» A Custom PC Specification from 2001 «

Intro

Custom PC - Building the perfect system... (2001)
This page is dedicated to building the best computer system possible. It is based on the hardware I'm playing around with at the moment, or that I'd used for years and wholly respect. Incidentally, to qualify my judgements, I owned a computer consultancy for a number of years and was an authorised reseller for a number of manufacturers including: AMD, APC, Apple, Compaq, Creative (C.A.P.), Epson, Hewlett Packard, Intel (I.P.I.), Mitsubishi, and Panasonic

Custom PC - Building the perfect system... (2001)

This page is dedicated to building the best computer system possible. It is based on the hardware I'm playing around with at the moment, or that I'd used for years and wholly respect. Incidentally, to qualify my judgements, I owned a computer consultancy for a number of years and was an authorised reseller for a number of manufacturers including:

AMD, APC, Apple, Compaq, Creative (C.A.P.), Epson, Hewlett Packard, Intel (I.P.I.), Mitsubishi, and Panasonic

COMPONENT INDEX
-	Case	CD-ROM	CD-Writer	Chips	Digital camera	DVD	Hard Drive	Joystick	Keyboard
Memory	Modem	Monitor	Motherboards	Mouse	MPEG2	Network card	Printers	Scanners	SCSI controllers
Soundcard	Speakers	Storage	UPS	Video card	The Rest!	.	.	.	.

