Gamers' PCs in France compared and contrasted

Deals do not include postage and packing, software or assembly. Items are in stock or in auction at time of writing. If you ever find cheaper prices elsewhere in France, don't hesitate to contact me. This guide as well as the subsequent ones will be updated regularly. Unlike UK, USA or Singapore, I have still to complete my list of best hardware selling websites in France. If you have any suggestions, mail me. Our budget for today is set at €750 for the normal gamer's budget PC and at €375 for our extreme gamer's budget PC. Let the game begin!

The motherboard included in this gamer's PC is an Asrock K7S8X using the little known SIS746FX chipset. it has 3 DIMM and 6 PCI slots on top of a 5.1 sound chipset, 2 USB ports and a LAN module (€29.95 - ldlc.fr) The chosen processor is an AMD XP 2600+ with a 333Mhz FSB which might not be adequate for extreme overclocking and a Coolermaster CP58JD1F-O HSF also included (€ 78 - udmfrance.com). A 512 Mb PC 2700 DDR memory slot will find its place in one slot of the motherboard (€70 - nomatica.com) A iiSonic 8404A/DD0201 was chosen as optical drive. It is a dual format DVD writer with top speed of 4x. It has 8Mb cache and is delivered with Nero 5.5 (€62.99 - materiel.net). Our hard chosen hard disk is a Maxtor 120Gb 7200rpm with 2Mb cache (€75.95 - ldlc.fr). Cornerstone might not be a very famous brand in the monitor field but it sells very well on ebay (at least in UK and in France). The 21" P1600 reaches 1600x1200 at a rock-bottom 85Hz (€115 - ebay.fr). Floppy disc chosen was one from Mitsumi, a generic one (€6.27 - infojet.fr). The sound card section will be today's loser: to stay within our budget we chose to go with the onboard sound module and get a Creative Labs T5400 5.1 speakers set (€84.90 - multe-pass). Input devices are a labtec Wireless Edge Combo comprising of a wireless optical 800dpi mouse and a wireless keyboard (€25 - grosbill.com). A nice big mid tower Advance Kymic with a 400w PSU, front USB, six 3.5" and four 5.25" bays (€34 - e-soph.com) will keep everything together. Finally the video card is as usual an OEM Radeon 9800 Pro with 128Mb DDR, DVI and TVO connections (€198.85 - multe-pass).

Comments: Nearly €785 for this rig and we couldn't not get a real sound card for the price. A real deception. Even then, the quality of the rig is far ahead of what you might find in French high-street shops. An Athlon 2600+ beefed up by a 512Mb memory, 120Gb Hard disk and a Radeon 9800 Pro supported by a gigantic 21" monitor. What a team! You'll have already noticed a trend by now. AMD seems to own the lower or at least the entry level of processor performance. Its Duron and AMD XP series have absolutely no competition from Intel at the lower end. Perhaps Intel should rename its remaining Northwood Pentium 4 and pitch them against the XP2500+ and the likes.

The extreme budget gamers PC was quite difficult to assemble this time. To start with, a Mercury (AKA Kobian) motherboard will form the backbone of our gamer's PC. While it might not be a new board, it still is competitive at the lower end of the spectrum as it has five PCI, one AGP, two DIMM slots, 2 USB ports and an onboard sound controller. The card is provided without accessories. User Reviews are very much enthusiastic about the product to say the least (€ 22.50 - ldlc.fr). The CPU used is an oem AMD Athlon XP 2400+ (€ 59.15 - ldlc.fr). This 266Mhz Athlon is still capable of good overclocking performance, with a Cooler Master DP5-6i11 / AVC HSF (€8.50 - actualis.com), and very good general performance especially when compared to an Intel Celeron. Memory used is a simple 256Mb PC2100 DDR memory which leaves a single empty slot (€33.49 - actualis). For sound, we will stick to a Q-tec card featuring 5.1 speaker support and surprise, surprise EAX support (€13.90 - marcopoly.com) and a mid-range hercules XPS510 5.1 speaker set which features 5 satellites and a subwoofer totalling 30W RMS (€42.90 - multe-pass.com). A Liteon 52x32x52x16 DVD/CDRW combo will make sure our cd-burning goes on smoothly with 2 Mb cache (€46.90 - multe-pass.com). It will also provide backup for a 40Gb Maxtor Diamondmax Plus8 hard disk with 2MB cache and a rotational speed of 7200rpm (€48.40 - Multe-pass.com). Inputs are Tusnami 3D optical mouse (€7 - ordistories.com), black OEM 105 keys azerty keyboard (€4 - backedge.com). The graphics card chosen is a Powercolor Radeon 9600 Pro 128Mb EZ with 128Mb DDR memory, VGA, DVI and Svideo inputs (€113.95 - ldlc.fr). The display is a 17" second hand branded monitor (€49 - ebay) Finally, the casing chosen is an OEM one mid-tower with a 350W ATX PSU, four external 5.25" bays and two 3.25" bays (€25.95 - ldlc.fr). It doesn't have any front USB ports unfortunately.

Comments: for almost €475, it is a commendable and capable computer. The monitor is probably the Achille's heel of the system with its 17" size. We couldn't find a substantially larger or better deal. So as a French Extreme Budget Gamer, you can be the proud owner of an XP 2400+ rig with 256Mb DDR, a 40Gb HDD, a DVD/CD Writer, a Radeon 9600 pro card and a 5.1 speakers set. Phew. You could be much worse.

We'll take a virtual trip to Singapore on Sunday for the Gamer's PC as Saturday is usually the day pricelists are updated at hardwarezone and vr-zone. Until now, USA is the best place to shop followed by UK and last France. Tomorrow, back to our normal daily buying. µ