Novatech


c0ncept

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well, I've just been on the novatech website, which I know a lot of you here use, and I had a few questions:

1)Whats the delivery time like?

2)Is the quality of there own brand stuff any good?

3)Do they not sell Athlon XP proccesors or have athlon changed the name of them (as novatech only have semperon and the 64bit proccessors)?

cheers

c0ncept
 
Athlon XP is pretty much deceased, which may be why they don't sell them.

Sempron is the bargain processor, but ties you to a less advanced motherboard architecture.

Athlon 64 is the best one to go for at the moment in the AMD range, gives you access to the latest motherboards with the latest technology, and doesn't cost that much more.
 
Not a possibility, I recently bought a super-duper new motherboard and its socket A (unless of course Athlon 64s are socket A compatible) and I really don't want to replace it again. Which I've had to do EVERY SINGLE F**KING time I upgrade my ram or cpu. Just this once I'd like to upgrade JUST my cpu and ram.

heh, if you think that Athlon XP is dated you should have seen my old proccesor!

athlon duron
 
Would this be a decent upgrade from a athlon xp 2000+?

AMD Sempron 2800+ / 2 GHz processor

If not are there any decent socket A cpus other than the XP's?
 
thats the impression I got as well.

Anyway, I bought a stick of 512ddr ram for £40, ram is sooo cheap now. My last 512 stick cost in the region of 70 quid...

The highest socket A proccesor they do is the sempron 2800+ for £63. Apparently it runs at 2ghz whilst my current processor runs at 1.56ghz. Are 500mhz really worth £63?
 
c0ncept posted on Apr 17 2005 at 01:13 AM said:
thats the impression I got as well.

Anyway, I bought a stick of 512ddr ram for £40, ram is sooo cheap now. My last 512 stick cost in the region of 70 quid...

The highest socket A proccesor they do is the sempron 2800+ for £63. Apparently it runs at 2ghz whilst my current processor runs at 1.56ghz. Are 500mhz really worth £63?


I used to work for a tech support company that did a lot of work with Novatech.

All there "own branded" stuff is unbranded OEM stuff. For example their monitors are actually Relisys monitors sans relisys badge and packaging.

So all the Novatech (un)branded kit is the same as branded stuff - but your not paying for a name to be added. You still get the same warranty - and the manufacturer of said product honours it as they would there branded product. Its the same thing. Novatech were also very demanding of us - which is a good sign because they were kicking our arses to make sure that we delivered so that their customers were happy. Fair play they treat there customers with respect. Anyway I hated that tech support job so bailed.

I can mention some firms that were really awful.. but I wont... E by gum...

Incidently if you want to know how Relisys monitor serial numbers work:

For example, Branded Relisys monitors serial numbers start with an R

You can tell if its unbranded Relisys cos the serial starts with an N

eg

N3400000....

would mean its an unbranded monitor made in the 3rd month, 2004.

(B)(M)(Y)(batch number etc)

B = branded (R = yes N = no)
M = month
Y = Year

With month and year numbers go from 1 - 9 then x, y, z to make up the year.

So if you send a faulty monitor off to the service support centre, with the serial number NX40000.. and they send you one which is R340000.. send it back cos its 6 months older than what you had before - do not be confused by the R or N cos its the same thing.
 
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Actually I was thinking of getting a monitor from there as well, but shock horror I actually found a cheaper one on amazon (It's sad that my choice of monitor is based on money not quality *sigh*)

Still, a 17" tft for less than £130 is bloody good. Although saying that I might go for a refurb...
 
c0ncept posted on Apr 17 2005 at 01:13 AM said:
thats the impression I got as well.

Anyway, I bought a stick of 512ddr ram for £40, ram is sooo cheap now. My last 512 stick cost in the region of 70 quid...

The highest socket A proccesor they do is the sempron 2800+ for £63. Apparently it runs at 2ghz whilst my current processor runs at 1.56ghz. Are 500mhz really worth £63?


Not really unless its a different architecture. Go for shit loads of RAM instead. I used to run 1gb - could really do with 2gb. but I needed a stick for another machine so now Im down to 768mb in this box.

Infact - just buy a mac and have done. :) MacOS X rox (classic was poo).
 
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c0ncept posted on Apr 17 2005 at 01:34 AM said:
Actually I was thinking of getting a monitor from there as well, but shock horror I actually found a cheaper one on amazon (It's sad that my choice of monitor is based on money not quality *sigh*)

Still, a 17" tft for less than £130 is bloody good. Although saying that I might go for a refurb...