COMMENTS - RECOMMENDATIONS - LINKS
[Δ] CD-ROM: Plextor 40 Max Personally, unless you have a good reason I would'nt bother any more, get a DVD and have done! Failing that, get the Plextor 40 Max Yamaha, Teac, Creative CD-ROM are good too, but I'd go with the Plextor. One thing to bear in mind with CD-ROMS is that the faster they spin, the more likely a badly pressed CD-ROM is going to be unreadable or unbearably noise. I have a copy of the game Baldurs Gate on 5 disks - on a 32x Plextor it sounds like I'll trying to vacuum clean the room, the same disks on a 20x (DVD) are fine.
[Δ] CD-WRITER: Plextor PX-W1610TA 16x writer An alternative? Nah! Plextors, with their BURN-Proof™ Technology are as good as it gets.
[Δ] DVD-ROM: Creative Labs 12x DVD Hitachi & Panasonic are good alternatives, but the Creative comes with a nice bundle, including the DXr3 mpeg decoder
[Δ] SPEAKERS: Creative Labs DeskTop Theatre ™ 5.1 DTT3500 Digital Personally I think they look ugly, but they sound great. I happen to like the old Labtec LCS-3210 myself. They are crystal clear even at the lowest settings and remain distortion free well into the high volume range. Anyway, speakers are a really tricky thing to recommend as it depends of the positioning, the size of the room, the materials the rooms is make of, objects within the room, the listeners hearing... All I can say is that cheap speakers are just that, cheap! Looking elsewhere then ? Synonymous with music and a long time favourite company of mine, their TSS1W is a true 5.1 Surround Sound System with built-in Dolby Digital and DTS Decoder. Look for a stockist to test a set. have a massive range of high quality speakers. Look over the specs and go find a stockist to listen. I've not listened to these myself, but their top of the line APX-5820 sound overkill For a stereo headset and boom microphone look no further than the Labtec LVA8550.
[Δ] TOWER CASE: The SC750 tower case is one of the finest cases I've ever seen, though a big noisy. Chenbro and Song Cher do nice cases too.
[Δ] VIDEO CARD: Get the - if you can run to it ! Personally, apart from the odd spell on Baldurs Gate or, more likely CorelDraw, I rarely do graphically intense work, but from the reviews I've read and watched, I like the sound of that monster. The second place, naturally, goes to Nvidia's Geoforce2 GTS, with the Radeon coming a very close third. Matrox, sadly, never left the stables and the Voodoo's are consigned to a well deserved footnote in history.
[Δ] SOUNDCARD: Soundblaster Live! or splash out on the SBLive! Platinum range for their added gadgits. Good alternatives are: None I can name - these really rock! Since I first wrote this, the Live! 1024 has been released - offering more voices for a third the price I paid for mine. There can be no other!
[Δ] MONITORS: Mitsubishi Diamondtron Pro 2045u NF or 2060u NF What most people don't realise, or think about, is that the monitor is actually the most important element of the computer. You are staring at it for several hours a day, from a distance of around 30". Any weakness in the monitor will, I guarantee, reflect over time in your failing eyesight and more frequent headaches. This isn't the place to go into the health and safety aspects (Eiza used to like doing scare stories on monitor concerns) but suffice to say that getting anything less than a 17" monitor is silly given the low prices of today and you truly should get the best model you can. Remember, it's about the only part of the computer that retains it's value and that a good monitor will last five, even ten years - and you only get one set of eyes! Iiyama are very good too, but I personally like Mitsubishi.
[Δ] MPEG2 CARDS: MPEG decoder Realmagic are the grandfathers of the biz, but as most new systems are blisteringly fast even at the low end and all decent video have excellent MPEG2 support, these cards are getting long in the tooth. If you like having a dedicated decoder, then your best options are the : RealMagic Hollywood Plus card or the Creative Labs DxR3 MPEG2 Incidentally, the latter is supplied with the Creative Labs DVD bundle.
[Δ] 3D ACCELERATORS Part and parcel of the current range of video cards. As a secondary video video, this section is relegated to history !
[Δ] MOTHERBOARDS: This is my personally opinion, but many will no-doubt have different views. I like AMD, used to be a reseller for them too, but I prefer Intel PIII's. I'm reserving my views on the P4's as everything I've heard to date, bar the plummetting prices, has been less than perfect... All the above are high quality, with my preference being towards ABIT. I've left Supermicro out on purpose! After the monitor this is absolutely most important part of the system; it's what glues everything together, it determines how far you can upgrade or push your PC and how reliable it is. Not withstanding component failure (I've known batches with up to 90% failure rates!) the quality and design of a board can make a genuine difference of as much as 15% overall speed given any one set of parts (processor, memory, video card). ABIT SE6 I swear by Abit boards myself ASUS - - CUSL2 Solano 2. Well worth the extra few dollars, believe me ! GIGABYTE are well respected SOLTEK Their boards are low priced, but very fast. TYAN - - Tomcat i815e (S2060) Tyan's are expensive, and they are worth it. For the low down on all boards see MOTHERBOARDS.ORG
