What to buy for EUR 4k?

Okay, a big dilemma for me. With some freelance software development job I did recently, I earned quite a nice amount to add on my savings account. :D But I don't want to save it all. I think it's time to consider buying a new computer and I think that with up to four thousands Euro, I can buy a pretty decent system. (I've earned more tan this, though. It's just the maximum limit that I want to spend on a computer.)
My old Intel Pentium III system at 800 MHz is still doing fine, it's just not very fast compared to what is available.

Now, since my interests is mostly in software development. I am using Delphi 2005 or Delphi 7 most of the time. I also do a bit of web development too, and in general most of what I am experimenting with is related to processing data. It varies a bit, depending on what I am interested in at a certain moment. I've written my own mailreader once, created some ASP site that resizes images with a webservice linked to it too and have done all kinds of interesting small projects.
I do admit to play games on my PC once in a while too, but not that regular anyways.

Now, my knowledge about hardware is a bit limited. Building my own PC is therefore no option. will just have to go to a local shop and tell them what I want, then see if what they can offer me is satifying enough.

The processor should be an extremely fast Pentium IV thingie, maybe even two. (Intel, since I dislike the other brand.) And then of course lots of RAM. About 2 GB or more. A large harddisk, although I would prefer speed over size in this case. And of course a lot of USB ports since I have quite a few USB devices. A good graphics card too, although since I'm not a gamer I can do with just an average good-quality card here. (I do want a very high resolution like 1600x1200 or better, though.)

So what would my options be for this amount of cash? Would it be enough? Or should I perhaps wait a few more months for the next Intel processor and Windows Vista? Are there things I should think about? The disk for example, SCSI, IDE or whatever? Maybe something additional to it?

Oh, well... I'm going to wait a few weeks before making this decision so until that time, any nice hints and tips would be welcome.

(I might be a genius with software, the hardware part is still mostly unknown territories for me...)

Well...serial ata maybe just as fast as scsi...although I still like scsi for it reliability.

You could also go with a dual processor machine...with lots of RAM.

We use XEONs in our servers...

Here in North America...you can get a pretty decent dell server...that would ROCK as a workstation...for about 2500 USD

Forget onboard video...and get a nice card with 256+ memory

Just thoughts

MLF

Hmmm,

A Ticket to the UK for starters.

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Originally posted here by mark_boyle2002
Hmmm,

A Ticket to the UK for starters.

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I've been in the UK plenty of times and except for half my family living there and almost all of my soon-to-be-family-in-law living there, I don't have much to find there, in the UK. :D Most of my friends live in the Netherlands. And the phone is an excellent way to stay in contact with our families. :D

But maybe computers in the UK are less expensive than in the Netherlands. I doubt it, though. :D

Hi Katja ,

I have just worked out that I am legally old enough to be your grandfather :D so there is no point in "chatting you up" :D

SERIOUS

If you are using this for business I would recommend SCSI and a RAID1 array. The speed of the processor will not be that important to you, neither will dual processors (the software needs to be written for them)

Now is not a great time to buy major kit.............a lot of new things are coming onto the market?

I would stay with what you have now, or get something not too expensive :)

Using it for business? Well, that's a minor discussion point. I am still studying but have done some minor freelance work in the past. (It helps to have a father who is doing freelance work.) It's more a long-term investment to keep my knowledge up-to-date with more modern systems.

And you are right. There seem to be a lot of new things coming to the market. Which is exactly why I asked this question, to be more up-to-date about the latest things.

To be honest, the system that I have now was more expensive than the one I'm planning to buy. I bought it about 5 years ago and it's still performing quite well. I did add a bigger harddisk to it and a DVD-writer and upgraded the RAM to it's maximum (512 MB) but this old thing is now at a point where the next upgrade will affect the motherboard and/or processor. Which is why I'm thinking about a new one. And I'm planning to buy something powerful enough to last me at least 5 more years before I start thinking about how slow it becomes. :D

About the dual-processing... My interest lies in software development. I think it would be an interesting challenge to write software for a system with two processors. :D Most modern compilers will be able to handle this. Some of my older software (games, etc.) might not work with this, though, so that will take some experimenting.

