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Why did you stop at Windows 7 Ultimate, why didn't you compare it to the price of Windows 7 Datacenter, or a customized version of Windows 7 for Supercomputing clusters? Your copy of Windows XP doesn't have any of the added features in Ultimate, so why choose that?

Here, you go, saved you about half: http://www.dabs.com/products/m...

Of course, you could have upgraded when it first came out and saved yourself a ton of money, but you procrastinated. Maybe you should wait for Windows 9 and see if they have a deal when it launches.

Windows 8 is even more expensive to buy a worthwhile edition of.

Windows 8 Pro costs less in fact (£110), and if you can live without Hyper-V or Bitlocker (which you obviously are living in XP world) you can go with normal Windows 8 for (£72.99). This is all besides the point that calling ~£100 for an OS that will last ~10 years "horrific" is a pretty gross exaggeration.

Windows 8 is even more expensive to buy a worthwhile edition of.

Windows 8 Pro costs less in fact (£110), and if you can live without Hyper-V or Bitlocker (which you obviously are living in XP world) you can go with normal Windows 8 for (£72.99). This is all besides the point that calling ~£100 for an OS that will last ~10 years "horrific" is a pretty gross exaggeration.

I stick with XP for one of my desktops because I put my own hardware together (no OS preinstalled), and I don't want to pay horrific sums of money (£135) for a new operating system - Windows 8 is even more expensive to buy a worthwhile edition of. It's behind my free Debian install which acts as a router+firewall. Works for me.

A new copy of Windows costs significantly more

A new copy of Windows 7 costs about £70 (including 20% UK Sales tax) , hardly an insurmountable amount of money.

OSX updates may be cheaper but they come out every year. New versions of Windows come out roughly every 3-5 years so the price difference averages balances out over time.

Basically these days "Core" is Intel's mainstream and high end brand. Everything from about $120 up is branded Core. Pentiums are their budget brand, the $60-100 range. Celerons are their extreme budget brand. $40-50 (only sold to OEMs).

Good grief, Intel's marketing department really needs a good slapping.

Their brand positioning used to make sense when you knew that Celeron was their budget line (though sometimes quite decent) and Pentium-XXX (later replaced by Core-XXX) the standard midrange, with Xeon for servers.

So when they brought back Pentium, I was confused until (as you say) realising that it was meant as a kind-of-lower-priced line, but not as cheap as the Celeron (*). Confused partly because they still had the Core 2 (**) then i3/i5/i7 lines as their mainstream brand which Pentium used to represent.

In other words, they brought back the Pentium name due (presumably) to some vague consumer recognition, but not for what it was used before and for some vaguely-defined semi-budget segment.

Worse, it isn't even necessary because the current "Core" line is split into i3, i5 and i7, which is an easily-understood hierarchy, and along with the "Celeron", there's absolutely no need for another damn confusing name.

*Now* they're making things even more of a cluster**** by using the Pentium name on low-end *server* (not mainstream) processors.

Please note that I'm *not* talking about the underlying architecture, which marketing doesn't necessarily follow, and which the man on the street probably doesn't care about much. I'm simply talking about incompetent marketing and positioning in that there are a mess of names that no longer represent their intended price segment and/or use clearly.

Then again, perhaps confusion is the aim of the game, as it makes it easier for sales people to bamboozle the public and upsell more expensive CPUs than they need? But I suspect not.

(*) You say that Celeron is now an ultra-cheap OEM-only thing, but I can still apparently purchase boxed versions here and here, for example.

(**) And while I'm here, "Core" and "Core 2" were absolutely stupid choices for a processor name, as "core" already had a technologically-defined use we all know well, and "Core" (the name) was thus guaranteed to confused anyone not in the field, e.g. a dual-core Core, etc. etc..... "Core 2" was even worse, as it's going to get easily confused with "dual core" and terms like "Core 2 Quad" (i.e. a four-core "Core 2"!) are just a confusing mess for Joe Public. I know of at least one alleged computer technician (i.e. someone who *could* be expected to know this) who thought that "Core 2" in itself meant that it was a dual-core processor! I'll give them a free pass on the fact that the original "Core" line didn't actually feature the "Core" architecture, as I was complaining about bad marketing, and marketing doesn't normally mention internal architectures anyway.

9" was the sweet spot for me.
For me the sweet spot is a 10 inch with a decent screen resoloution, the extra inch of size is barely noticeable and yet it allows a much more capable machine. Unforuntately the vast majority of 10 inch models have a screen resoloution no better than the 9 inch models.