[Δ] PROCESSORS & CHIPSETS: This is my personally opinion, but many will no-doubt have different views. I like AMD, used to be a reseller for them too, but I prefer Intel PIII's. I'm reserving my views on the P4's as everything I've heard to date, bar the plummetting prices, has been less than perfect... Doesn't it go fast! The Pentium III 733Mhz is now bottom of the range, with the 866Mhz as standard, with Intel giving about the P4 1.7Ghz at garage sale prices. Selling around £44 (ex vat) the Celeron 600Mhz makes a mockery of the prices of years gone by. Ah, competition and volume, what a mix. Incidentally, the Merced, whenever it turns up, I am consigning to the trash can of innovation and I won't be touching with a proverbial barge pole. My feeling is that it will be another Pentium 60. Remember those? Higher end 486's where actually better but it was the "new generation." It was thingy waving, a case of "Hey look at this" and muttering out the side of the mouth "Quick, roll out the Pentium 90 and HX boards before they do look!" On a cooler level - cpu fan to be precise - make sure you get the IPI boxed chip for the kosher Intel fan. If you must get a bulk or grey import processor, then at least make sure you get the best brand of fan you can - reputable companies like CoolerMaster. As for which to buy? I'd get a PIII 1GHz, but be cautious about anything faster at present (April 2001). If you like AMD, get the 1.3Ghz Thunderbird. MicroDirect in the UK are a good place to look for current prices as, but to the volumes they sell, their retail prices are close to trade.
[Δ] MEMORY: PC133 128Mb SDRAM as a bare minimum. I would'nt have less than 256Mb. Micron if you can afford it. Panasonic is nice. Samsung's good for the price. Rambus memory is necessary for the P4's, but as I don't recommend P4's...
[Δ] STORAGE: Back-up storage. Use a CD-R! Alternatives include DAT, ZIP and JAZ
[Δ] UPS: Be afraid, be very afraid If you haven't got a decent surge protector, get one today! Even a £12 one is better than nothing, but for peace of mind, something like a 700va APC or Exide can be classed as an investment. All those scare stories about brown-outs, surges etc..? They are real, they happen, they can fry a computer! I can't believed I forgot this section originally! It's one of those things I take for granted - like breathing - and I tend to forget. Amazingly most computer dealers and VAR's don't sell or advice about these. I've seen data lost, motherboards fried, SDRAM chips that had actually caught fire, even Fortronics (credit card machines) with the flash bios erased, all due to power surges etc. It's not just the big stuff like outages at the power station and lightning storms - turning photocopies on and off cause massive voltage fluctuations. This story is true. At one site, every time a laser printer or photocopier was turned on the File Server went down! When I asked about it, I was told, "Oh, we do do daily backups, just in case." (They'd been using the same 3 tapes for as many years!). Anyway, I strongly advised they consider hiring a network manager and installed a UPS - which run it's start-up diagnostics - and shut down - the input voltage was so low it refused to run. In the end, an electrician had to have the building rewired to upgrade and distribute the power supply. Good options include : APC - - BackUPS Pro 650Si PNP PChute (Typical backup time at half load 13.9 minutes ) Belkin - - Regulator Pro 625VA UPS CEW 60,000 (with up to 41 minutes of backup time ) Liebert PowerSure Interactive UPS 700VA
[Δ] HARDDRIVE: Get UDMA-100 drives at 7,200rpm with 2Mb cache or better. I can hardly believe that hard drive are up to 75Gb or more; 180Gb in the case of Ultra160 SCSI's. 180,000Mb!!! Scary. 5Mb was like £1,000 way back when... The SCSI Ultra160's are nice, really nice, but all things being equal, there are but two main options, bar an even larger capacity drive from the same folk. These are : IBM Deskstar 75GXP (46.1GB, 7200 RPM, 2Mb Cache, 8.5ms avg) Quantum (40Gb, 7,200 rpm 4Mb cache, 6.3ms avg) Accept no less.
[Δ] SCSI CONTROLLERS: I've never known a problem with Advansys cards and Mylex are tasty, but I prefer to stick with Adaptec if for no other reason than the level industry support they have. There are, of course, a number of motherboards with Ultra2 on-board (and sound and 10/100...) which brings the relative cost down, but I prefer separate cards for portability. Adaptec 2940 Ultra (Ultra2Wide) as a basic starting point, or ideally the 29160N Ultra160 (Ultra3) which is largely replacing it, especially for hard drives. Or you could wait for Ultra320 to enter the mainstream. Adaptec Ultra3 Press release - Sept 14th 1998 TechWeb on Ultra3 News release 14.9.98 Geek News on Ultra3 Newsbyte 21.9.98 Ultra320 is emerging
[Δ] MODEMS: Buying today? - Hayes, ah no, gone to the wall. Pace? ditto, which is a crying shame, so it's either - Diamond or 3Com, or any unbranded thing and wait for adsl / cable modems to be available in your area. Can you you already get broadband internet ? If so, it's a no-brainer. Gets ADSl, or as a last resort, cable modem The models are, to a large point, academic as these tend to be dictated to by your ISP / telephone carrier. As a matter of course though, I keep a 56k modem plugged in for whenever the ADSL line falls over, and for sending faxes.
