What Hardware Should I Buy? - Jan 2009

bit-tech recommends...January 2009

Happy New Year! Yes it's 2009, and while we might bemoan the continued lack of flying cars or private robot slaves we were promised in our youth, the march of technology does continue onwards with the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas ready to kick off later this week showcasing all the fancy kit we'll likely be drooling over this year.

We've already had a sneaky peek at one of the show's likely unveilings - the Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 - so stay tuned to bit-tech over the coming days for continued updates from our man in Las Vegas.

Sadly though, the growing world wide economic downturn is continuing to have negative effects on component pricing here in the UK as the pound continues to slide against both the Dollar and Euro. While component prices in the USA and Europe are for the most part going down to encourage sales, prices here in Blighty have been rising over the last few months as importers find the pound doesn't stretch so far any more.

This can be enormously frustrating, as those who might have put off building a new system until the new year will now be faced with a notably increased price tag for the exact same components, while the exact same system has in fact become cheaper in the USA!


However, that's where we here at bit-tech step in, helping to lessen the blow of the rising price of enthusiast computing. We've put together systems aimed at mid range, high end and premium budgets and looking at every piece of hardware you need to build a system, from processors to motherboards, cases to coolers, power supplies to hard disks.

All of the recommendations made in this guide are based entirely on either our personal experiences or on our own reviews, or even occasionally good rumblings and recommendations from trusted community members. With this in mind, you know that by picking the hardware we've recommended, you’ll be getting high quality products.

Here at bit-tech, we want to take our buyers guide seriously and will be updating it monthly, adding new products as and when we feel there's a need for change either because technology has moved on, or prices have got a whole lot more competitive. We also want to continually improve the guide and will continue to add additional ranges of recommended hardware as time goes on. However, we're still looking to improve the format and expand into other areas in the future, so please do let us know what else you'd like to see here. The feedback you provide in the forums is invaluable, so don't forget to let us know what you think again this month!