I don't know if Asus are still making 9" models, but they have dried up completely in the UK.
they are becoming rare but they haven't dissapeared just yet, for example dabs have a disney rebranded one.
http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-dinsey-mk90h-blu017x-1gb-xph-6CHG.html?refs=408510000

You'll start running into problems at the PCI bus after a while, but that's over 100Mb/s.

So stick it on PCI Express

Please link to me to a PC that is a Core 2 Duo 2.5Ghz or better (ie not an Atom) that is also the size of Mac Mini for under $600.

Nice try, but false. The $599 Mac Mini comes with a 2.26GHz processor. The 2.53GHz one is a whopping $799: http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/mac_mini?mco=MTAyNTQwMjg

I'm in the UK - here a Mac Mini starts at £499. For less than that, you can get laptops. E.g., see http://www.dabs.com/products/dell-vostro-1015-core-2-duo-t6670-3gb-250gb-dvdrw-windows-vb-xp-65PQ.html?refs=403550000 :

Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz, 3GB RAM (compared with 2GB for the Mac), 250GB hard drive (compared with 160GB), and much smaller, with the conveience of being laptop (plus no need to buy a separate monitor), and all for £435. That was just something I found with a quick search.

And there are plenty of small form factor desktop PCs.

You want an ugly beige box that is noisy and cheap.

Ah yes, nothing like unsourced ignorance to get modded up. Firstly you can get a PC laptop which is smaller, prettier, quieter, and still cheaper. But you can get PCs in whatever form you want. Noisy? There's no noise coming out of my PC - most noise problems are due to a separate graphics card, which the so-called "Mini" doesn't have, and most PCs don't need anyway (they also have quiet integrated graphics as standard).

For heaven's sake! Macs these days are PCs, so how can you still claim they are different, such as being magically quieter?

And how on earth is the Mac Mini any different to the "ugly beige boxes" that PCs are?! Or are you going to tell me it's different because it has an Apple sticker on it?

And if you reply, make sure you have decent citations like I do, not made up claims.

Sure, samba would be great for a universal file system if USB drives had Ethernet ports.

You mean like this one? NAS FTW.

It's true that you can get laptops for under $1k, but it's quite a bit harder to find a 13.3" one like the MacBook for much less

Funny you should mention that. I've been saying for a while that when my current laptop finally dies, I plan to get a Macbook. Not for the looks, the spec or the OS, but simply because I wanted a 13.3 inch form factor. I carry my laptop around a lot, so a 17'' monster is out of the question, but I also use it as my primary machine, so an ultra portable is no use either. 13.3'' is, for me, the sweet spot between portability and usability. But no one seemed to make them except apple, so it looked like the macbook was the best option.

Lately though, I've noticed more and more 13.3'' laptops showing up in stores. A quick search on dabs turns up these results. As you can see, they have twelve 13.3'' laptops that are cheaper than a macbook. The Toshiba U400 for example, compares very favourably with the cheapest macbook in terms of specs. The macbook had a faster processor, but the toshiba has a DVD writer and is lighter, so it's pretty much a toss up. On price though, the Toshiba trounces the apple. £498 against £699. A £200 pound difference. Looks like I won't be buying a mac after all.

I won't get into the the relative merits and value of vista compared to OSX. I'd be formatting it and installing Linux anyway.

It's true that you can get laptops for under $1k, but it's quite a bit harder to find a 13.3" one like the MacBook for much less

Funny you should mention that. I've been saying for a while that when my current laptop finally dies, I plan to get a Macbook. Not for the looks, the spec or the OS, but simply because I wanted a 13.3 inch form factor. I carry my laptop around a lot, so a 17'' monster is out of the question, but I also use it as my primary machine, so an ultra portable is no use either. 13.3'' is, for me, the sweet spot between portability and usability. But no one seemed to make them except apple, so it looked like the macbook was the best option.

Lately though, I've noticed more and more 13.3'' laptops showing up in stores. A quick search on dabs turns up these results. As you can see, they have twelve 13.3'' laptops that are cheaper than a macbook. The Toshiba U400 for example, compares very favourably with the cheapest macbook in terms of specs. The macbook had a faster processor, but the toshiba has a DVD writer and is lighter, so it's pretty much a toss up. On price though, the Toshiba trounces the apple. £498 against £699. A £200 pound difference. Looks like I won't be buying a mac after all.

I won't get into the the relative merits and value of vista compared to OSX. I'd be formatting it and installing Linux anyway.