[Δ] Network Card: On the budget front I really like Pine, but for quality it has to be 3Com. Far too many variables to go into details here - Coax, Utp 10/100/100 - number of users - server or peer to peer - NOS - protocols - etc etc. If you need to ask, you need a consultant!
[Δ] KEYBOARD: Keytronic USA have a wide selection in their range, but I like the KT2001 sold in Europe myself. Keyboards really are a personal thing. The old IBM's from the XT and early AT's were truly awesome and I've never seen there like since. Many folk swear by Cherry and Fujitsu. I used to like Chicony and I had a gorgeous keyboard once - some unbranded thing from Taiwan that gave me years of touch typing, until the wife trashed it playing the old classic Llamatron. She ripped through the levels and burned out the board. C'est la vie. Other keyboards from Keytronic include Infra Red, trackball, lifetime guarantees on selected products (now that's confidence, eh), card readers and even biometrics like fingerprint readers.
[Δ] MOUSE: It's got to be a MS Intellimouse Optical for my money. IBM, Genius and Logitech are good too. Like keyboards, another touch me, feel me thing. Try 'em & see.
[Δ] JOYSTICK / JOYPAD: Joysticks. MS Force FeedBack Bit of a sore point this, me being left handed! Logitech used to sell a nice one, but that was a long time ago. From a 'returns' point of view I personally would only recommend MS joysticks and pads but I know Logitech and CH Products are very good too. As I'm not into Flight Sims I've managed nearly 15 years without one and am frankly past caring anymore. Let's face it (are you listening MS...) joysticks are for faster reaction times which is wasted trying a moulded grip in the wrong hand. Fellow Southpaws may like to take a look at: Left handed joystick and The Left Hand
[Δ] SCANNER: Blackwidow or Epson scanner for my money, or else any old budget model. Epson Perfection 1640SU Photo - supplied as standard with a 4x5" Transparency unit and slide holders Black Widow 1248 Pro+ Scanner extremely good value at £139 (ex vat). Includes 3-D scan capability and an additional transparency option. Scans Transparencies, Negatives, Slides, and Films. Templates Allow Different Transparencies Scanning. Scans to a maximum transparency size of 4" x 5" ! The HP Scanjet range Mustek are decent enough Black Widow also sell dedicated negative (film) scanners If you are on a budget (or just need the odd scan - in which case you would be as well using a friends and saving valuable desk space!) then any flatebed scanner should be adequate. As a point of interest I've seen (trade) prices of under £30 for A4 flatbeds and under £100 for A3 - my first scanner cost me nearly £800!
[Δ] PRINTERS: Epson Stylus Color 880 or the Stylus Photo 2000P A3+ 6 Colour Inkjet for primarily glossy work. Epson Stylus Color 1160 or the Hewlett Packard HP1125c, both of which supports up to A3 for colour. Has to be the Hewlett Packard HP4100 laser for mono Good alternatives are: If you need a better alternative then you already know what you have or you need to speak to a specialist. I can offer subjective advice if you need it - drop it on an email.
[Δ] DIGITAL CAMERAS: Epson PhotoPC Digital camera - or perhaps a Nikon for Sir? If you have the money - and the need - look into Nikon and their Nikon Coolpix 995 The SERIOUS photographer, or Lotto winner will however drool over the Nikon D1H. I'm not going to list all the specs, but basically it supports at the current AF Nikkor and Nikon lenses and accessories, several frames per second and up to A3 pictures. Get the pdf and prepare for be dazzled !. I'll put a full list of vendors in later, for now, consider... Muskek Kodak Epson
[Δ] THE REST Plotters - CAD and Design HP Designjet colorpro cad (circa $1,200 US) (8.5" x 11" to 13" x 19" ) HP Designjet 800 series (circa $5,000 US) (24" to 42") HP Designjet 5000 series (circa $9,000-19,000 US) (42" to 60") EPSON Stylus Pro 7000 (1440 dpi resolution, 6 colour, printing up to 24" ) Though to the awesome EPSON Color Proofer 9500 (1440 dpi resolution, 6 colour Fiery enhanced, printing up to 44" or B0+ )
Plotters (Cutting, for Signwriters) Roland Signwriting vendors and suppliers: Encad Summa Graphtec Gerber Roland Spandex Useful links: Sign Update (Magazine) (UK) Sign makers suppliers list Signmaking Directory Cadlink - Signlab Flexisign Pro
Digitizers - professional Cherry... It's been 10 years since I did any serious CAD - can anyone offer up to date advice?
Digitizers - budget range and tablets Waicom or Genius are good value
Midi Haven't the faintest idea, but the musicians I've talked to, not surprisingly, say Roland or Yamaha. I'll put links in for the budget end of things though...
Digital video recorders Haven't the faintest idea - anyone offer more expert advice?
MPEG encoders Another field out of my league, but from what I've read and seen the Miro DC10 and DC30 are (were?) about the best in the price ranges - can anyone offer more expert advice?

