Gadget Show Budget PC

Mundu · 23 Oct 2006 at 19:40

I'm watching this atm and they each have £500 to build the best PC they can. One person has to buy a ready built system and the other has to build there pc.

Does anyone else watching this think they could have done better because I haven't kept up to date with what's going on nowadays but I could get something close to my PC which I built a year ago which seems way better than what they got.

Well I've forgotton what spec their PCs were but they're testing them at the end so watch it!

fozzybear · 23 Oct 2006 at 19:56

What a surprise that the pre-build lost in all tests. It was getting under 10fps in GRAW. :eek:

It only proved what we already know though.

On a side note, iI think I love Suzi Perry.

CaneyJ · 23 Oct 2006 at 19:56

Retail annihilated as expected

Noni Juice · 23 Oct 2006 at 20:09

Lol, I dare you to build me a PC for £300 that is the same spec as the Dells.

Participant · 23 Oct 2006 at 20:12

They did ok for a complete system imo. The shop that Jason bought his PC from is the bee's knees!

They know the meaning of customer service unlike some other arrogant PC retailers I could mention that make me boil just to think about them.

nightwish · 23 Oct 2006 at 20:13

Meh... Lego is where it's at! I want! :cool:

FunkyCowie · 23 Oct 2006 at 20:41

uh... I didin`t see the show so I read a brief on the shows website...

First test was applying a Photoshop filter effect called 'chrome' to a photo of the two of them smiling - not that much smiling went on during this particular challenge. It was a short sprint test, but Jason's fast graphics card managed to complete the task a full second ahead of Suzi's.

Second test was more of a marathon, converting a broadcast quality video file of The Gadget Show into a smaller, web friendly clip that could be posted on the internet. After 9 minutes 12 seconds, Jason's PC had triumphed and Suzi was left waiting a further 3 minutes before her computer managed to do the same thing.

So despite Suzi's PC having twice the amount of Random Access Memory (RAM) as Jason's (1GB versus 512 MB), Jason's 256MB 7600GS PCI-E graphics card was paying dividends, and that would become evident in the third test.

Umm... slap me silly and call me stupid but don`t both those test rely on cpu power?

Mundu · 23 Oct 2006 at 20:48

The last test was Ghost Recon where the integrated graphics got pwned.

FunkyCowie · 23 Oct 2006 at 20:50

sure but the first two where it says the graphis card provided the necessary speed to beat the other one is a crock of ****

Mundu · 23 Oct 2006 at 21:05

FunkyCowie said:
sure but the first two where it says the graphis card provided the necessary speed to beat the other one is a crock of ****

On the show Jason even said the graphics card wasn't making a difference on the first 2 tests. Some people can't type me thinks.

nightwish · 23 Oct 2006 at 21:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah...

but what about the Lego!!!

"Lego claim that even if you've never seen them before you can build a Mindstorms robot in just 30 minutes. Jason tried that out and just managed it within the time. What he had created was a brand new talking, walking friend.

The brains of these robots are all packed neatly into an intelligent brick - the NXT. Inside there's 256k of flash memory, a bluetooth connection and on the side are lots of USB ports. This is the vital component that can make your Lego bricks come to life.

They robots cost £180 each and for that you get the Lego, the motors and the software to programme it - the only other thing you need is batteries.

Each one comes with four sensors - ultrasonic, touch, light and sound. They plug into the NXT brick and you can use them to control your robot - you just need to create some programming using Lego's icon based software.

These programmes can make your robots pick up drinks, walk, talk, fight and even dance to the sound of your voice.

It's damn clever and best of all some of the software is open source and all of it has been designed for hacking so you can play around the make your own version. So on one level it's a very simple route into robotics - but on another you can make it as complex and high-tech as you want."

OK, ok, I'll shut up about lego... for now!

Mundu · 23 Oct 2006 at 21:29

I wanted one until I saw the price.

I'll take a £10 bucket over that anyday.

Al Vallario · 23 Oct 2006 at 22:26

I was more than a little concerned about how little the presenters seemed to know about computer hardware — I hope they were just dumbing it down a bit for the general public.

The way Suzi went over the specifications of one of the computers checking off "half a gig of RAM... eighty gig hard drive... dual core processor" had me banging my head against a wall. We didn't even get told exactly what processor was in each machine, just that they were both dual core. I don't think monitors should have been included in the budget — someone could have skimped and bought a second-hand CRT and they wouldn't have had any disadvantage in the tests. Likewise, whilst Jason seemed to know what he was doing when building his system, he didn't exactly convey that with what he was saying. He made it seem as if the HSF was superfluous, the motherboard manual was useless, the cables just connected themselves etc.