I got a couple of these Silicon Image, Inc. SiI 3114 chipset.
Work out of the box under fedora (4+). I used them in conjunction with an Icy Dock sata backplane to fully equip my media server. The server runs FC4 and uses a lowly 40GB IDE drive for the os. the SATA ports have a Seagate 200GB, 250 GB, 500GB, and a Samsung 750GB attached. As the first 2 drives use the motherboard connectors, I have only used 2 of my 8 available card controlled connections. Can't get much cheaper really.

You can buy a single external 500 GB hard disk drive for 60 pounds or 120 dollars.

So presumably this isn't a production motherboard?

"Almost as soon as we had Phenom samples, Intel made the decision to sample a CPU requiring a FSB that wasn't officially supported by any chipset at the time. No, 1600MHz FSB support won't come until next year with the X48 chipset, but it didn't matter to Intel; we were getting chips now.

Except everyone seems to have missed the fact that the X38 chipset, available now, supports 1600MHz FSB.

There is a motherboard available for actual use. TFA is talking bollocks.

Yet they don't have 8GB sticks to make a 32GB system.

So get a motherboard with 8 slots then.

Flash media is expensive, USB drives aren't. 250GB for £44. For comparison, Microsoft are charging £70 for a 20GB disk (the price difference between Premium and Core 360's).

Absolutely. You don't even need to go to small retailers, either. Ex:

http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=3Z2 4&CategorySelectedId=11101&NavigationKey=11101,388 360000&InMerch=1 (Dabs is a division of BT, seems like a major vendor to me)
http://www.pcwb.com/catalogue/item/VALPC017 (PC World Business, the Business division of the UK's largest PC retailer, sells a Linux PC for £150)

What more do they want?

You don't have a clue, do you?

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=3ZY 1&SearchType=1&CategorySelectedId=11034&SearchTerm s=controller&PageMode=3&SearchKey=All&SearchMode=A ll&NavigationKey=11034&v=2#infoarea
http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/842412/Microsoft_XBo x_360_Controller_For_Windows/Product.html
http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-6m-49-en-70-fi 1.html
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/12/07/ 1815222

I've used a wireless mouse and keyboard to play FPS games on a TV, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it so long as you have an armchair to rest your mouse on.

they may all say that they're "3D" cards, but the cheap versions are way too slow in this area to be useful

Not really. Take, for instance, this incredibly cheap-ass card. Undeniably cheap, but it supports full DirectX 8.1 pixel shaders and has 4 pipelines @ 266MHz, which really is enough for many applications. It probably won't be running Doom3. But it'll cope with anything less demanding.

Oh, for the love of Miyamoto aren't we over this yet? I've have a gamepad of some sort plugged into my PC for over a decade. Remember serial ports? You could get gamepads for them. Right now I have a a gamecube controller plugged into my PC, a force-feedback flightstick and a dancemat to go with that, and I've used a wheel before too. Since USB came along supporting 4 controllers simultaneously hasn't been difficult, and you can play 4-player Smash Bros with controllers on PC with no trouble.

USB controller.

Xbox 360 wired controller works with PC via USB as standard.

Console to USB adaptors are dirt cheap and easily available.

Wii remote is standard bluetooth, you can use it with a PC.

Yes, they don't come packed it with a standard $399 PC, but anyone who actually cares enough about the issue to think "hey, it'd be neat if I could plug my PS2 controller into my PC" can spend 5 minutes shopping online and get it done.

Arora said, by 2012, iPods could launch at similar prices to those on sale now and yet be capable of holding a whole year's worth of video releases.

A normal xvid encoding is about 700mb for a 2 hour film, or 350mb per hour, and that gives DVD like quality. The iPod has a fairly small screen, so we could quite easily downsample it and retain a "watchable" quality (advances in encoding formats will improve this quality or decrease the size).

For now I will assume that 100mb per hour of video would be of "watchable" quality (I'll use metric gb for easy maths).

100mb * 24hours = 2.4gb per day.

2.4gb * 365 days = 876gb per year

Now if we downsample our xvid to 85mb per hour, that works out at 745mb per year and bingo, there are already 750gb hard disk drives on the market, and it is possible to rewire your ipod to use an 3.5" hard disk

So Arora's prediction is correct, but then we already have that technology today. As for me, I'm just waiting for Steve Jobs to announce next year's terabyte iPod

Not that they have any in stock...