I wouldnt bother with refurb. And be careful of cheap TFT. Ebuyer had some nice Samsung TFT's going for £100 - they are stunning for the price.

But if you have a spare £300 IMHO best monitors bang for buck wise are made by IIyama.

Im running a 455 - but the 454 has come down in price. 455 is good but the 454 kicks arse. Its a CRT 19" and incredibly bright with a res of 1600 x 1200 / 104 Hz its a pleasure to look at. (It will go up higher but you'll have to drop it down to 80hz for this).

http://www.iiyama.co.uk/default.asp?SID=&NAV=236&PCAT=1

My 455 is gorgous too - but the 454 ROXXORS :)
 
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ram and monitor will do it for me at the moment. Mac OS9 sucked balls (and classic mode in osx is even worse). OSX is very pretty but in my experience not all that stable.

My g/f has an eMac with osx (not panther, maybe that might make a difference) and it crashes all the time. Whereas my selfbuilt PC with xp hasn't crashed since I last got a virus (and that right there is a good reason to get a mac!). So far this PC's record is two weeks uptime.

[edit] I'm guessing your a graphics proffessional? The mac obssesion, the need for a good monitor...it all fits into place :)

[edit 2] We have very similar monitors to that at uni, they are nice but a little out my price range.

[edit 3] BOLLOCKS! ebuyer has brand name ram for almost ten pounds cheaper than I paid at novatech...

(man am I tight fisted :) )
 
c0ncept posted on Apr 17 2005 at 01:48 AM said:
ram and monitor will do it for me at the moment. Mac OS9 sucked balls (and classic mode in osx is even worse). OSX is very pretty but in my experience not all that stable.

My g/f has an eMac with osx (not panther, maybe that might make a difference) and it crashes all the time. Whereas my selfbuilt PC with xp hasn't crashed since I last got a virus (and that right there is a good reason to get a mac!). So far this PC's record is two weeks uptime.

[edit] I'm guessing your a graphics proffessional? The mac obssesion, the need for a good monitor...it all fits into place :)

[edit 2] We have very similar monitors to that at uni, they are nice but a little out my price range.

I never was a mac obsessive - I thought they were vile things. Then OS X came along with rock solid stability. Early versions of X were poop. But Panther came alone :)

Emac's were buggy - they had engineering floors. I used to work in a uni as an IT tech. We had 200 Emacs - all of them had this error. One batch iirc had problems with the monitor tubes - another had problems with the firmwear. So Apple had to send there service support out and the swapped the tubes over on every one, and sorted the firmwear out on a load. I would never buy first manufacture hardware.. always get bugs.

And correct I am a graphics professional of sorts :) Im a freelance web designer / animator but thinking of getting a job in house somehwere cos freelancing while cool cos Im free and can work when I want is also a bitch cos I want a sports car and I cant afford one.
 
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ding ding ding! I thought so (although I forgot to mention some awesome illos as a reason!)

So panther does add some stability to osx then? I was thinking about getting my g/f it but I don't think she'd really appreciate it as the eMac has pretty much been relegated to surfing the web and emailing only ;)
 
c0ncept posted on Apr 17 2005 at 02:05 AM said:
ding ding ding! I thought so (although I forgot to mention some awesome illos as a reason!)

So panther does add some stability to osx then? I was thinking about getting my g/f it but I don't think she'd really appreciate it as the eMac has pretty much been relegated to surfing the web and emailing only ;)

Get Tiger. Its £99 - and has some really cool things in it. She will want to use Mac's for more than email and surf. Check out its features at the apple store.

(Edit Typo)
 
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My Ibook with OSX is pretty stable although some applications can make it crash sometimes (bittorrent in particular).

XP was the most stable OS ive used, I hardly ever had to reset it from a crash in the first six months of having it.
 
c0ncept posted on Apr 17 2005 at 12:40 PM said:
yeah, once you get sp1 (I refuse to get 2, it made my system unstable the fist time I installed it) XP is pretty rock solid.


Hehe - I wouldnt run XP without Service Pack 2 :)

Even better - I wouldnt run XP at all if I could get away without it.
 
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The current AMD socket is 939, and unless your on a really tight budget, I'd strongly recommend anyone upgrading or building a new PC to go for a socket 939 motherboard to help ensure there pc is as future proof as possible. An Athon64 3000+ is only £99 now, and along with a cheap (but capable) motherboard, it's only £171. It's simply not worth saving an insignificant amount of cash on a lesser capable motherboard and processor. The A63 3000+ also offers far more for your money than the older XP's or Semprons that require the rapidly aging Socket 754 standard.
 
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