SCSI/RAID sounds interesting to me, but I have to keep in mind that I will need quite a lot of diskspace. Currently, I have 200 GB of diskspace in my PC and about 15 GB of it is still free. (And don't remind me of the two 60 GB external harddisks that I also have, both full.) I don't think I would miss most of this data though. It's just that I have a tendency to not delete things. :D
I have considered to have two harddisks for that reason, though. One reasonable small but bloody fast one for the OS and whatever data I consider important and a second harddisk that should be a lot bigger but which can be slower too since it would be used for the less important data of mine. (One of the things I do is make ISO images of any CD I own and store this ISO on my harddisk, for faster access.) But I wonder if you could combine a SCSI/RAID1 dis setup with e.g. a second E-IDE based harddisk with hundreds of gigs of diskspace. :D

Thing is, I want quite a lot but at one point, EUR 4K isn't enough anymore. But the money isn't burning in my pocket anyway. It's there, for when I buy by new system. Right now, I just started to browse around. :D

(Oh, I got a warning that this post contains too many smilies. :D So that's why they are disabled.)

Check out www.pless.co.uk for prices.

I haven't seen many people even close.

but wait "soon-to-be-family-in-law ".

Were not even dating yet. Stop talking about my mom like you own her already !

God damn it. I hate it when girls get ahead of them selves.

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Originally posted here by mark_boyle2002
but wait "soon-to-be-family-in-law ".

Were not even dating yet. Stop talking about my mom like you own her already !

God damn it. I hate it when girls get ahead of them selves.

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/locks Mark back up in his cage

Your scaring away all the womenfolk again Mark.... :p

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/locks Mark back up in his cage

Your scaring away all the womenfolk again Mark....

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Hey I explained before. That whole thing with the donkeys and the beetroot never had anything to do with me.

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Originally posted here by mark_boyle2002
but wait "soon-to-be-family-in-law ".

Were not even dating yet. Stop talking about my mom like you own her already !

God damn it. I hate it when girls get ahead of them selves.

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Don't worry. I wasn't referring to you or your family. I've told you before, I'm not single. I'm happily ever living together right now. And since we can get officially married in the Netherlands, we are considering this option. First finish our studies, of course...

To get back to the topic before macho_boy2000 stole the show,

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Originally posted here by Katja
Now, my knowledge about hardware is a bit limited. Building my own PC is therefore no option.

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Well then it's Dell for you, check out (the Small Business / Kleine Ondernemingen ) section..
Seeing that you are willing to spend Euro4K, I'd go for a Dual XEON 3Ghz with 4GB of ram and a raid1 (2x) 300GB ultra 320 scsi and redundant power suply.
Too bad you are goning to be running windows on it... No 64 bits for you yet..

I do feel silly saying Dell pc's are really good value for money..

I agree with Jinx.
Here's your deal. Save lots of $$$ on a Dell Dimension 3000 Desktop, P4 3.0GHz w/ HT Technology, 1GB DDR, 160GB, 16x DL DVD±RW/±R/CD-RW, XP Professional, Speakers w/ Subwoofer, Wireless Keyboard/Mouse, Dell 720 Printer » only $626.00 + Free Shipping
Nothing special, but very nice for the price. Click here
THEN:
Under "Dell Dimension 3000 Series" section, change the selection to "Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor w/ HT Technology (3GHz, 800 FSB) [add $32]"
Under "Operating System" section, change the selection to "Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional [add $95]"
Under "Memory" section, change the selection to "1GB Dual Channel DDR SDRAM at 400MHz [add $128]"
Under "Hard Drive" section, change the selection to "160GB Ultra ATA/100 7200RPM Hard Drive [add $64]"
Under "CD or DVD Drive" section, change the selection to "Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability [add $39]"
Under "Monitors" section, change the selection to "No Monitor [subtract $40]"
Under "Speakers" section, change the selection to "Dell A425 30 Watt 2.1 Stereo Speakers with Subwoofer [add $40]"
Under "Keyboard and Mouse Bundles" section, change the selection to "Dell Wireless Keyboard and Optical Mouse [add $40]"
Under "Operating System Backup & Recovery" section, change the selection to "Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional backup CD [add $8]"
Check each and every option to make sure you are getting everything that you need
Proceed to checkout
During checkout, apply $500 off $1099+ coupon code "PBHWM?KJK6RZMM" on it (Expires: 08/25/2005 @ 5:59AM CDT or after first 5000 redemptions)
Dell Home is offering Free Shipping on any Dell Dimension order greater than $549
There is a handling charge of $19
Your Final Price: $1107 - $500 + $19 = $626.00 + Free Shipping :eek:

Kinda a long process, but worth the savings. :D

Wow... Two times the advise: buy Dell. :D My currrent system is a Dell, so I am pretty familiar with them. Good computers, considering the fact that mine is 5 years old now.

Following the "Small business" wizard for some advise, Dell advises me to buy a PowerEdge 1800. And wow, available from €769 so still reasonable cheap. But then all the extra's... And suddenly I realise that it gets expensive pretty fast afterwards.

And another thing to consider. Windows XP is pretty good but I would be more interested in 2003 Server. The system would be powerful enough for that. Just have to find out the difference between 2003 standard and 2003 Premium. I've also considered using Linux but with VMWare I could run a Linux box within a virtual machine. (And with a dual-processor system it would be a fast linux-box too. :D)

I could strip away some hardware components from my current system, though. For example, I already have a dual-layer 8x DVD/RW and many other components on my current PC are actually USB devices. A RAID system would become a bit expensive in the end, though.

But it would still be more expensive than what I have in mind for spending on it. Oh, well... I can wait. I'm not in a hurry to buy, just want good suggestions. :D (Not too many smilies again?)

Here is a good site if you're looking to buy a Dell.
Here's some more smilies
:D :D
(this is as many as I could post :( )

I'd go Dell too if I felt like getting swindled and getting stuck with a dying socket! :thumbsup:

IMHO...

Dell builds good servers.........

WS and laptops...well....depends on the product and all the integreted sht...

But...I have some slick dell servers out there....dual xeons, lots of memory, redundant PS and SCSI hardware RAID....no one can match thier prices....

and so far(crossing my fingers)...not one has had a hardware failure.....other than travan drives :rolleyes:

MLF

amen.

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Now is not a great time to buy major kit.............a lot of new things are coming onto the market?

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when buying PC's, there are only two times that you will get it right ............

Yesterday ............when it was at a better price / offer
Tomorrow ............ there is ALWAYS something else coming onto the market

Today is NEVER the right day :)

Yet another who would advise DELL [Sorry !mitationRust :p]
use the online builder

if you DO go to a local shop ............ do NOT say you have 4K Euro's :eek:
they will push you towards kit that you neither want nor need..........

Since I bought my previous computer at Dell, I do consider buying my new computer there too. But as an alternative, I might use the Dell site to determine the configuration I like and then go to a local shop to ask them if they can compete with this offer. :D But first I need to know what I want, exactly...

About waiting a while, I think that is a pretty good idea. I might want to use Windows Vista instead of XP or 2003. And Intel has apparantly created a newer processor too, recently. As I've said before, I want a system like the one I have now, something that will last for several years at least, being still pretty high-tech in the first two years, still able to compete with newer systems during the next 3 years and barely behind modern technologies during the next four or five years. And afterwards it would still be a very usable piece of antiquated hardware. :D In other words, I'm aiming for quality. For something that still takes a while before it is really outdated.

Katja; want me to come build one for you? :p

A good place to start might be with computerland.nl, they have a shop right next to Den Haag CS, nice place, good service and they do assembly for you, so you just kind walk in, say what you want then come back a few days later.

EDIT: Also, might I say, with 4000 euros, the sky is the limit, infact, I would go so far as to say its too much, you don't need much more than 1200 for a very nice system with TFT and such, but 2000 will deffinatly get you something that will last and last and last.