COMMENTS - RECOMMENDATIONS - LINKS

[Δ]

CD-ROM:

Plextor 40 Max

Personally, unless you have a good reason I would'nt bother any more, get a DVD and have done! Failing that, get the Plextor 40 Max

Yamaha, Teac, Creative CD-ROM are good too, but I'd go with the Plextor.

One thing to bear in mind with CD-ROMS is that the faster they spin, the more likely a badly pressed CD-ROM is going to be unreadable or unbearably noise. I have a copy of the game Baldurs Gate on 5 disks - on a 32x Plextor it sounds like I'll trying to vacuum clean the room, the same disks on a 20x (DVD) are fine.

[Δ]

CD-WRITER:

Plextor Plextor PX-W1610TA 16x writer

An alternative? Nah! Plextors, with their BURN-Proof™ Technology are as good as it gets.

[Δ]

DVD-ROM:

Creative Labs DVD-ROM Creative Labs 12x DVD

Hitachi & Panasonic are good alternatives, but the Creative comes with a nice bundle, including the DXr3 mpeg decoder

[Δ]

SPEAKERS:

Creative Labs Speakers Creative Labs DeskTop Theatre ™ 5.1 DTT3500 Digital

Personally I think they look ugly, but they sound great.

I happen to like the old Labtec LCS-3210 myself. They are crystal clear even at the lowest settings and remain distortion free well into the high volume range. Anyway, speakers are a really tricky thing to recommend as it depends of the positioning, the size of the room, the materials the rooms is make of, objects within the room, the listeners hearing...
All I can say is that cheap speakers are just that, cheap!

Looking elsewhere then ?

Synonymous with music and a long time favourite company of mine, their TSS1W is a true 5.1 Surround Sound System with built-in Dolby Digital and DTS Decoder. Look for a stockist to test a set.

have a massive range of high quality speakers. Look over the specs and go find a stockist to listen.

I've not listened to these myself, but their top of the line APX-5820 sound overkill

For a stereo headset and boom microphone look no further than the Labtec LVA8550.

[Δ]

TOWER CASE:

The SC750 tower case is one of the finest cases I've ever seen, though a big noisy.

Chenbro and Song Cher do nice cases too.

[Δ]

VIDEO CARD:

Get the - if you can run to it !

Personally, apart from the odd spell on Baldurs Gate or, more likely CorelDraw, I rarely do graphically intense work, but from the reviews I've read and watched, I like the sound of that monster.

The second place, naturally, goes to Nvidia's Geoforce2 GTS, with the Radeon coming a very close third. Matrox, sadly, never left the stables and the Voodoo's are consigned to a well deserved footnote in history.

[Δ]

SOUNDCARD:

Soundblaster Live! or splash out on the SBLive! Platinum range for their added gadgits.

Good alternatives are: None I can name - these really rock!

Since I first wrote this, the Live! 1024 has been released - offering more voices for a third the price I paid for mine.
There can be no other!

[Δ]

MONITORS:

Mitsubishi Diamondtron Pro 2045u NF or 2060u NF

What most people don't realise, or think about, is that the monitor is actually the most important element of the computer. You are staring at it for several hours a day, from a distance of around 30". Any weakness in the monitor will, I guarantee, reflect over time in your failing eyesight and more frequent headaches.

This isn't the place to go into the health and safety aspects (Eiza used to like doing scare stories on monitor concerns) but suffice to say that getting anything less than a 17" monitor is silly given the low prices of today and you truly should get the best model you can. Remember, it's about the only part of the computer that retains it's value and that a good monitor will last five, even ten years - and you only get one set of eyes!

Iiyama are very good too, but I personally like Mitsubishi.

