OK, so that was the theory based on research and reading. What actually happened?
Using the price lists on www.hardwarezone.com, I mapped out my attack on Sim Lim Square. This is an invaluable tool for price shopping.
The first reality check was that not all the desired components are available in Singapore. Even when there is distribution here, stock comes and goes depending on the mood of the retailers.
The order of the day was therefore compromise - and snap decisions.
The Perfect PC
Component List
Motherboard and CPU
Shop - Costronics
This is an "interesting" establishment. One should be extremely precise about what you are buying, verify that the box contains what you think you are buying, ensure that the receipt reflects what you are buying, and that warranty information is specified in writing.
With that set of caveats, they are a high turnover, box moving shop with often the lowest prices in Sim Lim. If they don't have something, they can usually get it, but don't fall for the "hold on, it will be here in a few minutes" routine. It can often take hours.
I was able to obtain the motherboard, CPU, memory, disks, and CD-RW here.
The GA-8IRXP was hard to find. Gigabyte does not appear to be widely distributed in Singapore, though they are advertising on Hardwarezone.com. Costronics were the only shop in Sim Lim that had stock the day I was there.
Price Paid - S$370
Hard disk
Shop - Costronics
Widely distributed and a commodity item, price is the only differentiator between shops. And warranty. Be careful on how any return will be treated. Shops that sell without official warranty status charge a fee to return the drive to the distributor.
Went with the Maxtor DiamondMax Plus D740X. With prices as lows as they are now, I decided to go with an 80GB drive for the primary, and a pair of the same drives for the RAID 1 array.
Probably wouldn't buy from these guys again. Either I paid a "gweillo" premium, or they are just expensive. This was the first shop that had the exact model of case I wanted, and I was in a hurry.
It turns out that the Distributor, Chamoxa, is cheaper.
The PC-60USB turned out to be as great to work with as the reviews suggested. It is a real pleasure to be able to work on mounting the motherboard without having to crawl into the case. Everything is accessible, the fans are quiet, and it looks great.
Plextor had just released a new model, stock of old models was on the shelf, and the one I wanted was scarce. Although I had purchased an external SCSI Yamaha 2200SX with which I was very happy, the Plextor had been highly reviewed. I figured that it couldn't hurt to have two different models in case I came across a hard to read CD - double the chance of success.
Having installed the PlexWriter 12/10/32S drive and struggled with Plextor tech support, I cannot recommend them. Their Asia distribution is out of Japan and the web site is terrible. I had an issue with driver conflict under XP, and they were unable to help. I finally figured it out on my own.
The drive works fine and came bundled with Nero, which I prefer to the Adaptec software.
I wish I had bumped into these guys earlier. Their prices are at least as good as Costronic, and the service was better and more flexible.
Although they didn't have stock, they were able to get the ALL-IN-WONDER® RADEON 8500DV for me by the next day. Pricing was ugly because the card was new and supported NTSC video, not something very useful for most people in Singapore. It was perfect for me, because I use NTSC for my DV video camera.
Installation was mixed, with the utility software process aborting once. Performance was a disaster, with DVD movies jerky and games such as Empire Earth completely crashing.
Tech support from ATI is a nightmare. You can only contact them through a web form (not email) and the site is often down. Even when they answer, it is usually with meaningless drivel.
In desperation I installed the beta driver that was on the download site and things improved tremendously. On March 20, 2002, ATI released a new driver that finally installs properly and everything works. Object Lesson - don't be first to buy from ATI.
With the FireWire ports recognized instantly by XP and everything working, I decided to go ahead and get the Maxtor Personal Storage 3000DV 80GB.
As advertised, you just plug in the FireWire cable, and the drive is instantly recognized. Simple, easy, and a great way to create reasonably portable backups.
While negotiating the purchase of the video card from Aquest, I noticed the ASUS DVD-E616 DVD drive.
What caught my eye was the ATA100 interface, something which I had never seen on an optical drive. It made a lot of sense to me, and indeed, the performance has been stellar.
I had asked about "region-free" drives, and the ASUS was supposed to be able to become region-free by holding the two front buttons down while booting. This is important to me as I want to be able to use DVD's from whichever region they hale.
The drive seems to read CD's faster than the Plextor as well, and has become my primary optical drive.
More than any other component, memory prices fluctuate on a daily basis. Prices were starting to rise as I went to purchase, and I wanted immediate delivery, so I went with Kingston instead of ordering from Crucial.
The motherboard only supports 3 DIMM slots, so I went with large capacity 512mb components and bought two, for a total of 1GB of memory. Concievably, I could still add another 512Mb DIMM or even a 1GB when they become available.
The CPU was purchased as a retail boxed item. Typically pricing at Sim Lim is based on a discount if you buy both the motherboard and CPU at the same time. Costronic does not do this, claiming their prices are already low.
As I wanted the performance, power, and heat characteristics of the new .13 micron version, I bought a Pentium 4 2.0a. The 2.2 Ghz was not available, and even if it was, the price differential was not worth it.
