[discobay]

Sorry, it's me again. Usually past 8:30pm and if you're lucky 9:30pm.

[Laughing_Monkey]

Alright! Im going to go check them out. Ta

[JohanSWE]

i never really liked dell, i think they are high priced and ships with a lack of "extras". 3year warranty..well its good i guess, but seriosly i never built a computer myself that has broken...EVER! Beside even after 1-2 year its so outdated i would just throw it and buy new what ever it was that broke.
And upgrades, when it got warranty it got restrictions. break the seal and your warranty is void.

Monkey:
What level are you on in CGI and such?
If your not pro level just buy a mid range system untill you really can use the power of a real workstation.
Ie if all your gonna do is build low poly FMV seq around 20k polys then you could do that on a 1Ghz CPU and 512mb ram :P so shop what you really need dont go spend on what you dont need...like all gamer kids do and rookie 3D modelers

[JohanSWE]

Another option if your gonna do alot of heavy rendering is to do what i did.
Buy a laptop for modelling and animation, and go hunting for some 2nd hand p3 500Mhz-1Ghz with 128-256mb ram and a few gig HDD, and build a render farm.
Is alot better to spread out your cash on a less highend system that you can work on while your small render farm does all the hard work.
Instead of locking up all your hard earned cash in one ultra spec station thats gonna be locked up for 2h to a week while you render you seq.
i use a HP NX7000 to model and animate. i even do video FX on it without any problem.
Its kinda lowspec today
(CPU 1.4Ghz centrino, 1gb DDR 266 ram, 60Gb HDD +250gb externa USB, 64MB ATI9200)but its enough for most projects. Plus its widescreen with high resolution 1680x1050.

[discobay]

Originally Posted by JohanSWE

i never really liked dell, i think they are high priced and ships with a lack of "extras"... when it got warranty it got restrictions. break the seal and your warranty is void.

Not strictly true. They work out cheaper than building one yourself without the hassle. They also allow you to add your own cards and drives.

[JohanSWE]

Ahhh thnx for the info Disco.
Well they do have one object i like alot, the XPS Gen 2 laptop yummy :P
But i still think they are expencive, just the very base package is ok, but as soon as you add something you get riped off, i mean who on earth pays 300hkd for a 100mb network card, or 2300hkd for a 250gb SATA HDD and so on.

[discobay]

Not sure about the 250GB price but I got quoted $791 for a 160GB as an after sales add-on.

[Baron]

I saw an external 300GB HD at Wanchai for HK$1500.

[discobay]

Was that SATA Baron?

[HKFella]

Originally Posted by Laughing_Monkey

Hey HKfella,

I'm a little anxious about getting a comp. built in a little backstreet store/ or building it myself since i'm a bit out of touch with hardware - but i'd def rather have more input over the actual hardware that goes in. The fortress comps only have graphics accelleraters - not cards which is a no-go for my requirements - where in mongkok did u go and what guarentees can u get?

If you're still interested, my vendor was Dorman Consultants Ltd, Shop 320, Mongkok CC. Salesperson's English was more than adequate. He even had HKGolden webpage open for comparison pricing of components. Good experience too, and more than adequate English, from the technician at the lab-cum-collection centre 2 days later, in a nearby building. We examined each component against the list whereupon he'd place the original boxes, CDs, manuals and warranty cards in a separate box. Included testing, BB internet, etc. right in the labwhere they do their assembly. You can see others' kits being assembled. Fine. No gripes. Warranties more or less as stated by discobay. [correction: this was 5 mths ago, not 2 mentioned in my earlier post]