Quad core set up

[Neil_Mk1]

What do you think?

Here is your chosen specification...
Processor (CPU)
INTEL® Core 2 Quad Q6600 (4 X 2.4GHz) 1066MHz FSB/8MB L2 Cache
Memory (RAM)
4096 MB CORSAIR DDR2 667MHz - LIFETIME WARRANTY! (4x1GB)
Motherboard
ASUS® P5N32-E SLI+: Quad-core CPU Ready, NVIDIA® Dual X16 SLI
Operating System
WINDOWS® XP Home (inc. Genuine CD & License) (£59)
Vista Upgrade
NONE
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS (4 REAR + 2 FRONT) AS STANDARD
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
320GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk
320GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7200rpm)
RAID (HDD 1 & 2)
RAID 1 (MIRROR)
1st CD/DVD Drive
18x DVD±RW/RAM/Dual Layer + Lightscribe (48 x CD-RW) (£17)
2nd CD/DVD Drive
18x DVD±RW/RAM/Dual Layer + Lightscribe (48 x CD-RW) (£17)
Graphics Card
512MB GEFORCE 7900GS PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT
2nd Graphics Card
512MB GEFORCE 7900GS PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT
Sound Card
Sound Blaster® Audigy® SE with 7.1 Surround Sound: £15
Modem
NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
Network Facilities
WIRELESS 108Mbps NETWORK CARD (£12)
Floppy Disk Drive
NONE
Memory Card Reader
NONE
Case
Black Neon Bubble case + front USB & front Lights (Due in 14-03-07)
Power Supply & cooling
700W Quiet Quad Rail PSU incl Case Fan & CPU Cooler (£99)
Firewire & Video Editing
2 x IEEE 1394a FIREWIRE ONBOARD (1 in back + 1 on board)
TV Card
NONE
Monitor
NONE
2nd Monitor
NONE
Keyboard & Mouse
NONE
Mouse
NONE
Speakers
NONE
Printer
NONE
Surge Protection
NONE
Webcam & VoIP
NONE
Media Center Kit
NONE
Anti-Virus
NONE
Office Software
NONE
Warranty
1 Year Return-to-Base incl 1 Year Free Collect & Return: £5
Delivery
Standard Insured Delivery to UK Mainland (Free)
Quantity
1


Other Features Included As Standard...

Nero CD/DVD creator (Windows XP only) and Power DVD software is included is included with all DVD Writers.

Each computer comes 2 x PS/2 ports.

Where necessary your computer will come with extra case fans fitted.

Our memory comes with a 100% tested lifetime warranty!

All our drives come in either silver, black or beige and are all of a
high quality & matched brand.

We don't just buy the cheapest brands and throw them together into a computer.

We offer lifetime hardware technical support during normal office hours.

A power cable, all drivers, manuals, and a heatsink & fan are included with every order.

Our computers come fully assembled & thoroughly tested. We are so confident in the quality of our computers that we offer a free collection and re-delivery service* should you ever have a problem with your computer.

If you order an operating system it will come fully installed with the CD and licence key.


Price:
Price:

£1362.55 ex VAT.
​

£1601 inc VAT and Delivery. ​

 

[Griff]

An odd mix.

If you're going for such a good cpu then ditch the 7900GS SLI setup. A single 8800GTS 320mb would be cheaper and significantly better performance wise.

Also strange to go for 8mb cache HD's when 16mb cache one's would only be a few quid more.

Finally the soundcard is a poor choice. I guess gaming is going to be a significant role for the pc, going by components chosen, and an X-Fi woulf be the obvious choice.

 

[Neil_Mk1]

ok, thanks for the help they don't offer drives with 16mb cache unless you go for bigger drives http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/index.php?page=form&&select=pciex5

 

[Griff]

Seriously mate.. I'd build it yourself. It's a lot easier than you think, you can choose exactly what you want and it's experience for your next pc/upgrade.

 

[Neil_Mk1]

I don't think I would save that much on that price, plus they offer the warranty

 

[16v_jon]

i would use a board with the intel 975 chipset the nvidia chipset is bobbins performance wise.

what will you be using 4 gig of ram for? you will also need a 64bit o/s to take advantage of that ram

 

[Griff]

I don't think I would save that much on that price, plus they offer the warranty

You probably wouldn't save much no BUT you would get better components for the same price. They don't even tell you what brand the HD's are or tell you any information (wattage rating aside) about the PSU.

