Looking at these parts

Intel S775 Core 2 Q6600 Quad-Core CPU
ASUS S775 Commando P965 Motherboard
2x DDR2 2GB Geil 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 Kit
500GB Western Digital KS 7200 rpm 16mb SATA HDD
ASUS 8800GTX 768M PCIe Video Card
22" LG L226WTQ-BF LCD Monitor
Antec P180 Case
Thermaltake 850 Watt Toughpower ATX Power supply

Now, this PC is basically designed to be a work horse for my uni + i want to be able to play games without a worry. I used to go with umart, but some of my mates said a few dodgy things.... so i just want to figure out who's the better choice.. better deals etc. The system is around 2.9k.

msy would be cheaper, and easier to pick up from (ie not as busy as either of those)

get a P35 chipset motherboard eg. P5K Deluxe.

Buy the cheapest 8800GTX. They are all *exactly* the same except for the included crap.

yeah p5k pwns

Got my PC from CA around the end of 2005, got a pretty high-end system for the time. Been running it for nearly 3 years now and haven't had to reformat, no hardware trouble with the system at all.

CA is always pleasant to deal with, slightly more expensive than MSY/Umart etc.. but you get what you pay for.

designed to be a work horse for my uni

You might want a little more RAM for your word processing.

I'd go msy or CA, umart are the suck.

I think brand matters when it comes to support. However if you buy from CA you are going to get good service.

It sounds like you have some money to spend. A way to increase performance and load times I suggest getting a WD raptor(10,000) rpm drive. They are a bit more expensive but would speed things up. If you can get two of these and put them in a raid 0 configuration, you will definitely notice a speed increase for any data on the drive. Keep the 500 GB for storage

Check out www.pcshopper.com.au as well

You might want a little more RAM for your word processing.

Last i checked 3d is a memory hog and anything to cut down on render times for animation is win in my books.

CA for sure. If you mention my name they will prolly go WTF so don't do that.

I got my parts from CA today, freakin awesome

6600 Quad Core
2gig Geil 800Mhz Ultra
Asus P5K motherboard
8800GTS
22" Samsung LCD (Best LCD around imo)

Runs like a demon :D

alright, the 10k rpm hdd has got me interested (i never pay attention to this s***).

Basically, if i put windows / games on a 10k and then used a 7200 for storage... how much more performance you reckon id see?

cause 74gb 10k are only like 219

Not much of an increase with just one drive, go for two 36gb and raid them.

And unless you're going to use vistass, there isn't a need for 4GB of ram.

I'd still go umart. Never had a problem with them ever.

Got my PC from CA around the end of 2005, got a pretty high-end system for the time. Been running it for nearly 3 years now and haven't had to reformat, no hardware trouble with the system at all.

I bought a computer from gamedude like 10 years ago and it's still going strong. Where you buy stuff doesn't mean s*** all, everyone gets the same parts. You may pay extra at a particular store for better customer service is all.

Personally I prefer umart because it's faster. Just about every time I've been to CA I've waited for ages before anyone even speaks to me, that place seriously needs more staff on the weekend.

I just traded up to a Pk5 deleux from a P5b deleux and I must say the p5b was s***! I am still running the same E6600 dual core with some new Geil 1066Mhz DDR2 Mem.

thumbs up for me its very stable board too, I even migrated the XP install over to the new board and it didn't even blue screen me just booted into xp and asked from the new drivers :)

oh and an Alby 8800GTS 640mb ftw.

I purchased from umart and self built, im pretty good though...

Good write-up on why you should only get 3GB by Dan, though when i did this same upgrade i got 4GB anyway :-)

It was his quad-core article that got me to do my upgrade late last month

Used to go Umart because of the straight in straight out factor. Now I go MSY because the Morningside shop is 1min drive.

What kind of "special" service do you need anyway? You go into Umart with your order number, type it into the computer, and a few minutes later someone calls out your name and you've got your order.

CA for lyfe!

What kind of "special" service do you need anyway? You go into Umart with your order number, type it into the computer, and a few minutes later someone calls out your name and you've got your order.

Well if something breaks I'm sure they'll probably replace it for you if it's under warranty, however as far as I'm aware stores aren't required to replace your damaged part with one off their shelves, they only have to send your damaged part off to get repaired. Apparently at CA if you're nice they'll replace it with their own stock and be slightly out of pocket until the damaged one is replaced by the manufacturer (which then goes back into their stock).