[Δ]

MPEG2 CARDS:

MPEG decoder

Realmagic are the grandfathers of the biz, but as most new systems are blisteringly fast even at the low end and all decent video have excellent MPEG2 support, these cards are getting long in the tooth.

If you like having a dedicated decoder, then your best options are the :

RealMagic Hollywood Plus card or the
Creative Labs DxR3 MPEG2

Incidentally, the latter is supplied with the Creative Labs DVD bundle.

[Δ]

3D ACCELERATORS

Part and parcel of the current range of video cards. As a secondary video video, this section is relegated to history !

[Δ]

MOTHERBOARDS:

Abit SE6 shown

This is my personally opinion, but many will no-doubt have different views. I like AMD, used to be a reseller for them too, but I prefer Intel PIII's. I'm reserving my views on the P4's as everything I've heard to date, bar the plummetting prices, has been less than perfect...

All the above are high quality, with my preference being towards ABIT. I've left Supermicro out on purpose! After the monitor this is absolutely most important part of the system; it's what glues everything together, it determines how far you can upgrade or push your PC and how reliable it is. Not withstanding component failure (I've known batches with up to 90% failure rates!) the quality and design of a board can make a genuine difference of as much as 15% overall speed given any one set of parts (processor, memory, video card).

ABIT SE6 I swear by Abit boards myself

ASUS - - CUSL2 Solano 2. Well worth the extra few dollars, believe me !

GIGABYTE are well respected

SOLTEK Their boards are low priced, but very fast.

TYAN - - Tomcat i815e (S2060) Tyan's are expensive, and they are worth it.

For the low down on all boards see MOTHERBOARDS.ORG

[Δ]

PROCESSORS & CHIPSETS:

PIII logo This is my personally opinion, but many will no-doubt have different views. I like AMD, used to be a reseller for them too, but I prefer Intel PIII's. I'm reserving my views on the P4's as everything I've heard to date, bar the plummetting prices, has been less than perfect...

Doesn't it go fast! The Pentium III 733Mhz is now bottom of the range, with the 866Mhz as standard, with Intel giving about the P4 1.7Ghz at garage sale prices. Selling around £44 (ex vat) the Celeron 600Mhz makes a mockery of the prices of years gone by. Ah, competition and volume, what a mix.

Incidentally, the Merced, whenever it turns up, I am consigning to the trash can of innovation and I won't be touching with a proverbial barge pole. My feeling is that it will be another Pentium 60. Remember those? Higher end 486's where actually better but it was the "new generation." It was thingy waving, a case of "Hey look at this" and muttering out the side of the mouth "Quick, roll out the Pentium 90 and HX boards before they do look!"

On a cooler level - cpu fan to be precise - make sure you get the IPI boxed chip for the kosher Intel fan. If you must get a bulk or grey import processor, then at least make sure you get the best brand of fan you can - reputable companies like CoolerMaster.

As for which to buy? I'd get a PIII 1GHz, but be cautious about anything faster at present (April 2001). If you like AMD, get the 1.3Ghz Thunderbird. MicroDirect in the UK are a good place to look for current prices as, but to the volumes they sell, their retail prices are close to trade.

[Δ]

MEMORY:

PC133 128Mb SDRAM as a bare minimum. I would'nt have less than 256Mb. Micron if you can afford it. Panasonic is nice. Samsung's good for the price. Rambus memory is necessary for the P4's, but as I don't recommend P4's...

[Δ]

STORAGE:

Data cartridge

Back-up storage. Use a CD-R!
Alternatives include DAT, ZIP and JAZ

[Δ]

UPS:

Liebert UPS shown Shocked

Be afraid, be very afraid
If you haven't got a decent surge protector, get one today! Even a £12 one is better than nothing, but for peace of mind, something like a 700va APC or Exide can be classed as an investment. All those scare stories about brown-outs, surges etc..? They are real, they happen, they can fry a computer! I can't believed I forgot this section originally! It's one of those things I take for granted - like breathing - and I tend to forget. Amazingly most computer dealers and VAR's don't sell or advice about these.