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=48Q N&CategorySelectedId=11137&NavigationKey=11137

We have about 20+ Oki printers in the B4000 range (and it's predecessor, the 14ex). I usually pay about £131 for a B4250 from Dabs.com in the UK. This unit isn't networkable itself, but they also sell an own-brand print server that plugs straight into the parallel port for another £23. So that's about £155, or $290, for a networked printer with low running costs - the toner cartridges are also cheap, at £21, the only ongoing expense is a drum every 150,000 pages, at about £119.

We have about 20+ Oki printers in the B4000 range (and it's predecessor, the 14ex). I usually pay about £131 for a B4250 from Dabs.com in the UK. This unit isn't networkable itself, but they also sell an own-brand print server that plugs straight into the parallel port for another £23. So that's about £155, or $290, for a networked printer with low running costs - the toner cartridges are also cheap, at £21, the only ongoing expense is a drum every 150,000 pages, at about £119.

We have about 20+ Oki printers in the B4000 range (and it's predecessor, the 14ex). I usually pay about £131 for a B4250 from Dabs.com in the UK. This unit isn't networkable itself, but they also sell an own-brand print server that plugs straight into the parallel port for another £23. So that's about £155, or $290, for a networked printer with low running costs - the toner cartridges are also cheap, at £21, the only ongoing expense is a drum every 150,000 pages, at about £119.

We have about 20+ Oki printers in the B4000 range (and it's predecessor, the 14ex). I usually pay about £131 for a B4250 from Dabs.com in the UK. This unit isn't networkable itself, but they also sell an own-brand print server that plugs straight into the parallel port for another £23. So that's about £155, or $290, for a networked printer with low running costs - the toner cartridges are also cheap, at £21, the only ongoing expense is a drum every 150,000 pages, at about £119.

We have about 20+ Oki printers in the B4000 range (and it's predecessor, the 14ex). I usually pay about £131 for a B4250 from Dabs.com in the UK. This unit isn't networkable itself, but they also sell an own-brand print server that plugs straight into the parallel port for another £23. So that's about £155, or $290, for a networked printer with low running costs - the toner cartridges are also cheap, at £21, the only ongoing expense is a drum every 150,000 pages, at about £119.

• Outlook 2003 - £74.74
• Excel 2003 - £153.77
• Word 2003 - £166.47
  
  
• Office 2003 SBE - £334.87

• Outlook 2003 - £74.74
• Excel 2003 - £153.77
• Word 2003 - £166.47
  
  
• Office 2003 SBE - £334.87

• Outlook 2003 - £74.74
• Excel 2003 - £153.77
• Word 2003 - £166.47
  
  
• Office 2003 SBE - £334.87

• Outlook 2003 - £74.74
• Excel 2003 - £153.77
• Word 2003 - £166.47
  
  
• Office 2003 SBE - £334.87

> You are smoking crack. In the UK, an OEM copy of XP Home runs $70-80.

You're the crack smoker Mr AC. I just bought a copy of XP Home OEM from Dabs and it set me back 70 sovs not bucks.

I just built a PC for myself (admittedly, somewhat midrange: AMD 3200+) and the cost of the OS(es) was a paltry 13% of the total.

Obviously, with a very low end "PC" then the cost of the OS is going to represent a greater proportion of the cost and customers are going to appreciate a 70 quid saving.

My money is on Google doing this (if not Google, then somebody else). If you do it right, you can cut off Microsofts oxygen supply :)

A £150 PC with Google OS v a £220 PC with Windows.

That would go to the former (unless MS dropped the price of their software...ouch!)

I don't think anybody has speculated on the Google PC being diskless (so I will).

Why not? Flash RAM for the OS to reside in and you keep all your "local" stuff at Google.

Flash RAM is getting cheaper by the day and it would also have the desirable effect of immunising your PC against malware.

Google will have then stripped out the hard drive and killed the malware. That on top of a free OS would surely be the death knell to MS in the home user market place.

That much maligned thing, the "Network Computer" is back; and it's here to stay.

Just like calling everything "Ethernet", even though it's now completely different in every way from the original.

not sure i'd agree with that comment about ethernet.

ethernet still uses 48 bit mac addresses to address hosts, still has a MTU of 1500, still relies on the idea of using broadcasts to find a host with a particular higher level identifier (machine name for netbeui, ip address for tcp/ip etc).

you can still hook up an old or propietry machine (where it is not possible to simply insert a modern pci or isa card) to a modern ethernet lan without too much difficulty. If it has an AUI port you can buy a 10baseT tranciver and if it has 10base2 you can get hold of hubs with a 10base2 port as well as the 10baseT ports. Once you've connected over to 10baseT you can just plug that straight into your modern network with no trouble.