So from past threads on here, basically it's the difference between a day or two wait and a month or two.

I got my parts from CA today, freakin awesome

6600 Quad Core
2gig Geil 800Mhz Ultra
Asus P5K motherboard
8800GTS
22" Samsung LCD (Best LCD around imo)

you selling these separate? or as a whole system?

Not much of an increase with just one drive, go for two 36gb and raid them.

Iono about u but 72gig is no space, especially when im going to be rendering out animations with single frames been like... 2mb each. Will fill up to fast.

I might get a 150gig 10k, get a 500gig for my old pc and just network it across when i need the space i guess. That is if the 10k is truly worth the price.

Is it? :)

and i switched the mobo over to the pk5 deluxe since u guys all seem to have wood over it.

went to CA with a mate when i was back. they had no idea. said i couldnt fit this stuff into a silver stone case (although i run one here with the same stuff in it!)

Well if something breaks I'm sure they'll probably replace it for you if it's under warranty, however as far as I'm aware stores aren't required to replace your damaged part with one off their shelves, they only have to send your damaged part off to get repaired. Apparently at CA if you're nice they'll replace it with their own stock and be slightly out of pocket until the damaged one is replaced by the manufacturer (which then goes back into their stock).

I can say that umart also do this. I had a tablet with an electronic humm type noise which wacom have accepted as a manufacturing fault (though I only found out on their forum) umart offered a refund, in store credit or replacement item. (I guess the first two were because they were out of stock)

edit: also, umart is about 100% better than it used to be. Since they fixed up their pickup system and there arent 20 people waiting at all times of the day, its much easier to get a park and get your items. Plus, they have a bit of space for all their s*** now so you actually get a whole department for RA stuff now :P


Speaking of expansion, that store is f***ING HUGE now. The doors were open while a delivery was being made, exposing their massive warehouse out the back. Crazy...

edit2: Should also mention that CA are now suffering from the problems which plagued umart for a time. ie. way too many customers for their s***ty space. They need to expand SOOOO badly. Not only did I have to wait for f***ign ever to get a hold of somone for an internet order but they had to go next door to get the item from their extra storage space and had to mess around finding people and all kinds of sillyness.

umart is MUCH easier now days.

last edited by qmass at 01:14:53 14/Sep/07

I had a tablet with an electronic humm type noise which wacom have accepted as a manufacturing fault (though I only found out on their forum) umart offered a refund, in store credit or replacement item. (I guess the first two were because they were out of stock)

Have they only done this as an individual case because the manufacturer has admitted it's at fault? Would they do the same if you just had a faulty video card or dead stick of RAM?

They didn't for my hard drive. I had to wait a week or two for a new one to arrive at umart.
Though they replaced my bustered PSU on the spot.

I've had it bad with hardware failures, lost 2 hard drives and a possible thrid. A motherboard from asus and an antec PSU.

Raider you might be better off looking at a 4-5 drive RAID5 array.

Single Raptor drives are really not that impressive for the cost, so unless u poop money and use Raptors in an array of some sort it'd make more sense to go RAID5 with some regular drives.

I just did an upgrade.....parts from MSY morningside. Good, quick service, no fuss. BTW get the Gigabyte P35-DQ6, I just replaced my P5B-Deluxe with it. Good stable overclock, good onboard sound, heaps of Sata ports. I've got my E6750 running at 3.5Ghz with stock cooling, rock solid. Plays ET-QW at 1680x1050 with 8xAA smooth as.

Upgrading has become so much cheaper these days, with the high Aus $ and low ram/CPU/HDD prices I've actually upgraded twice inside a year just cause it wasn't that expensive. Vid cards are probably the only item that is still relatively high in comparison to other components. In 6months time I'll prolly go around again when the 45Nm CPUs are out and the DDR3 prices come down.

I use MSY to buy most of my computer bits.

I've never needed to take a dodgy computer piece back to a dealer, so the extra price for after sales service at CA isn't worth it for me ... yet.

I find MSY tend to be a bit cheaper the UMart for most items.

The only problem the store is small and they don't have as much variety as UMart or CA. Saturday's are a bad day to get stuff as they close early and lots of people up the shop and it can take awhile.