I've seen data lost, motherboards fried, SDRAM chips that had actually caught fire, even Fortronics (credit card machines) with the flash bios erased, all due to power surges etc. It's not just the big stuff like outages at the power station and lightning storms - turning photocopies on and off cause massive voltage fluctuations.

This story is true. At one site, every time a laser printer or photocopier was turned on the File Server went down! When I asked about it, I was told, "Oh, we do do daily backups, just in case." (They'd been using the same 3 tapes for as many years!). Anyway, I strongly advised they consider hiring a network manager and installed a UPS - which run it's start-up diagnostics - and shut down - the input voltage was so low it refused to run. In the end, an electrician had to have the building rewired to upgrade and distribute the power supply. Good options include :

APC - - BackUPS Pro 650Si PNP PChute (Typical backup time at half load 13.9 minutes )

Belkin - - Regulator Pro 625VA UPS CEW 60,000 (with up to 41 minutes of backup time )

Liebert PowerSure Interactive UPS 700VA

[Δ]

HARDDRIVE:

Get UDMA-100 drives at 7,200rpm with 2Mb cache or better. I can hardly believe that hard drive are up to 75Gb or more; 180Gb in the case of Ultra160 SCSI's. 180,000Mb!!! Scary. 5Mb was like £1,000 way back when...

The SCSI Ultra160's are nice, really nice, but all things being equal, there are but two main options, bar an even larger capacity drive from the same folk.
These are :

IBM Deskstar 75GXP (46.1GB, 7200 RPM, 2Mb Cache, 8.5ms avg)

Quantum (40Gb, 7,200 rpm 4Mb cache, 6.3ms avg)

Accept no less.

[Δ]

SCSI CONTROLLERS:

I've never known a problem with Advansys cards and Mylex are tasty, but I prefer to stick with Adaptec if for no other reason than the level industry support they have.

There are, of course, a number of motherboards with Ultra2 on-board (and sound and 10/100...) which brings the relative cost down, but I prefer separate cards for portability.

Adaptec 2940 Ultra (Ultra2Wide) as a basic starting point, or ideally the 29160N Ultra160 (Ultra3) which is largely replacing it, especially for hard drives. Or you could wait for Ultra320 to enter the mainstream.

Adaptec Ultra3 Press release - Sept 14th 1998

TechWeb on Ultra3 News release 14.9.98

Geek News on Ultra3 Newsbyte 21.9.98

Ultra320 is emerging

[Δ]

MODEMS:

Askey ADSL modem shown Buying today? - Hayes, ah no, gone to the wall. Pace? ditto, which is a crying shame, so it's either - Diamond or 3Com, or any unbranded thing and wait for adsl / cable modems to be available in your area.

Can you you already get broadband internet ? If so, it's a no-brainer. Gets ADSl, or as a last resort, cable modem
The models are, to a large point, academic as these tend to be dictated to by your ISP / telephone carrier.

As a matter of course though, I keep a 56k modem plugged in for whenever the ADSL line falls over, and for sending faxes.

[Δ]

Network Card:

Network cards
On the budget front I really like Pine, but for quality it has to be 3Com.

Far too many variables to go into details here - Coax, Utp 10/100/100 - number of users - server or peer to peer - NOS - protocols - etc etc. If you need to ask, you need a consultant!

[Δ]

KEYBOARD:

Keytronic USA have a wide selection in their range, but I like the KT2001 sold in Europe myself.

Keyboards really are a personal thing. The old IBM's from the XT and early AT's were truly awesome and I've never seen there like since. Many folk swear by Cherry and Fujitsu. I used to like Chicony and I had a gorgeous keyboard once - some unbranded thing from Taiwan that gave me years of touch typing, until the wife trashed it playing the old classic Llamatron. She ripped through the levels and burned out the board. C'est la vie.

Other keyboards from Keytronic include Infra Red, trackball, lifetime guarantees on selected products (now that's confidence, eh), card readers and even biometrics like fingerprint readers.

