Anyone know of this company, or had dealings ?

[Paul K]

With Evesham going belly up, the only remaining computer dealer ( and I use the expression loosely ) in Cambridge is PC World.

However, looking around the web, I came across this company, and having 'designed' my own PC on their site, thought the price very fair and reasonable.

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/index.php

Anyone know more about them ? They do look pretty competent, and I'm inclined to deal with them rather than the acned gel-haired monosyllabicists at PC World.

[Nigel H-J]

Hi Paul afraid I can't help you on that company and as there are so many computer companies large and small to choose from it can become a bit of a pain deciding which one to use however, have you thought of buying locally? Using a well established local company listed in your area may cost a bit more but you would be getting a personal and friendly service with good advice (they cannot afford otherwise) and should anything go wrong during the warranty period they would be just a stones throw away.

Hope this helps a bit.

Nigel.

[DelP]

Hi Paul,

Buy the parts mate..build it yourself...you have control, you know exactly what's gone into it.

....never, never go to PC World..they're retailers, they know as much about computers as I know about bee-keeping.. ;-)

Derek ;-)

[Paul K]

Using a well established local company listed in your area may cost a bit more but you would be getting a personal and friendly service with good advice (they cannot afford otherwise) and should anything go wrong during the warranty period they would be just a stones throw away.

Hope this helps a bit.

Nigel.

Certainly does Nigel. There's a used-computer shop on Mill Rd where I bought both my current computer and my gorgeous Sony Diamondtron monitor, and now you come to mention it, I'm sure they said they build new ones to order. Might pop in there and have a chat.

Hi Paul,

Buy the parts mate..build it yourself...you have control, you know exactly what's gone into it.

....never, never go to PC World..they're retailers, they know as much about computers as I know about bee-keeping.. ;-)

Derek ;-)

Yep Del, I'm of the same general opinion, though I do buy branded accessories there like my Microsoft webcam. I wouldn't trust their advice on something I was unfamiliar with, however. Building my own PC is certainly an option, and no doubt I'd find plenty of advice, hints and tips on this forum.

Cheers both.

[ianhind]

Well I usually build my own, but recently have bought two PCs off eBay. A E6750 and a Q6600. Chose the right time to bid for them and I'm happy with the price. Guess which one my wife gets.

By the time I worked out the cost of the components (CPU, motherboard, graphics card, HDD, DVDRW, RAM) , I reckoned these were not a bad deal. And this was a painless introduction to the world of Intel 775 chips. I seem to have skipped a generation of CPUs - 478 P4 straigh to 775 Core 2 Duo.

They have already been modified with more HDD, upgraded PSU, but these were items I already had in my previous PCs. So the warranty is probably no longer valid, but they were running as received for a couple of weeks without problem. After that I don't care.

As time goes on, I'll pick up better motherboards and graphics cards from eBay (already have for the Q6600 but the original Asrock motherboard takes DDR/DDR2 RAM and AGP/PCI-E cards, so using previous generation components with that one plus a cheap E4130).

Now I need to find out how much I can get on eBay for the 478 motherboards/CPUs/RAM .

[RobDob]

I bought my PC from PC Specialist about 3 months ago, and I must say they were fantastic. I spent quite a long time trying various options on their site before deciding exactly what system to get. Compared to other suppliers I found them to be very reasonable, I can highly recpmend them and they do great finance options (0% for 6, 9 or 12 months! Cher-Ching!!)

If you want any other info PM me!

[Paul K]

Ian, good info, thanks.

Rob, glad to hear your experience has been good. 0% finance might mean I can up the spec a little in terms of processor power and /or graphics card. Thats another question....whats the graphics card to have at the moment ?

[ianhind]

Thats another question....whats the graphics card to have at the moment ?

The Nvidia 8800 seems to be the one - way too rich for my pocket, ie I can buy an entire PC with Q6600, 2Gb Ram, 320Gb HDD for the price of one of those :roll:

[ChrisHunt]

Paul, depends on whether you want DX10 or not and also budget. I don't have Vista and probably won't be getting it for at least a year so I recently bought an ATI X1950 Pro 512Mb for 66 squids plus vat and very good it is too (beats the current mid-range DX10 cards). If DX10 is what you must have then the 8800GTS 360Mb (or 340mb - I forget) is a reasonable option. Way too many problems with DX10 and FSX at the moment though.

Regards,
Chris

[RobDob]

I got the NVidia 8800 GTS with 640mb memory. And you're right...the 0% interest free does encourage you to up the spec a bit! (Or it did in my case...wish I had gone a bit higher TBH!!) If you want my spec details and price paid let me know.