Bottom line is, if you want good after-sales service then pay the extra $$'s for CA, otherwise goto MSY/Umart depending on where you live and how stingy you want to be.

My MSY experience was j0rsome - I went in on a Saturday morning around 11am, waited about 5 minutes while other people were served, gave a guy a list of stuff I wanted and he popped it all into a box for me. Unfortunately the HDD was DOA and when I took it back they just replaced it without even testing it..

I think they have a 7-day DOA replacement policy though.

Being on the New PC part subject, Has anyone bought from qldit.com.au???

If so how did you go?

PC Shopper Greenslopes and Aspley ?
MSY Slacks Creek or Morningside ?
Queensland Computer Group The Gabba ?
or even Best Deal 4 U ? (their online pricing is so out of date it's pointless)

ps. my experience of CA is vastly different to others, I had problems, it was expensive (but I knew that and was willing to pay the premium for "better" service). And when I went there to try and sought them out it took hours. Conversly anytime I have had a problem with a purchase from umart or QCGO it was fixed/replaced in minutes. Admittedly my experience with CA wasyears ago. But as a result unless you are paying a premium of a few hundred dollars and have a written extra support agreement (like best deal for you or dell). Price is all that matters.

heh, best deal 4 u. When I was at global we would sell the PCs to best deal and then they would on-sell them, fully built by yours truly.

Why not just RAID-0 some regular 7200 RPM drives? I've had 2x160GB seagates in raid0 with my athlon system for ages, and it is definatley an improvement over a single drive.

I like RCs idea of raid5. You get speed + redundancy then. The problem with stripping although fast is reliability. If one drive fails you lose all your data.

maybe 3x 320s in a raid 5 or if you can afford it more drives.

I bought a computer from gamedude like 10 years ago and it's still going strong. Where you buy stuff doesn't mean s*** all, everyone gets the same parts. You may pay extra at a particular store for better customer service is all.

But one thing you can't buy is love. Which is what my computer was built with.

But one thing you can't buy is love. Which is what my computer was built with.

Ok if you want to be picky I bought the PARTS from gamedude and built it myself. I then proceeded to make sweet sweet love to it, does that make you feel better? :)

edit: \/\/\/\/ if that's to me, the PC is old and outdated dude, it sits on the floor in my room gathering dust (though still works). For the record I bought my current PC from comp alliance.

last edited by whoop at 20:11:25 14/Sep/07

Just pray that nothing fails... if you can't afford to immediately buy a replacement part while the other one is away you are going to be without a PC for an eon.

note to self: make rubba bow down to whoop when next he's in

You get speed + redundancy then

Redundancy to an extent, generally good for single hard-drive failures. But ...

* If you get a bad power surge or lightning strike, all your hard-drives can die in one go.
* RAID doesn't protect you from accidentally deleted files. The deletion would be undertaken across all hdds :)

So I wouldn't use it as the one and only sort of backup-like solution.

last edited by parabol at 23:13:18 14/Sep/07

I bought a computer from gamedude like 10 years ago and it's still going strong. Where you buy stuff doesn't mean s*** all, everyone gets the same parts. You may pay extra at a particular store for better customer service is all.

i bought one thing from gamedude, pack of 100cds, went home and tried to burn s***. Every cd didnt work so i took it back the next day.

The guy was a complete f***ing tool about it, wouldnt replace it/give money back, said it was my hardware, even had the nerve to say "ill just test them out the back" waited for 20 f***ing minutes for him to "test" it out, he comes back and says it burnt fine, i ask to look at the cd, he shows me... nothing written on it at all. so i told him this, he looked at me and goes "sorry mate, we're closing soon, u will have to come back tomoro if u want to continue this", at this point the 100 pack of cds where all over the guy and his gay ass little service desk.

wasted 1 hr of my life and $60, never going back there again... unless it is to throw year old rotten eggs at the employees

hahaha sc00bs, anyways i wouldnt buy anything from GayDude Gamedude, they by far the worst customer service out of all the computer shops i know also they are shocking when trying to return something. i think the only way to get them to take something back even if it brakes with in the first 7 days is to take them to court.

but who has time for that s***.. either way CA are awesome for customer support and the 3 year guarantee is pretty good to, but i guess thats why they are more expensive than umart

last edited by TufNuT at 00:48:03 15/Sep/07