...Google UK put these guys second on the list of results for PC deals.

Haha - their sales guy asked me to send them a picture of the broken heat-sink! Stupid - that is encouraging me to take it off of the MOBO again! I have sent them a snotty email.

I must admit it was a cheap deal. But you'd expect it to work out of the box, too!! And not take 3 weeks to arrive either.

Frankly, I feel like they were pretty shoddy. And they're joking if they expect me to send it back, after I have waited all of this time and now have it working!!

The computer itself is working fine. Pretty noiseless, runs everything fast as hell!
Ive been missing out! Tried Doom3 demo @ 1280x1024 (my monitors max), ultra detail, 8xAA and it runs flawlessly. I mean it runs at the monitors 60hz refresh rate. Its a step away from my Geforce2 anyway!!

Crysis - Im playing Crysis with the 1.1 patch and the very high detail DX9 hack in 1280x1024 with 2xAA and I find it playable, but its not going faster than the screen refresh rate. Very little stutter though, maybe 20-30 fps average...

Im loving it!! I just hope it doesnt blow up on me or anything!!! :D 

The main company I like to deal with is auspcmarket.com.au because they're very fast and professional, great service, very good online ordering and tracking system, etc. They're based in NSW.

On the flipside, they're on average a little more expensive than some other dealers (they offer free shipping on every item, but they factor the shipping costs into the list price I guess). If you're just buying one item it doesn't really matter, but if you were to buy a bunch of small items at once, you could end up paying more than buying it elsewhere.

I'm happy to pay a small price premium for excellent service though. They don't totally rip you off anyway (in actual fact, the last system I did buy, they assembled it and delivered it interstate for no extra charge... !)

I also like eyo.com.au which is not quite as nice as Auspcmarket, but they're pretty good and often a bit cheaper. 

I'm happy to pimp them since I've dealt with them many times, and they've always been outstanding. Definitely recommended for anyone in Australia.

http://www.auspcmarket.com.au/ 

I couldnt get much farther away! 

distrans and frib.

I've been buying parts from MSY who have very good prices but agonisingly atrocious service. 

http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

gamers are not embracing dx10.
and half of the people still use 3+ years old hardware. PC gaming is dying haha

if this is really representative, no wonder modern PC game dont sell that well - only minority (like ~20%) can run them 

That's likely because to embrace DX10 you have to embrace Vista and most gamers aren't willing to do that. 

Crysis looks very nice on high settings under DX9, and they said "to experience DX10 extra features you require Vista", but you can make DX9 run all of the extra features just by changing some digits in the config files!

So why bother getting Vista and DX10? Vista is not a hippo unless you have QX6600+ and 4Gb, besides it's only really the 9800 cards which do DX10 any justice at the moment!

People want games with good gameplay, Crysis was a very pretty game with very average gameplay - Assassins Creed - not dissimilar - er... is there really that much else which uses DX10 features to their potential? 

Crysis looks very nice on high settings under DX9, and they said "to experience DX10 extra features you require Vista", but you can make DX9 run all of the extra features just by changing some digits in the config files!

So why bother getting Vista and DX10? Vista is not a hippo unless you have QX6600+ and 4Gb, besides it's only really the 9800 cards which do DX10 any justice at the moment!

People want games with good gameplay, Crysis was a very pretty game with very average gameplay - Assassins Creed - not dissimilar - er... is there really that much else which uses DX10 features to their potential? 

"Vista is not a hippo unless you have QX6600+ and 4Gb"

Bollocks. A 2 year old Core2Duo machine with 1GB ram is going to run Vista SP1 just as well as it would run WinXP SP3, so stop spreading FUD please. Every OS is going to suck immideately after release due to shitty drivers and the like, Vista was no exception and WinXP was definately no exception either when it originally came out.

If you take a look at most recent perfomance benchmarks and compare gaming perfomance of Vista SP1 compared to XP SP3, you will actually notice that there are pretty much equal. 

vista now copy files without taking ten minutes? 

Yep, that bug was fixed a long time ago. The fix is included in Service Pack 1. 

"Every OS is going to suck immideately after release due to shitty drivers and the like,"

Leopard ran like a dream right out of the box. Or are you talking about PC operating systems? :) 

If you take a look at most recent perfomance benchmarks and compare gaming perfomance of Vista SP1 compared to XP SP3, you will actually notice that there are pretty much equal.

This is a horrible argument to make. Equal performance doesn't mean it's actually good performance. 

OS X 10.0 sure as hell didn't run like a dream. 

"This is a horrible argument to make. Equal performance doesn't mean it's actually good performance."

Whats your point? If Vista SP1 having equal performance to WinXP SP3 doesn't mean it's actually good performance, are you implying that both are shit and we should all be using MS-DOS? 

"OS X 10.0 sure as hell didn't run like a dream."

Sure, a complete architecture change and UI rewrite caused some hiccups. I guess I can concede that. 

from the same Valve stats

Vista has shown a decrease in its share of users since November�s results. Six months ago it climbed from 7.99% to 16.91%. [this time]the operating system was reported as being on only 14.95% of machines. 

If Mac took the opportunity to capitalize on the weakness of Vista and filled the void for a reliable PC-gaming-oriented OS I think they could make a hefty chunk of change. Microsoft surely isn't doing shit for PC gaming, and Linux/Unix are generally too unreliable. And, if Mac did manage to do that, I would probably end up buying the OS. 

PC gaming is dead (or, at least, dying). I know that's flame bait for some people but pursuing the PC games market is a losing strategy at this point.

Consoles are for game and computers are for developing console games. 

Is PC gaming being dead the reason why it has been enjoying double digit growth every single year since 2000? I also think developers like Blizzard and Valve would like to have a word with you, to laugh at you for a bit and the continue swimming in their pool of cash. 

Blizzard killed it with WoW

and MS doesnt want x360 mmo for a reason! 

Yeah, World of Warcraft. And nothing else. PC gaming is kicking ass! 

Half-Life 1 *could have* been the pinnacle, no? 

OK, I admit I'm no expert, but I bought my PC with XP because it was cheaper! Also 4Gb of RAM is not necessary even in the most recent of games!

Assassins Creed was apparently going to recommend 3Gb, but I'm sure I read a box somewhere which said 2Gb!

Games/Software are running quite a way behind software ATM it would seem!

I play Quake still because it's a fun good game, and you dont need hundreds of people to make original content, so there is STILL original content coming out for it! The gameplay will never get old! It's fast and arcadey - a good challenge, good for the adrenaline! Kind to system specs etc etc

I love it!