The tests weren't particularly well designed either. The first two tests focused solely on processing power, and the outcome of the third was obvious considering Jason had a graphics card and Suzi didn't.

P.S. Jason claiming the difference between macs and mainstream systems was that you can't upgrade macs... I despair. Especially considering he owns a MacBook

*av

ps3ud0 · 23 Oct 2006 at 22:33

Al Vallario said:
I was more than a little concerned about how little the presenters seemed to know about computer hardware — I hope they were just dumbing it down a bit for the general public.

The way Suzi went over the specifications of one of the computers checking off "half a gig of RAM... eighty gig hard drive... dual core processor" had me banging my head against a wall. We didn't even get told exactly what processor was in each machine, just that they were both dual core. I don't think monitors should have been included in the budget — someone could have skimped and bought a second-hand CRT and they wouldn't have had any disadvantage in the tests. Likewise, whilst Jason seemed to know what he was doing when building his system, he didn't exactly convey that with what he was saying. He made it seem as if the HSF was superfluous, the motherboard manual was useless, the cables just connected themselves etc.

The tests weren't particularly well designed either. The first two tests focused solely on processing power, and the outcome of the third was obvious considering Jason had a graphics card and Suzi didn't.
*av

Did you notice that he wasnt sure what he could touch and what he couldnt when installing the CPU - geez anything metal avoid

. I was so hoping he was going to crush the socket too...

Both were useless really (not even dumb downed - just obvious they had no real idea what they were doing or how to base their decisions), especially considering that Jason says hes built PCs for years. I was amazed at the literature they used and didnt seemed to be using the net to check reviews or user opinions...

Anyway guys lets rise to the challenge - build a £500 PC with Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse and OS - should beat their rubbish by far...

P.S. Please someone tell me if there is such a thing as a 125Mb integrated GFX chip (sic) - never heard of such a size - typo

ps3ud0

glenimp617 · 23 Oct 2006 at 22:54

what did they spec for £500?

ps3ud0 · 23 Oct 2006 at 23:02

Erm they werent that specific:

P4 Dual Core
512Mb Ram
AsRock Mobo (PCIe)
256Mb 7600 Series Gigabyte Passive Cooler GFX
80Gb HD
Samsung DVD Writer?
Case

17" TFT
Keyboard
Mouse
XP Home

ps3ud0 :cool:

Shydave · 24 Oct 2006 at 09:09

His PC was

Intel Pentium D 805 Socket 775 SmithfieldCore 2x2.66 GHz 1MB x 2 Cache
512MB (2X256MB) Corsair Value Select DDR2 PC4200 (533) 240 Pin Non-ECC Unbuffered CAS 4-4-4-12
80 Gb Samsung HD080HJ SpinPoint P80 SATA300 7200 rpm 8MB Cache NCQ 8.9 ms
Sony DWQ-120AB Black 16x16x4 DVD±RW Dual Layer DVD Writer OEM
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition SP2 OEM Single
17" Daewoo HL720AD Black/Silver Clearview TFT1280x1024 8 ms 500:1 300 cd/m2 Speakers VGA/DVI
Belkin Wireless RF Keyboard and Optical Mouse USB/PS/2
256MB Gigabyte 7600GS PCI-E (x16) 12 Pipes D-Sub/DVI-I/HDTV SLi Silent-Pipe
Asrock 775I945GZ i945GZ S775 PCI-E DDR2 533 SATA II uATX On Board VGA
Asus TM-231 uATX Tower Black with 300W aFPC PSU Hi-End
NORTHQ Silent Tornado Casefan 80mm 12-17db Ceramic ball bearing300.000 hrs life17CFM 4pinn Molex
Cyberlink Power DVD Software which is a software DVD Player Decoder for PC V6
Ahead Nero v7 - Essentials Suite 1 *OEM for Data Audio Photo Video and TV

Hers was a Packard Bell -

Intel Pentium D 805 Processor
2.66GHz, 533MHz FSB, 2MB Cache
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
1GB DDR RAM
80GB Hard Disk Drive
Multi-Format Dual Layer DVD RW Drive
128MB ATI Xpress 200 Graphics
8-In-1 Media Card Reader
6 USB Connections
17" Sony Flat Panel Monitor

Shydave · 24 Oct 2006 at 09:10

They then undertook a 'crash test'

First up they had to open a simple game in Windows while burning a DVD disc and playing an mp3 music file. On top of this they had to encode a video file while rendering a photo and downloading a movie trailer from internet. In addition they had to count every word that Shakespeare ever wrote while again playing the state of the art video game. At this point that both computers had to come out of the game and encrypt another video file - all of which was too much for the Packard Bell. It ground to a halt and refused all of Suzi's coaxing - leaving Jason's self build PC the overwhelming winner.