[Δ]

MOUSE:

MS Optical Intellimouse

It's got to be a MS Intellimouse Optical for my money. IBM, Genius and Logitech are good too.
Like keyboards, another touch me, feel me thing. Try 'em & see.

[Δ]

JOYSTICK / JOYPAD:

Joysticks. MS Force FeedBack

Bit of a sore point this, me being left handed! Logitech used to sell a nice one, but that was a long time ago.

From a 'returns' point of view I personally would only recommend MS joysticks and pads but I know Logitech and CH Products are very good too. As I'm not into Flight Sims I've managed nearly 15 years without one and am frankly past caring anymore. Let's face it (are you listening MS...) joysticks are for faster reaction times which is wasted trying a moulded grip in the wrong hand.

Fellow Southpaws may like to take a look at: Left handed joystick and The Left Hand

[Δ]

SCANNER:

Blackwidow or Epson scanner for my money, or else any old budget model.

Epson Perfection 1640SU Photo - supplied as standard with a 4x5" Transparency unit and slide holders

Black Widow 1248 Pro+ Scanner extremely good value at £139 (ex vat).
Includes 3-D scan capability and an additional transparency option. Scans Transparencies, Negatives, Slides, and Films. Templates Allow Different Transparencies Scanning. Scans to a maximum transparency size of 4" x 5" !

The HP Scanjet range

Mustek are decent enough

Black Widow also sell dedicated negative (film) scanners

If you are on a budget (or just need the odd scan - in which case you would be as well using a friends and saving valuable desk space!) then any flatebed scanner should be adequate. As a point of interest I've seen (trade) prices of under £30 for A4 flatbeds and under £100 for A3 - my first scanner cost me nearly £800!

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PRINTERS:

Epson Stylus Color 880 or the Stylus Photo 2000P A3+ 6 Colour Inkjet for primarily glossy work.

Epson Stylus Color 1160 or the Hewlett Packard HP1125c, both of which supports up to A3 for colour.

Has to be the Hewlett Packard HP4100 laser for mono

Good alternatives are:

If you need a better alternative then you already know what you have or you need to speak to a specialist. I can offer subjective advice if you need it - drop it on an email.

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DIGITAL CAMERAS:

Epson PhotoPC Digital camera - or perhaps a Nikon for Sir?

If you have the money - and the need - look into Nikon and their Nikon Coolpix 995

The SERIOUS photographer, or Lotto winner will however drool over the Nikon D1H. I'm not going to list all the specs, but basically it supports at the current AF Nikkor and Nikon lenses and accessories, several frames per second and up to A3 pictures. Get the pdf and prepare for be dazzled !.

I'll put a full list of vendors in later, for now, consider...

Muskek
Kodak
Epson

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THE REST

Plotters - CAD and Design

HP Designjet colorpro cad (circa $1,200 US) (8.5" x 11" to 13" x 19" )

HP Designjet 800 series (circa $5,000 US) (24" to 42")

HP Designjet 5000 series (circa $9,000-19,000 US) (42" to 60")

EPSON Stylus Pro 7000 (1440 dpi resolution, 6 colour, printing up to 24" )

Though to the awesome

EPSON Color Proofer 9500 (1440 dpi resolution, 6 colour Fiery enhanced, printing up to 44" or B0+ )

Plotters (Cutting, for Signwriters)

Roland Signwriting vendors and suppliers:

Encad
Summa
Graphtec
Gerber
Roland
Spandex

Useful links:

Sign Update (Magazine)
(UK) Sign makers suppliers list
Signmaking Directory
Cadlink - Signlab
Flexisign Pro

Digitizers - professional
Cherry... It's been 10 years since I did any serious CAD - can anyone offer up to date advice?

Digitizers - budget range and tablets
Waicom or Genius are good value

Midi
Haven't the faintest idea, but the musicians I've talked to, not surprisingly, say Roland or Yamaha. I'll put links in for the budget end of things though...

Digital video recorders
Haven't the faintest idea - anyone offer more expert advice?

MPEG encoders
Another field out of my league, but from what I've read and seen the Miro DC10 and DC30 are (were?) about the best in the price ranges - can anyone offer more expert advice?