Building My Own Computer ?

[geddes-i]

Hello

I have been looking around on this forum lately as i am hoping to buy a new computer, however after posting some threads i have been advised to build my own computer. So i have decided to bite the bullet and build my own computer.

I am 17 and have £1200GBP to my name. I do not want to spend all of that and would like to spend as little as poissible. I want to be able to play really good games at medium to high settings and also surf the web, homework, etc..

I would like to stick to a budget of 500.00 or under if possible.

So what should i start out doing ?? Anyone got recommendations of good parts to buy ?? Or am i overall better buying a computer already built from somewhere else ??

Thanks

[gyoung]

What are you going to do with this computer? Do you have specific needs (i.e. gaming)?

[KarmaKiller]

I think you got the right idea be building your own.
First thing's first, do you know how to put a system together?
If not, read this over, and then see what you think. It's really rather easy. Just make sure you get compatible parts, and just be careful and use common sense, and you'll be fine..
I have a question on your budget though. You first list £1200GBP as your budget, then later in your post you say your trying to keep it around 500. I'm assuming thats your money?
Post back that, and I'll throw together a list for ya!

[Merkwürdigeliebe]

Building a computer's pretty simple, to build a fully functional tower you'll need:
-a case
-motherboard
-memory
-graphics card
-processor
-power supply (some cases come with a psu, but they are garbage)
-hard drive
-optical drive (dvd-rw)
-operating system (windows, linux, etc)


I'm not too familiar with British pricing, but Intel/Nvidia is definitely the way to go (for now, there are some exceptions)

quad-cores are dirt cheap here North America, see if you can fit a Q6600 into your budget. If not, then go for a dual-core e6750, unless you see an E8400 for the same price or cheaper (again, I don't know how well balanced British pricing is over there)

I highly recommend a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L or Abit IP35 for a good socket 775 motherboard for cheap, it'll give you solid performance, even if you decide to overclock

case, is really your choice, any mid-tower will do, I recommend the Coolermaster CM690

memory, 2GB of DDR2-6400, definitely get a pair of Crucial Ballistix, but if it busts the budget, than any pair from OCZ, Patriot, G.Skill, etc should be reliable

hard drive, look for whatever fits your budget and whatever amount of space you'll need, Seagate and Western Digital are pretty much your only reliable choices, I guess you can go with Hitachi or whatever other hard drives are available if the price is good, generally anything out there will do the trick, but the above two I've mentioned are the most reliable, just look to get a SATA2 drive, 7200.11 rpm, 16mb cache

optical drive, not entirely important, just look at the reviews and make sure it ain't noisy or anything, maybe lightsribe or dual-layer is important to you..

graphics card, I'd recommend an 8800GT, but if you want to cut down the price a little, a 9600GT might suit you, or see if an HD3850 will even be cheaper

and as for power supply, if one comes with a case, it's garbage for sure, the Antec Neo HE series is good (the 550 and 500/520 are cheap) and the Corsair 520HX is a sure bet, and its non-modular variety, the 550VX, there's some others, I reccomend just investing in the 520HX and you'll be set for at least 3 hardware generations to come (as long as you stick to the mid-range of parts)

as for operating system, Linux isn't mainstream, Mac OSs need to be hacked on to PCs, so Windows is your best bet, I say stick to XP for now because it'll be cheaper and Vista doesn't offer anything that much better, DX10 hasn't shown any major benefits as of yet, and XP just runs a lot smoother and it's tons more reliable

I think that about sums up all the different parts and the choices I'd recommend

[geddes-i]

Originally Posted by KarmaKiller

I think you got the right idea be building your own.

Originally Posted by KarmaKiller

First thing's first, do you know how to put a system together?
If not, read this over, and then see what you think. It's really rather easy. Just make sure you get compatible parts, and just be careful and use common sense, and you'll be fine..
I have a question on your budget though. You first list £1200GBP as your budget, then later in your post you say your trying to keep it around 500. I'm assuming thats your money?
Post back that, and I'll throw together a list for ya!

Yea karmakiller your right its my money and i would not like to go spending it all thats why i would prefer to stick to around £500GBP if at all possible. I would be using this computer for all basic needs e.g internet, word, e-mail however i would be mainly using it for gaming. Games such as First person shooters, flight sims, strategys etc. and I would prefer to play them in high settings. So can anyone throw together a list for me on what to buy ??
I would be very grateful if you could, thanks !

[KarmaKiller]

Here's a list for ya:

Motherboard: $58.75
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...11143,48760000

CPU: $143.47
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...ationKey=11147

RAM: $52.89
http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx...1025&InMerch=1

GPU: $105.73
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...ationKey=11137
* If you can go over budget a bit, go for this

PSU:$66.61
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...avigationKey=0

Hard drive: $35.83
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...ationKey=11154

HSF: $11.92
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...ationKey=11258

DVD Burner: $19.70
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...avigationKey=0

That puts the total right at 497 (your money). And all that's left to get is a case, which you can pick out one to your liking.
All in all, this is a very solid system. It will handle anything you throw at it fine.
How does that look?

[geddes-i]

yea looking good karmakiller, however i have a graphcs card already compatible with pci expressx16 its an ati radeon x850xt pe. Is this a good card as i have been told it is. plus then it would knock the price down even more ???
thanks

[buckaro]

The X850xt is about 3-4 years old now, and i believe the 9600GT would significantly improve graphics performance overall. That said it depends on what games your playing (any examples?), otherwise sticking with the x850Xt for now and upgrading later could do the trick.

BTW- Ebuyer seems to have lower prices, and £10 next day delivery.

Oh, and Geil ultra RAM, only £33 and lower cas timings.

Don't forget CPU thermal paste for the HSF.

[johnross2007]

Do you want to overclock? If not, (as long as you get the retail version of the CPU) you can use the stock HSF.

Also, wouldn't a faster dual-core work better for gaming, as games aren't optimized for multiple cores?

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx...58803,44250000

This is around the same price, but only two cores. However it is 3GHZ instead of 2.4GHZ.

[geddes-i]

yea i was wondering bout that as well if i should get a faster dual core ?
Also i have a big debate with one of my m8s about this - AMD OR INTEL ??
and what is the best site to buy computer parts from ?
Cheers