 

[Neil_Mk1]

i would use a board with the intel 975 chipset the nvidia chipset is bobbins performance wise.

what will you be using 4 gig of ram for? you will also need a 64bit o/s to take advantage of that ram

o/s: XP Professional X64?

Mainly going to be using the system for gaming. Other times used for doing a few things at once like using msn, browsing internet, itunes, downloading, etc.

May not need 4Gb ram, lol

 

[16v_jon]

2 gig will be ample as will dual core most games and programs cannot take advantage of 4 cores - as griff said one graphics card with dx10 capabilities such as the 8800 series

 

[dick]

£1600 for a pc?!

absolutele madness

 

[Neil_Mk1]

Processor (CPU)
INTEL® Core 2 Duo E6600 (2 X 2.40GHz) 1066MHz FSB/4MB L2 Cache
Memory (RAM)
2048 MB CORSAIR XMS2 800MHz - LIFETIME WARRANTY! (2x1GB)
Motherboard
ASUS® P5N32-E SLI+: Quad-core CPU Ready, NVIDIA® Dual X16 SLI
Operating System
WINDOWS® XP Home (inc. Genuine CD & License) (£59)
Vista Upgrade
NONE
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS (4 REAR + 2 FRONT) AS STANDARD
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
320GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk
320GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7200rpm)
RAID (HDD 1 & 2)
RAID 1 (MIRROR)
1st CD/DVD Drive
18x DVD±RW/RAM/Dual Layer + Lightscribe (48 x CD-RW) (£17)
2nd CD/DVD Drive
18x DVD±RW/RAM/Dual Layer + Lightscribe (48 x CD-RW) (£17)
Graphics Card
768MB GEFORCE 8800GTX PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT
2nd Graphics Card
NONE
Sound Card
Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Audio 7.1: £31
Modem
NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
Network Facilities
WIRELESS 108Mbps NETWORK CARD (£12)
Floppy Disk Drive
NONE
Memory Card Reader
NONE
Case
Black Neon Bubble case + front USB & front Lights (Due in 14-03-07)
Power Supply & cooling
1000W Quiet Five Rail PSU inc Case Fan & CPU Cooler (£179)
Firewire & Video Editing
2 x IEEE 1394a FIREWIRE ONBOARD (1 in back + 1 on board)



£1456 incl VAT and del.


Better?

 

[Griff]

Getting there but a quad core cpu and a DX10 card is pointless if you're sticking with a DX9 OS (XP home)

EDIT - The X-Fi xtreme audio card isn't a true X-Fi card despite what the name would suggest. Go for an xtreme music or xtreme gamer instead.

 

[Neil_Mk1]

so which versions of windows XP support dx10?

as you can tell i don't know much about this stuff, just trying to get myself a good gaming system

 

[Griff]

so which versions of windows XP support dx10?

None. You'll need Vista.

 

[Neil_Mk1]

None. You'll need Vista.

doh! didn't want to get vista yet til problems are ironed out

 

[Munson]

None. You'll need Vista.

doh! didn't want to get vista yet til problems are ironed out

There is no real risk involved so long as your rig is stable under Vista. I don't get the 'BETA testing' metality. It's not like you wont be able to update any current version. There are not really any operating problems to iron out IMO. Although, yes, there are issues that some 3rd parties need to iron out for their code to work under Vista.

I'm posting this from a Vista machine while doing a thousand other things that I always did under XP.

 

[wozzaa]

Quad core is pointless for you. In all seriousness its pointless for most people unless there doing lots of video editing etc. Games cant make use of them currently and by the time they do it will be out of date. Not needed.

Id honestly say right now wait for a couple months new hardware is hitting the market from AMD?ATI with new video cards which would drop the price of nvidia cards down a well.

Build it yourself too. You do get guarantees on parts as well you know? like my CPU 3 years from AMD themselves. Just not worth getting it from a retailer for that reason what you pay extra for warranty etc is pointless if anything does go wrong by the time it comes t replace it it would be cheap anyway always the way with computers.

My CPU I bought last year that was nearly £400 can be had for just over £100 now.