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=6W5 &SearchType=1&CategorySelectedId=11030&SearchTerms =Transceiver&PageMode=3&SearchKey=All&SearchMode=A ll&NavigationKey=11030
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=3P1 J&CategorySelectedId=11176&PageMode=1&NavigationKe y=11176,4294958628

Just like calling everything "Ethernet", even though it's now completely different in every way from the original.

not sure i'd agree with that comment about ethernet.

ethernet still uses 48 bit mac addresses to address hosts, still has a MTU of 1500, still relies on the idea of using broadcasts to find a host with a particular higher level identifier (machine name for netbeui, ip address for tcp/ip etc).

you can still hook up an old or propietry machine (where it is not possible to simply insert a modern pci or isa card) to a modern ethernet lan without too much difficulty. If it has an AUI port you can buy a 10baseT tranciver and if it has 10base2 you can get hold of hubs with a 10base2 port as well as the 10baseT ports. Once you've connected over to 10baseT you can just plug that straight into your modern network with no trouble.

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=6W5 &SearchType=1&CategorySelectedId=11030&SearchTerms =Transceiver&PageMode=3&SearchKey=All&SearchMode=A ll&NavigationKey=11030
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=3P1 J&CategorySelectedId=11176&PageMode=1&NavigationKe y=11176,4294958628

Go get 'er tiger. 2048 x 1536 @ 85 Hz. 250 quid bargain

Retail for £100? Where do you shop?

£31 incl VAT http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html ?rb=9692418883&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3 &product_uid=53163

£32 incl VAT
http://www.dabs.com/uk/channels/hardware/networkin g/productView.htm?quicklinx=36Y2

£28 incl VAT
http://www.macwarehouse.co.uk/catalogue/item/DLWL5 14?speedtrapid=mwfroogle&lead=mwfroogle

Yep, I always use dabs too. They had a brief period a couple of years ago when their delivery times stunk for a while, but they seem to be back to next-working-day again.

In fact, my new DVD drive (http://www.dabs.com/uk/productView.htm?quicklinx= 33S3) which I ordered on Friday arrived this morning. Looking forward to getting home and plugging this baby in.

I've had good experiences with Morgan Computers who have a good range of refurbished and new stuff, and with Dabs.

I've used Ebuyer, and Dabs also have been very good for availability and price.

cherry still make high quality basic keyboards at fairly reasonable prices.

http://www.dabs.com/uk/Search2/Product+Details.htm ?quicklinx=G5G&searchphrase=cherry

note: it seems that in the uk cherry sell british layout keyboards but the pictures on the box show a german keyboard!

Look here.

We use these all the time at work (a UK high school) for use with the interactive whiteboards. Very cool devices, good range, the 3D use takes a bit of getting used too and works well - but the teachers can always use the pens on the whiteboard.

The mice charge up in a cradle and the keyboards take 4xAAA (or AA?) batteries that last for months.

Dead easy to setup too... No drivers needed so I'm pretty sure Linux support should work (haven't had a chance to sneak a set off-site yet and try it ;). Just plug the reciever into a USB port, plonk it in plain view, get the keyboard and mice talking to each other by pushing a few buttons and you're off.

£80 for keyboard+mouse from Dabs. Nice piece of kit, no doubt about it.

Interesting. I just found GyroRemote Air Presenter for sale in a UK web store (at a ripoff price). Is there a difference?

I'm amazed at the number of people who point to battery-changing as a drawback of wireless mice. You can get them with chargers now.

Anyone have motherboard recommendations? Here's a few I've seen:

MSI K8T MASTER2-FAR - cheap as chips, but no PCI-X. Anything else it's missing? Someone I spoke to mentioned it lacks NUMA support; is that going to be important when looking at dual core chips next year, or am I likely to want to buy a new motherboard by then anyway?

Gigabyte GA-7A8DW+ - Also relatively cheap. Has a couple of PCI-X and a PCI/33 slot; bit anemic in this area, but has 4x SATA (good for my planned RAID-10 array), and actually has the nifty AMD64 heatsink mounting mechanism.

But then there's this Tyan Thunder K8W and similarly priced/specced friends; where's the AMD64 mounting system gone again? The layout of the board suggests seperate memory interfaces per CPU, which I guess will be important for dual core, but by then I'll probably also want PCI-Express and such too, so..

Suggestions? Plan is to run FreeBSD on it. Oh, a case would be good too.. am I going to need something special for EATX? Anyone spotted a tower case with 4x hot-swap SATA bays? ;)