If you ever wanted to build a fast, cheap PC…

I stumbled upon a little gem whilst, unbeknownst to my good lady wife, I was sniffing out some powerful yet cheap hardware to power my next project.

Amongst other things, I like to build my own PC’s. Have done for many years. It’s great fun, but it sort of has a ‘dark’ side.

Well come on then, what ‘dark side’?

It’s actually the technology itself.

Unless you’re in ‘the trade’ and stay on top of all the latest advances in PC hardware and architecture, you only have to look away for 6-12 months and when you refocus your attention, the whole landscape has morphed.

Well that’s no surprise is it? Maybe not, but for the average PC builder who’s simply satisfying a personal desire to keep his hand in, it’s a substantial commitment to re-learn and re-assess every component each time.

Don’t get me wrong, it wouldn’t be any fun if nothing had changed, but it’s just frightening, the pace at which this stuff whizzes by.

To be honest, I find that by the time you’ve actually got the lid back on the case, it’s cost you substantially more than if you’d bought a whole unit off the shelf.

Why do it then?

Because apart from the satisfaction element, you get exactly what you want. It’s a lot of fun researching, planning, buying, assembling and testing your creation and it really ticks all the boxes you set out to tick.

You really do have to learn from scratch every time though. Just hang onto those basic principles that got you through the last time and you’ll do OK.

If you’re reading this as a home-build newbie, don’t let any of this talk put you off. Just spend 70% of your time doing the research and planning, 20% of your time shopping around to get your parts as cheaply as possible, 9% of your time assembling it and 468% of your time trying to get the ****ing thing to work properly.

The moral of this story? Always schedule a couple of weeks off work to catch up on the sleep you should have had when you were pouring over obscure PC hardware forums trying to resolve your BIOS setup conflicts.

Now, after my rambling, and rather like one of those frustrating but usually worthwhile Ronnie Corbett monologues, I can reveal something worth reading. The nugget of useful information I teased you with at the top of the show.

If you’re into this kind of thing, I’ve got a nice surprise for you. I’ve not even tried it yet, but it looks way too interesting to ignore and I feel duty-bound to pass it on.

A freebie. A way to buck the trend, to exploit a moment of weakness at Intel.

A budget CPU that, when overclocked (woah, woah come back!!) will embarrass the very top of the range silicon costing £700 or more.

£80. Yep, just £80. Read this, and then go visit Tom’s Hardware Guide. The place everyone like me goes when they’re contemplating a new build after a year out of the scene.

“There are still some situations in life that are guaranteed to put a grin on anyone’s face, even hard-boiled technical sceptics like us. This particular story borders on being a sensation unmatched in our last eight years of hardware reviews. The news, for those who just can’t stand the wait any more, is this: Intel has offered a budget Pentium as part of its processor line-up for a little while now. With a simple modification, however, this CPU can outperform every top-of-the-line processor around.” Â Source: THG

Go get it here:

http://tomshardware.co.uk/2006/05/10/dual_41_ghz_cores_uk/