Contact me if you want more info, I used to build systems for P&O Nedlloyd......much more fun building modded systems.

It's an interesting offer, noia! :D But I already know quite a few people who are willing to build whatever computer that I like for me. Besides, I can always teach it myself with the help of some friends. But thing is, I will have to rely on whatever machine that I will use, quite heavily. Thus, if it crashes after a month or so due to assembly errors or whatever, I want it to be fixed ASAP. (Preferably onsite too.) None of my friends can guarantee this kind of service. If I order it at some shop with 3 years guarantee, I should be safe for these kinds of situations.
To be honest, after I have a new PC, I will probably start disassembling and re-assembling the current system that I have. It would be a nice backup alternative. Maybe install Linux on it and use it as some fileserver. Once I have a new system, I can do whatever I like with the old one.
Dell offers a very good on-site support if need be. Many other computershops do the same, if you but a system that they have assembled. People who build their own systems often just have to work things out by themselves... :(
As I said, I am more into software than hardware. The hardware must be very reliable. And I do believe you can build a very fine system for me, but I don't think you'll fix it (for free) on site if something fails after a month...

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If I order it at some shop with 3 years guarantee, I SHOULD be safe for these kinds of situations.

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Oh Dear .........
the INNOCENCE of youth :D
As in most things in this life, the warranty will not be worth the paper it is written on.
It will have exclusions and get outs built in.
The most common being the one along the lines of :
To be returned to OUR workplace, at YOUR expense,
using the ORIGINAL packaging.
you will have to PAY for labour / parts [delete one OR the other, but ONE will be there]
All warranty claims will be voided if WE determine that the PC was used for purposes NOT recognised by ourselves / for work / used at LAN parties etc.

By all means buy over the counter, but just get the standard FREE 12 month warrenty, and LEARN how to repair it yourself :)

OR : take up the offer to have it built to YOUR spec by friends or fellow AO'ers, and take the chance that it WILL work :)

hey Mark,

Katja is so sweet only... it doesn't mean anything

Katja,

It is better for you to wait the Pentium V... to keep you updated

Why??? Is there really a dual processor on PC? I know that there is dual processor on Mac G5 but on PC i dont think so... or maybe i dont know

Thats right...you dont know!


There are definately MBs that support dual processors or quads for that matter....now it all depends if the OS or the applications can use them...


MLF

Learning to repair it myself... Hmmm... That's just the problem. I care more about the software side than the hardware side of computers. It's why I tend to have lots of hardware that I can simply add by plugging it into my USB port. :D I have an USB TV card, several USB harddisks, USB printer, USB mouse, USB joystick, USB fingerprint-recogniser... I love USB since it allows me to add things by simply plugging it in without thinking.
And well, I have installed extra memory in my PC. I have replaced a CD drive with a DVD/RW drive and I've also once replaced the network card and added a USB hub card. This all doesn't take much knowledge. But when something breaks down and I have to find out which component went down... Now, that would be a problem and I don't have any interest in learning more about that...
Besides, I tend to have very good experiences with computer shops. I had an on-site warranty for my current system and when at one point some smoke came out of my monitor before it died, they did come by and replace it with a new one within a day. Nice people, those people from Dell. (And it happened a month before the warrenty ended. :D)
Of course, you should always read the small print in any warrenty anyways. Which means making sure to go to a reliable source.

But first things first. I want to know what is available for EUR 4k. Once I know what is available and what I really want, I can always decide for some home-made thing so I can spend some cash on additional hardware wishes.

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at one point some smoke came out of my monitor before it died

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Little known fact is that ALL computers are smoke powered, and when the smoke gets out ............

They DIE :D

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But first things first. I want to know what is available for EUR 4k.

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Absolutely ANYTHING for that price :you lucky thing you:

Make a wish list:
that is, a list of what your DREAM PC would do / could do

then ORDER IT :)

If I were you I would build the computer for a good learning experience and if you have any problems you could always ask here ;).

