What kind of calculators were some replies talking about, cause calculators tend to have about 10 digits to them. Scientific calculators obviously have a bit more. An 80s supercomputer could handle a lot more than that amount of digits.

Another thing -in the 70s they could send people to the Moon, and go orbiting it. (unless you think that never happened - fair enough but that's a different story - if you go into conspiracies then you have to explain things like the D&M pyramid on Mars (curiously shaped just like the Pentagon & may have a Monkey King face resembling the Sphinx nearby - though you're "supposed" to think that can't possibly be true and it must just be some shadows that Viking photographed), nevermind that the Moon landing could have been hoaxed) - now, even though the computers and materials are superior, we can't for some reason afford or get people onto the Moon anymore. Think about it. True, maybe no-one wants to go there you could argue - but we know different, cause they're all racing to try to claim mining rights etc on the Moon.

The thing about technology maxing out at a certain size is true physically (for current materials used, it's not the case for something like an 'ultraconductor' for example), but there's no reason to be stuck making chips and circuit paths of a certain size - they don't have to be that small.

What the trend is consumer-wise is that, yes the tech is faster and has more storage, but it ends up costing you the same amount of money for a rig that is equivalent - eg, about 7 years ago I got a new PC, not top of the range but it could run most apps (it wouldn't have been able to run things like 3D Studio Max for example - not comfortably) - it cost about a grand. Today, for a grand, I can also buy a PC that is very capable and very powerful, but again - nothing like the best availible even in the home consumer range.

So in terms of 'what're we going to do with the extra power' of the desktops of the future - the same old same old - run 3d holo-games, VR stuff, store a modest record and video collection, download files and game online. A usual movie is already around 4GB on DVD quality, so even if you don't make or edit video or audio, you can't store that many films at full-resolution on a 500GB hard disk. I've got way more movies than that and I don't even seriously collect them, ditto for music. I'm counting in there that you of course need some GB for the operating system, the page file, the applications, other files, plus you need to have free space. So a decent media center, without backup!!, you do need about a terabyte of storage already - not including blu-ray or HD files.

Some hefty password cracking, but that's another story.

There's certainly some HD videos online that are free - they're the ones that show up looking like psychedelic-solarised images from yesteryear if you don't have HD capabilitiy.

If you have a blu-ray or HD player then you should be able to watch those disks at their full resolution - if your monitor has the full res. display, or if you have an HD-ready TV then you can get cables to connect the card to the TV (I'm not sure what outputs that card has - this is just about if it does do HD).

For HD broadcasts, like Sky does, you need to subscribe to that (or hack it, lol, - probably as much cost as a sub anyway) plus have a monitor or TV that has the HD res.

You could also - video edit with that card, or make animations / graphics.

If you have that quad CPU then you can go up to 1066Mhz speed RAM (matching it with the processor).

2GB of 800Mhz, at very low latencies (eg - 4 4 4 12) is easily availible at around £40.00, branded. There's always special offers on (UK mail order, I'm not sure about other countries).

Couple of things to watch out for - you may need to buy the upgrade RAM in pairs, and you should try to get the same sticks - some 2GB 800s are getting a bit scarce because the new DDR3 is out, so you don't want to wait too long to upgrade or you could find the price going up; that's not a definite it's just a possibility depending on what sticks you opt for, because they might not be manufactured any longer.

Having an extra GB stick you aren't using is a good failsafe anyway, in case there's ever any problems with the others.

For Vista you really need the 3GB; given you have a quad though I don't see the point in going any lower than 800 - if you are going to overclock them, there's plenty of 2GB 800 kits that overclock way faster than 800 and are stable.

Add up the watts all your components use, then add about 150 at least to that (I'd go higher), and select an 80 Plus rated PSU.

http://www.80plus.org/manu/psu/manu_psu.htm

And make sure it has cables / connectors for any cards that need them.

What exactly can you do on Vista that you can't do on XP anyway? Apart from run Direct10X, which is only needed in a few games of usually only the FPS kind. And if you're running fast graphic-intensive games like that on a laptop they're going to be too slow anyway.

Best bet - get XP Pro and a Linux OS, say like SUSE, on a dual boot.

For any computer, these are the fastest in the world -

http://top500.org

So something like an Infiniband cluster, SCSI RAID disk cluster, about 2000 CPUs and giga-caches and 8GB ram per each CPU, running some distributed operating system configured exactly for the hardware.