 

[RSi Dave]

A lot of threads about building at the moment, here is my Spec which i am just about to buy once sorted, it isnt as good as most but i dont have silly money to play with so the best cant be afforded. Plus with this system there is scope to upgrade so not all bad, plus compared to a similar lower spec ready made PC from Mesh Computers mine comes out £100 cheaper and its better

Asus P5N-E SLI NF650i SLi, S 775, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 533/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX

Intel Core 2 Duo E6300, Socket 775, 1.86 GHz, 1066MHz FSB, Allendale Core, 2MB Cache, Retail + Splin

2GB (2x1GB) CorsairTwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-6400 (800), 240 Pins, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-12

320MB BFG Technology 8800GTS Overclocked, PCI-E, Mem 1600MHz, GPU 550MHz, 96 Streams, 2x DVI/HDTV

400 Gb Seagate ST3400633AS Barracuda 7200.9, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.2 ms, NCQ

500W CoolerMaster iGreen Power Silent SLi 85% Eff' ATX 12V V2.2 EPS12V v2.91

Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 32Bit 1Pk OEM (DVD)

Pioneer DVR-112D Ivory 18x18 DVD±RW Dual Layer DVD Writer (Reduced Length) OEM

Comes to around £800 inc a new case, also thinking of getting the lower latency ram as its only £16 more

 

[The Hoff]

Quadcore is a complete waste of time and money right now. You'd be better off sticking to dualcore and getting upgrading other components that will render better bang-4-buck.

 

[dk]

the only reason we are going the way of multicore past 2 cores is for virtualisation.

It has its place and as soon as you start talking virtualising a machine using vmware then the cores pla a big part as they are seen as individual processors but licensing wise are only classed as one socket.

Also for things like database servers, SQL enterprise processor licenses are in the region of 15k so if you can use 2 x QC procs instead of 4 x DC then you save £30k which pays for the server itself many times over.

For the pc market without using virtualisation its pretty pointless unless you like doing 4 or 5 things at once.

 

[thecremeegg]

Quad core is perfect if you want to run alan wake at max....its a quad core game

 

[The Hoff]

^On that note, there's hardly any software thats capable of multi-threading to that extent in the home market. Seems like a good way to waste money IMO.

VMware is superb actually, we just got a nice server at work, so far we've got 9 smaller servers running on it. Seems to be coping very well indeed. Although I don't think it's cutout for our file and print server needs.

 

[Mike_182]

That rig is a mess. Your memory isn't as fast as your processor can manage (try get the two matched, get a nice ratio and if you get some of the Dominator stuff that loves to be clocked, and you'll get some good gains) and you want to steer clear of the X-Fi (and all Creative cards) for audio. HBA do some staggering cards for much less than Creative money, and if you like I can lend you mine (which isn't doing anything) to test - does proper Dolby encoding and so works well with my Home Theater setup I run at home.

Graphics-wise, if you can't shift out of XP then get 7950s (although you'll kick yourself), although if you can see past the ignorance that many people try to put on everyone here Vista's not all that bad and things are starting to move forward with it. I don't get any crashes on my Laptop (looks for wood) and the 8800s are a significant leap forward in graphics technology.

 

[Mike_182]

^On that note, there's hardly any software thats capable of multi-threading to that extent in the home market. Seems like a good way to waste money IMO.

VMware is superb actually, we just got a nice server at work, so far we've got 9 smaller servers running on it. Seems to be coping very well indeed. Although I don't think it's cutout for our file and print server needs.

File server wise you want to steer clear of virtual servers as you need significant network bandwidth which would be removed from other virtual servers, and print wise you want to steer clear of virtual servers as it requires significant processor time.

I think really it's meant for small scale servers similar to our comms servers that we use, which happily run on Optiplex GX50s (1.3ish Ghz Celerons) just these don't have any redundancy.

 

[dk]

^On that note, there's hardly any software thats capable of multi-threading to that extent in the home market. Seems like a good way to waste money IMO.

VMware is superb actually, we just got a nice server at work, so far we've got 9 smaller servers running on it. Seems to be coping very well indeed. Although I don't think it's cutout for our file and print server needs.

File server wise you want to steer clear of virtual servers as you need significant network bandwidth which would be removed from other virtual servers, and print wise you want to steer clear of virtual servers as it requires significant processor time.

I think really it's meant for small scale servers similar to our comms servers that we use, which happily run on Optiplex GX50s (1.3ish Ghz Celerons) just these don't have any redundancy.

I disagree, take a HP DL585 with 4xDC 8220 processors, up to 128GB ram and 20 NIC's or add in some Fibre HBA's too to connect to SAN and where exactly is that server not going to handle anything you can throw at it???????

Virtualisation is great, there really isn't many servers out there that can't be virtualised, most people hugely overspec servers, I have been running quite a few servers on ESX this week with simply 256mb ram on W2K3 and they were running fine.