Do you really NEED a new pc or do you just WANT a new one? bOth are valid reasons to buy a new pc but if you just want one it might be better to wait until you know exactly what you are going to need.

Games aside you don't need anything very powerful right now.
you shouldn't be put off from self building, it's far easier than most people assume BUT it isn't always cheaper.

I self built my last ,machine so that I could save money in the short term using parts from my Dell (a P3 733 so probably a similar model to yours) and being able to upgrade gradually. Thats worked fine for me. I'be upped the HD and changed the gfx card a few times. I know that I will be able to reuse things for a while yet as everything it running on generic parts rather than bespoke brands.

Dell makes ok machines but the support sucks even worse than it did before. Want good Dell support spend £100k and learn to speak an Indian dialect.
They are still cheap enough to consider but don't ever take any Dell upgrade options. Dell memory costs waaaaaaaay more than anyone elses. Buy the machine with the base spec and upgrade from other manufacturers such as Crucial, Corsair or Kingston. Same with HD and other parts. Ditch the 3yr warranty too.

Building your own? I don't know Dutch suppliers but Ebuyer.co.uk is very cheap here. With what you are doing you really just need a base spec machine.

An Athlon64 3000+ with 512 Mb memory and 120Gb HD with a mid range grfx card would probably do the trick for not a lot of money. Mobos from Asus, Gigabyt and Abit are generally quite good but everyone has their favoutite brands.

Don't buy anything too expensive and save your money for something nice.

PS. Maybe a cheap laptop would be more useful to you right now if you are studying. Get the monster desktop later.

Hi [strike]Andrea[/strike] Aspman,

It's a bit of both, actually. My current system is unable to handle more than 512 MB of RAM. It was a limitation that I wasn't aware of when I bought it 5 years ago. (Back then I only had 256 MB.) But when I'm using Delphi 2005 on my system then it becomes pretty hungry for all the resources I have. The same with Visual Studio. It would be better if I had at least 1 GB of RAM in my system. Of course, at 800 MHz it isn't really fast either for the most modern applications.
If I was interested in games then I could forget buying the latest games anyway. For most of them, my system is already below the minimum requirements. It took 5 years for this to happen but now it has happened. Then again, if I wanted to play games, I'd buy an X-Box or PlayStation and don't waste my more expensive computer resources on that. :D
But still, my current system is still very well able to keep up with most things anyway. It will still be useful for my studies for the next two, three years. After that, I guess it will need a rollator... ;)

Btw, I already have a laptop too. About 4 years old, a Sony Vaio with 256 MB RAM, Windows XP and a 10 inch screen. (1024x768) It's what I use to test some of my client-server or webserver applications. :D I also have a HP iPaq with about 3 GB (!) of memory. Well, I could consider a carkit for my mobile phone but that thing is as old as my laptop. (It came for "free" with my laptop.) Maybe I should just invest in a newer mobile phone instead. :D

Maybe just save it for when I get married. That's an option here in the Netherlands. With EUR 4k extra, the party could be a bit bigger. :)

If it's not doing what you need then it probably is time to move up.

I would suggest you get a basic case (Antec do good cases with good PSUs cheap, not flashy but solid).

Pick your processor type, P4 or Athlon64 (939). Get a mid range board from one of the manufacturers I mentioned. Pic your peripherals or carry them over from your old box. Get memory from someone good. The brands I mentioned are good but don't bother with the gamer l33t ****.
Get your CPU OEM and add a good quiet cpu cooler. Get your software OEM at the same time. Some 120mm fans if they'll fit.

Get a dual DVI gfx card you'll probably want to add a second monitor eventually. Get a good DVI 17" tft. 19" look nice but don't generally run a higher resolution than a 17.

Spend money on a mouse and keyboard coz you'll use them lots. Logitec laser mice look good.

Strip down the old machine and flog the parts on Ebay.

Shouldn't cost much you'll have change to get pissed at the reception. Jobs-a-goodun.

An evening invite is fine for me :)