For a gaming machine, then one of them following kinds of set-ups:

1. the flashy show-off pimp-my-PC: a seriously pimped out case that's got all see-thru panels and lights inside, case badges, custom paintjob, LED hard drive cooler cases, a glo-liquid watercooling system for the CPUs and GPUs, or even a phase-change cooling system, or if you like fans then the elaborate heatsinks for the processors, chipsets, and the RAMs, & big propellor fans and a flashy fan controller in the external drive bays.

2. the cover-all-gaming-bases PC: a cube case that takes a dual motherboard set-up - so you can install Crossfire and SLI both (unless that whole thing's been fixed already and it doesn't matter what versions you go for), and use RAMs optimised for SLI etc

3. the don't-bother-me-with-looks-I-want-performance PC: basicly just go for the fastest core components you can get here to fit your budget, and include a network card like the killer NIC, and a physics card in addition to the obligatory dual-graphics cards - also get graphics card set-ups for more than one monitor support. Have a RAID 10 (the mirror + stripe one) or even RAID 5 if you can afford a controller card; & get SCSIs and / or solid state hdd's if you have any money left. Use a 1200W 80Plus-rated PSU (at least one, I haven't added these all up) so you can save precious cents off the power bill from the wattage consumption. Run a dual-boot OS if you want Vista, cause you'll end up needing XP sometimes.

4. buy a pre-built (or spec your own) server and mini data center, but with Vista and XP installed, and at least 2 dual-core latest Xeons - though right now I forget how many processors those even recognise, so that one might be a waste there unless you want to run your own game server

5. a time-machine so you can go far enough into the future and buy a Virtual Reality fully-immersive cyberbeast quantum computer and all it's games (which will fit on a flexichip the size of a postage stamp) , at a bargain shop, for $100.00 US

Seems fine in a navigational sense as in it's as easy to use in a point-and-click way as XP is, I heard it has issues with running some of the high-end PC games though - graphics card drivers for example.

What I found a bit pants was that the adverts made it look like it had that 3D cube windowed-application viewer, which I figured was the reason for the memory-hogging and slowness reports, but when I tried it never had that feature - and apparently it's Ubuntu Linux that has the rotatable cube! (it's like a cube shape with, say for example, 6 different webpages on each face and you can spin it around to choose what window you want to view.)

I'd say you def. need a pretty fast dual-core CPU and at least 2GB decent RAM to run it, plus a decent graphics card too as was mentioned here. Especially if you don't streamline your OS and will be running a pre-installed version. All the moreso for a laptop since the hard disks are slower.

Yeah! Plus our broadband costs are atrocious too compared to other countries (the speeds aren't so hot either).

I'd forgot to put this in previously: what's the deal with non-ECC RAM? Usually for error-checking it's just the one extra chip on the stick; I'm finding gaming motherboards tend to be compatible with non-ECC only, but then for the more stable memory you end up with much slower rates like 400MHz (I want at least 800MHz with very fast latencies). I found some mention of faster server RAM, but again - only seems to be stocked in the far east (it's made by a far east company, but still...). There's searches that return specs on Kingston sticks that are ECC and 800MHz, at 1GB, but no place that sells them. ?!

What's the offical line on importing hardware to the UK, from outside the EC of course. As in what taxes are applied?

I'm finding that a lot of what I'm after either doesn't exist here (after extensive searches online) or costs a whole heap more than it does in say the US.

Example - I'm wanting a server rack case with specific specs, or a desktop case with a windowed top - or even something like a torture rack case (though I'm worried it has no EM shielding, cause it's acrylic.) But aside from a couple of new additions, with little info about them (plus they don't fit my exact wants...and the manuf. websites don't list them!) at scan's site I can't even find decent server rack cases in UK stores.

(if I get a windowed desktop it'll be to add on some fancy thermaltake heatsink/fan art; if I find the right rack case then I'll just go for non-fancy-looking heatsinks/fans)

I've imported a lot of console games and other media, but can find no info on the costs for any computer hardware.

Just in case anyone has seen exactly what I'm after - what I'm looking for in the rack is at least 4U, preferably aluminum but the look isn't as important, extendedATX motherboard space, at least two outside 5.25 drive bays (better with 3), and at least 6 inner 3.5 drive bays, an easy-access cover and fittings! - no sliced fingers wanted, and space for at least 3 medium fans (more if only the two optical drive bays), and hotswap bays for the hard drives. NO PSU! They never come with the PSUs I'll be getting (for some reason server cases tend to come with dodgy-sounding PSU ratings) - and the weight is too much extra for delivery.

cheers for any links / info.