Add in DRS and you are laughing. Oh and we aren't talking about silly MS products are vmware workstation etc, but proper products like vmware ESX server which sits on bare metal with 2% overhead rather than 15% for other products.

 

[Evil Ally]

What are you actually using this for? This is the first question you need to ask when building a new PC. Look at the apps you are going to be running and decide what will benefit them.

Agree with above, quad core is a little pointless. For my next build I'll be looking at one of the lower spec E4300 or E6300. These seem to have good odds of overclocking to past 3Ghz, that's a hugely powerful processor and saves a shed load of cash. Plus it's a good laugh doing it.

4Gb of RAM could be a little OTT. Remember RAM takes about 30 seconds to upgrade if you need to do it. Stick with 2Gb and look at your mem useage and see if you actually need more. Also remember that running 4 sticks of RAM can mean you might have to loosen the timings compared to 2 sticks. This could actually decrease performance in some situations.

Sound card wise I would steer clear of Creative. Hardware wise they are good but the software is often troublesome. I see a lot of boards now have DTS connect so if you have a decent sound system this could well be the way to go. Remember using a technology like this bypasses the DACs on the sound card so you don't need to worry about low quality DACs sometimes found on motherboards.

Hard drives. You might want to look at a Raptor for your OS drive? This should give the machine a decent boost in terms of responsiveness.

Best of luck with your new build

 

[Evil Ally]

File server wise you want to steer clear of virtual servers as you need significant network bandwidth which would be removed from other virtual servers, and print wise you want to steer clear of virtual servers as it requires significant processor time.

I think really it's meant for small scale servers similar to our comms servers that we use, which happily run on Optiplex GX50s (1.3ish Ghz Celerons) just these don't have any redundancy.

I disagree, take a HP DL585 with 4xDC 8220 processors, up to 128GB ram and 20 NIC's or add in some Fibre HBA's too to connect to SAN and where exactly is that server not going to handle anything you can throw at it???????

Virtualisation is great, there really isn't many servers out there that can't be virtualised, most people hugely overspec servers, I have been running quite a few servers on ESX this week with simply 256mb ram on W2K3 and they were running fine.

Add in DRS and you are laughing. Oh and we aren't talking about silly MS products are vmware workstation etc, but proper products like vmware ESX server which sits on bare metal with 2% overhead rather than 15% for other products.

Agree. I think VM technology is the future. As it gets better and better I think you will start to see a huge reduction in the number of physical servers found in computer rooms. We are doing some really good stuff with it at our place and the performance even with the free VMware Server has been surprisingly good.

 

[Neil_Mk1]

Some of you may be forgetting I have no idea what you are talking about with most of the advice your giving, although its appreciated non the less from what I gather:

- Go for dual not quad core.
- Install 2GB RAM then more if needed.
- Going to need Vista to get the best out of a good graphics card.
- One decent graphics card is better than two lesser ones SLI'ed
- Don't go with Creative sound cards.

For all a little clarification I'm looking mainly for a gaming machine. Other times I'll just be doing several things at once like running itunes, msn, downloading, browsing or using word/excel all at the same time, plus all the other background apps such as AVG. Sound wise it'll need to be good for music and games as I use my PC effectively as my hi-fi. PC is currently connected to a 140W Panasonic hi-fi which is about 5 years old (my have seen it in for sale section)

I'd also like two hard drives in Raid 1 so that everything is backed up.
No need for a monitor/kb/mouse, etc, already have those.

Also how much do you reckon I'll get for my old pc? quick spec below:

Dell Dimension 9200
P4 3.0GHz
1GB 400MHz RAM
Nvidia 7600 GT 256Mb graphics card
Added a DVD RW+- drive (can't remember make, etc)
Win XP Home
160GB Hard drive

 

[Neil_Mk1]

Ok, now have this:

[FONT=&quot]Here is your chosen specification...[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Processor (CPU)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]INTEL® Core 2 Duo E6600 (2 X 2.40GHz) 1066MHz FSB/4MB L2 Cache[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Memory (RAM)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]2048 MB CORSAIR XMS2 800MHz - LIFETIME WARRANTY! (2x1GB)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Motherboard[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]ASUS® P5W DH DELUXE: DDR2, x16 slot, 975X chipset, 3 PCI[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Operating System[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]64 BIT WINDOWS® VISTA Ultimate (inc CD & License) (£119)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Vista[/FONT][FONT=&quot] Upgrade[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NONE[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]USB Options[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]6 x USB 2.0 PORTS (4 REAR + 2 FRONT) AS STANDARD[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Memory - 1st Hard Disk[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]320GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7200rpm)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]2nd Hard Disk[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]320GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7200rpm)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]RAID (HDD 1 & 2)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]RAID 1 (MIRROR)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]1st CD/DVD Drive[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]18x DVD±RW/RAM/Dual Layer + Lightscribe (48 x CD-RW) (£17)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]2nd CD/DVD Drive[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]18x DVD±RW/RAM/Dual Layer + Lightscribe (48 x CD-RW) (£17)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Graphics Card[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]640MB GEFORCE 8800GTS PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]2nd Graphics Card[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NONE[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Sound Card[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Audio 7.1: £31[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Modem[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Network Facilities[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Onboard Wireless 54 Mbps LAN (802.11g) & 2 x Gigabit LAN Ports[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Floppy Disk Drive[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NONE[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Memory Card Reader[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NONE[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Case[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Black Neon Bubble case + front USB & front Lights (Due in 14-03-07)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Power Supply & cooling[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]700W Quiet Quad Rail PSU incl Case Fan & CPU Cooler (£99)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Firewire & Video Editing[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]ONBOARD 1394 FIREWIRE PORT[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]TV Card[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NONE[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Monitor[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NONE[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]2nd Monitor[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NONE[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Keyboard & Mouse[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NONE[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Mouse[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NONE[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Speakers[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NONE[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Printer[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NONE[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Surge Protection[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NONE[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Webcam & VoIP[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NONE[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Media[/FONT][FONT=&quot] Center[/FONT][FONT=&quot] Kit[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NONE[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Anti-Virus[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NONE[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Office Software[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]NONE[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Warranty[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]1 Year Return-to-Base incl 1 Year Free Collect & Return: £5[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Delivery[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Standard Insured Delivery to UK Mainland (Free)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Quantity[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]1


Should I get a 64 bit o/s or 32? Will the components support 64 bit?
[/FONT]​

 

[sn00p]

You'll be wanting Vista 32 for the best possible Vista experience.

 

[wozzaa]

Your all saying dont go creative but if its a gaming system creative are the better cards with the EAX audio etc.

Have to say i have had an Xfi in my system now for absolutely months and no issues what so ever. It works great sounds good after a little tinkering sounds even better. I have the Xfi fatality which is worth getting if you will use the front mounted box I use it for headphones mic guitar etc.

And why vista 32 when you can go vista 64. 64bit os's work with 32bit apps its just if he has a 64bit cpu and all his new hardware has 64bit drivers why limit yourself to 32bit OS when things are going 64bit. Seems like a pointless waste of money.

 

[sn00p]

And why vista 32 when you can go vista 64. 64bit os's work with 32bit apps its just if he has a 64bit cpu and all his new hardware has 64bit drivers why limit yourself to 32bit OS when things are going 64bit. Seems like a pointless waste of money.

Because everything he's likely to run is going to be 32-bit anyway, he's not going to get any advantage out of 64.

Vista 64 has issues running 32 bit themed applications.

I can't think of a single reason that you'd choose vista 64 over Vista 32 in a home/consumer environment, other than to say "I've got vista 64, it's got 32 bits more innit"!

 

[Munson]

^^^The only reason I can currently think of to go Vista 64, is if you get off on spending your weekends scouring the interweb for beta drivers...

 

[Dafthead]

Also for things like database servers, SQL enterprise processor licenses are in the region of 15k so if you can use 2 x QC procs instead of 4 x DC then you save £30k which pays for the server itself many times over.

I've just gone down this route with a couple of SQL servers, we get the sql enter pp licences for £11k and it's saved us £22k by using quad core

 

[dk]

Also for things like database servers, SQL enterprise processor licenses are in the region of 15k so if you can use 2 x QC procs instead of 4 x DC then you save £30k which pays for the server itself many times over.

I've just gone down this route with a couple of SQL servers, we get the sql enter pp licences for £11k and it's saved us £22k by using quad core

thats what I love doing with customers with SQL, they ask for a server and I quote them quad core and say they are getting the server for free with the money they save.

I tend not to do the licensing side though, I thought they used to be 15k but they must have come down then, still a massive saving.

As a microsoft Gold partner I don't think we pay for the majority of our licensing though, Microsoft like us being their number one licensing reseller in the UK and tend to let us use all we want