter.

Your "buy it from CCL" links don't work

Also, the prices on Bit-Tech and CCL don't really compare. The affordable all rounder is £394 on Bit-Tech, but £405 from CCL.

Oh and whoever chose the pink and purple colour scheme for the tables should be shot. :p

What's with the CCL affiliation now? Have you guys fallen out with Scan?

CCL have horrid customer service.

There used to be a massive thread on customPC website (god bless its soul) about why not to buy from them.

basically all from people who have bought from them and had no end of problems with reutrns, money issues, warranties etc etc.

i know generally people like to complain rather than praise but this thread was quite large and much bigger than other complaints aobut E-tailers

I've only ever purchased from CCL once which was a set of low profile brackets for Nvidia cards. The item didn't arrive in over a week so I called CCL who explained the order had a problem which caused it not to reach the warehouse for picking. They did send the item next day though, which is fine.

Things go wrong for all companies sometimes. Even though there was a problem I felt that CCL did make an effort to sort it out. I would use them again.

Yer not sure about the CCL thing, but I suppose most of us will buy from our usual places anyways and not click on the buttons.

Aslong as the guide will never be biased to what CCL have in stock (Bit-Tech wouldnt, but your Dennis overlords may insist)!

Another minor point, does someone in the office like intensely bright pink/purpley colours for your product grid? GO back to the ole colour rotation to help my eyes and fit into the site better :)

http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2009/05/what-hardware-should-i-buy-may-2009/1.png

Although in an ideal world AM3 socket board would be better surely settling for AM2+ with an AM3 processor would still work well. Ive been looking into a replacement board with two 16X PCI-E slots and going AM3 would force me to change processor and memory where as AM2+ means I could still get some use out of my current processor and upgrade the graphics instead. Anyone seen benchmarks for AM2+ vs AM3 mobos?

Holy pink eyebleeds batman!

*blinks*

Great job on the functionality with CCL buttons, but i think the buttons are a bit too big and invasive. Somehow it looks like an ad now, instead of just a great piece of function.

Cheers for the ongoing innovation though!

I think you are going to lose a bit of credibility by only using CCL, are you only recommending products they have in stock?

We'll see how it goes.

Originally Posted by Jenny_Y8S
Your "buy it from CCL" links don't work

Fixed

Originally Posted by oasked
Also, the prices on Bit-Tech and CCL don't really compare. The affordable all rounder is £394 on Bit-Tech, but £405 from CCL.

Oh and whoever chose the pink and purple colour scheme for the tables should be shot. :p

Prices may have changed overnight. And it's a proven fact that purple and pink puts you in a better mood to read about IT equipment*.

Originally Posted by Leitchy
As long as the guide will never be biased to what CCL have in stock (Bit-Tech wouldnt, but your Dennis overlords may insist)!

Nope, we actually made CCL take on stock of things we wanted to recommend, just so we could team up with CCL and bring you the free delivery option when ordering. Aren't we nice?


*Not actual fact...

nice one on the buttons.

is there any free delivery on all their stuff for bit-tech members offers? *Mr Burn's "excellent"*

Originally Posted by oasked
Also, the prices on Bit-Tech and CCL don't really compare. The affordable all rounder is £394 on Bit-Tech, but £405 from CCL.

We're aware of the problem with the affordable all rounder pricing on CCL and are working to get it sorted.

I don't think CCL can even ship the affordable pc kit or complete pc's in this month. I've just had my 10 day wait of the Ati 4770 cancelled from them because they have no idea when stock is coming. The same goes with your link. Yesterday and before this the ATI cards were 10 in 2-3 days, now its 18 20-21 days. So there is no gurantee of any 4770 cards coming in anywhere anytime soon.

I've subscribe to few e-tailors emailing me the availability of the 4770, but from the looks of it, I don't think I can complete my pc using the affordable "What should I buy guide May" in July. Two month backlog there...

Maybe its time for Bit-Tech to recommend the GTS 250 if you can find it under £90? Just a suggestion.

These prices show how overpriced the Coolermaster ATCS 840 Chassis is in the UK.

The case is $200 USD + tax, which is equivalent to £121 + TAX. >:(

I'm surprised you guys recommended the 4770 after you have already reported on its shortages... Also the pink grids are a serious affront to my eyes, I can barely stand to read what's in them.

When is the HTPC guide coming out? You said "soon" in the blurb of the last What Hardware Should I Buy Guide.

/whinge

Am i the only person here how thinks the design and overall quality of the buyers guide has severely gone down hill from the first few?

No offence to the new people on the Bit-Tech team from CPC etc but im yet to see an article written by any of you guys come close (and that's being generous) to the quality of the articles written by the pre CPC Bit-Tech staff...

it seems like your more interested in just cranking out boring articles berfeft of anything in them worth reading, like its more about quantity over quality :S

Not having a dig at you guys, but come on!

Think of your colourblind audiance! I can't read any of the text boxes!

usual rant sumarised:

not included the best bang-for-buck monitor: 2209wa
not included the best bang-for-buck cpu: AMD Phenom II x3 720 BE

I would find it hard to recommend this guide without atleast touching on what most people would want, best bang-for-buck.

I notice you still don't list mounting hardware for the SSD in the "Premium Player" setup. I've got an ATCS 840 on the way, so I can't speak from personal experience quite yet, but the Cooler Master website gives no indication that the case has any 2.5 inch drive bays, so you'll probably need an adapter bracket, such as http://www.startech.com/item/SATA35252X-35-Bay-to-Dual-25-SATA-HDD-Adapter.aspx (I used one of these to put the two Patriot Warp SSDs suggested by the December guide into an Antec P182)

Oh, I also just discovered that your US pricing link for the Samsung 1TB drive is out of date. It goes to a list of suggestions now. I think this is the url you want: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152102

On your medium range monitor will it actually allow me to play consoles on it? "It even ships with an HDMI for connectivity to a next-gen console or other high definition source.".

As i thought a T.V not just a Monitor was required for consoles?

Originally Posted by Abhorsen
On your medium range monitor will it actually allow me to play consoles on it? "It even ships with an HDMI for connectivity to a next-gen console or other high definition source.".

As i thought a T.V not just a Monitor was required for consoles?

any monitor with HDMI can plan PS3 and Xbox360 on it, any monitor with component will be able to do Wii (i think you can also get an adaptor to get component to VGA)

eg, my Samsung T240 can play my friend's PS3 effortlessly (although all games looks like crap comparing to PC version)

Originally Posted by mauvecloud
I notice you still don't list mounting hardware for the SSD in the "Premium Player" setup. I've got an ATCS 840 on the way, so I can't speak from personal experience quite yet, but the Cooler Master website gives no indication that the case has any 2.5 inch drive bays, so you'll probably need an adapter bracket, such as http://www.startech.com/item/SATA35252X-35-Bay-to-Dual-25-SATA-HDD-Adapter.aspx (I used one of these to put the two Patriot Warp SSDs suggested by the December guide into an Antec P182)

Oh, I also just discovered that your US pricing link for the Samsung 1TB drive is out of date. It goes to a list of suggestions now. I think this is the url you want: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152102

SSD mount is a good point - Akasa is sending us one soon for test, and we should have a look for some more so we can recommend the best.

The Samsung page must've changed overnight too, but links and prices have been changed.