I wondered if you were going to update the High End PC Buyers guide??

Its currently recomending Athlon 1.3 Ghz

I will be upgrading my PC soon, and were wondering what you'd recommend??

I think the best bang for your buck right now is the Athlon XP 2000+ around $100 USD for a retail chip. The 2100+ will probably drop to that level soon due to the release of the 2400+ and 2600+. It's currently not worth the extra $30 for only 66Mhz more speed, IMO. If you have money to burn then it's got to be the P4 2.8 Ghz w/533Mhz memory bus for only $490! :eek:

Athlon system :

• Athlon 2000+ (unlock it and run it a bit faster) or wait for the 333fsb Athlons (2400+, 2600+, 2800+) and get a board that supports them.
• KT400 or Nforce2 board (should be out in the next few weeks). The reference boards for the Nforce2 in reviews are performing a little better than the KT400 boards. Take your pick of MSI, Asus, Gigabyte etc...
• 512mb PC2700 DDR (To run memory and CPU frontside bus synchronously, lower latencies)
• If your budget can stretch to it, the Radeon 9700 Pro with its full directX 9 compliance can't be beat just now, otherwise GF4 Ti4200 and overclock it. Depending on the prices they can be had for you could pick up the 8x AGP version (not that its that much of a performance leap).
• Very popular Hard disks at the moment are the Western digital Special Edition drives which aren't ATA133 but ATA100, which makes no difference as they have an 8mb Cache and an 8.5ms access time (compared to 2mb and >9ms of most other drives)
• Latest thing in high quality sound, Audigy2

P4 System : (depending on budget)

• 2.8Ghz P4 533fsb
• SiS648 Chipset motherboard (similar performance to Intels own latest boards but at a slightly less painful price)
• 512mb PC2700 DDR
• Radeon 9700 Pro
• WD Special Edition 7200rpm ATA100 drive (available in 60, 80, 100Gb etc)
• Audigy2

Note that the P4 system is likely to be a few hundred dollars more expensive that the Athlon one, but since the 2000+ is roughly the equivalent of a P4 2.4Ghz 400fsb motherboard you are paying for more performance and not just the equivalent intel system....

With Video cards and CPUs getting ever more power hungry I would be tempted to start recommending 400w PSUs (Thermaltake, Enermax etc) rather than 350w just for futureproofness

This is from my point of view, which is that of someone who uses their home PC mostly for gaming...

I think I've said this before, that I would update it earlier and I actually haven't... but anyway, at this time I'm taking care of some issues regarding our host. Hopefully we will get this straight over the coming week or so and then I will write an update for that guide (so, say posting in 2-3 weeks), in the meantime, what do you think if you members write your recommendations here and pick your own favourites so I can take all those under consideration, sounds ok?

BTW, I've talked to various hosting companies in the last couple of days and while under ideal conditions we would have wanted to stay with Isomedia (our current host) & apparently as of today our server troubles are gone, we have received various offers including one for 'exchanging services', so no actual investment or even monthly fees would be needed... and that's a very sexy offer .

Sounds good, whatever save you cash, and keeps TechSpot alive is what is important. Keep us posted on how things turn out.

As far as the reviews go, I think it would be very helpful for people to write comments that you could possibly incorporate into your own review. Me on the other hand won't be good for such a thing, due to my lack of funds to try new things out.

The 2100+ is now selling for around $100 for the retail version.
Another choice in the harddrive market are the latest Seagate Barracuda models due to how quiet they are; they're also ATA100 but have 2K buffer.
The P4 2.4Ghz 533Mhz is going for $182 while the AMD 2400+ is going for $180. Choosing between these two is a tough choice for me. The P4 has the added benefit of being easier to cool. The 2.6Ghz and 2600+(333mhz) are also similarly priced with the P4 actually being $6 cheaper at $218.
The 2.8Ghz P4 is now down to $399 for the retail version!!! Prices sure are dropping quickly!