New pc, need help been out of the loop

Former Member · February 2007

Okay, with limited net and out of the loop for a while, I do not know whats best for a pc,

I need to build one, but some help would be good.

Im looking at £350, £400 MAX,

but i only need

Mobo
Processor
GHX (good for gaming)
RAM (large amount)
PSU

I have case, Drives, monitor and hdd (although only 120gig) for now.

I dont think im missing anything out..

Can anyone make any reconmendations, I'd appriciate it alot,

thanks.

Former Member · February 2007

But a card that's good for gaming is 300 quid for a start

Former Member · February 2007

I dont get why people want to go for cards that are like £300 pounds! its mad!

If i were to build my next computer all i want is one that has good screen resulotion (if you spell it like that)

Former Member · February 2007

basicly, dell offered me this with haggled discount for £420

AMD® Athlon? 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4600+
English Genuine Windows Vista? Home Premium
Collect & Return, 1 Year Service only
Dell? 19" Value Flat Panel (E197FP) - UK/Irish
1024MB Dual Channel DDR2 533MHz [2x512] Memory
160GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive with 8MB DataBurst? cache
16 X DVD +/- RW Drive
128MB ATI® Radeon® X1300 PCI Express graphics card

Former Member · February 2007

Keep saving if you want to play games etc into the future.

1gig won't get you far on vista, 2gig minimum.

Graphics card is poor.

So basically, you need more money, these days you get what you pay for most of the time with PC Hardware.

I plan on an upgrade later this year and will fork out over a grand, perhaps even 1500 quid for a decent spec. If you want a PC to be future proof you have to spend.

Former Member · February 2007

Nash, I tend to disagree, hardware has 'advanced' faster than software and at the moment you can get a pretty good deal. I think 1gb would work on Vista, 2gb I would recommend.

Hellfire: as for Dell, I'd avoid like the plague. You into building your own system?

Do you need a case? You can get them with a PSU built in. Now, for gaming, processor speed and the rest of the crap is secondary. It comes down to first - is there enough RAM. 2gb will be PLENTY for anything for 2007 and proabbly 2008, unless you're into very serious multitasking

. Second, graphics card. I've got an ATI x1950 pro (cheaper version) which I think is the 'sensible' card atm. £150 ish. It will run nicely on Vista as ATI have the drivers up to date, and it will run any game super smooth. However, looking at your budget, you can get an x1600 which will run all games out (possibly not at max max settings?) for £50.

Motherboard: for budget, go AM2. Intel has taken the performance crown so AMD are fex0red, so have slashed their prices.

Scan.co.uk has a variety, but I'd say:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=451486

Full ATX so you don't have to mess about with 2 (or often only 1 usable) PCI expansion ports, supports SATA II for better HDD in the future (can't recommend enough the Hitachi T7K250 - 250gb for about £50 and it's one of the fastest non-raptor conventional drives on the market). Also has 7.1 sound integrated (basically you can hook up full surround sound to it without the need for a seperate sound card - tbf I use my 7.1 just to plug headphones and speakers in at the sametime

but when playing games it hands more channels very nicely).

Also, AM2 will be futureproof for the next few years til AM3

£45

Processor - AM2 Athlon 64 3800+ Windsor Core, Dual Core OEM - £61. Dual core for Vista

Buy an Artic Cooling Apline 64, good low-ish profile quiet CPU cooler, £5. It's funny, they charge an extra £10 for the retail cooler, but get the oem processor and you can buy a much better cooler for less lol.

So we're at £110.

2 x 1gb DDR2 800mhz (max rated speed on your mobo) - £90 - can set it up in dual channel too.

Case - I would say Jeantech Pong II which comes with a nice PSU, but cant find one (PC world used to sell them but they've redone their website?). But the iPod case (as my girlfriend calls it

) is also a good low budget bet:

http://www.scan.co.uk/search/search.asp?criteria=akasa+zen&Submit=Go

Choose between black or white

Powersupply - this is a contentious issue. The maker of mine is 'EZcool' who aren't exactly an established name. My computer is incredibly, incredibly stable

. Looking on there, you can get one fairly cheap:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=141417

Or, if you want a bit of the nice name:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=37215

Hiper are one of the best makes out there. Only 350w though, so check how many devices you'll have plugged in. Remember though, the wattage is only a limit to how many things you can have running, and there is a push to make components more energy efficient. I mean I'm building a similar system for my girlfriend and I'm happy with a 270w processor for the time being.

But if you have 100 usb devices daisy chained off go for something a bit better. The actual reliabilty comes down to the voltage on the rails or something like that, I'm never sure, I just go with good tried and trusted makes.

So,

£200 for the processor, ram, motherboard stuff
£50 ish for case + psu

leaving you between £100 and £150 for graphics.

I left this till last because this is where all the small savings add up. Even on a modest system, a good graphics card will get you playing games full on. And the onboard 7.1 sound card will also give you an audio treat (especially if you DO get surround sound - so long as you dont expect it to work in Vista yet heh).

Mine. Fuck, cost me £150. Well there you go.

For more money:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=487715

has a higher clock rate, so in theory should cope better with demanding graphics

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=521951

if you're planning on running a 19xx by 1080 or whatever the native res is of those huge widescreens

you'll appreciate the 512mb ram. If you prefer nVidia go for one of them, but I like ATI because the drivers atm are better supported. But it's a bit of a toss up - some games prefer ATI and some prefer nVidia. Normally comes down to personal preference.

Linux is more friendly with nVidia tho.

Reckon that's a job well done my son.

Former Member · February 2007

CoolMe wrote: »

I dont get why people want to go for cards that are like £300 pounds! its mad!

If i were to build my next computer all i want is one that has good screen resulotion (if you spell it like that)

Perhaps. But with regards to computers, I'm pretty much in the "you get what you pay for" camp. Top of line graphics cards are normally in the 300-400 range, for the extreme hard core gamers. So I probably wouldn't get one of them, but I probably would go for the next block down, like 200-300. That way i'd be at least getting a card that will play current games for a year or so. Instead some folk will get cards that are 2 or 3 generations old and then moan that they can't play the latest FPS at 2000x4000 with all the options on "high".

Likewise motherboards. Everything in your computer runs across your motherboard, but some people scrimp and save in this key component. Personally I think Asus has a great range, and their high-end boards ooze quality. Combine this with a decent branded power supply and you get a rock-solid system, instead of the flakey POS that people end up moaning about.

Former Member · February 2007

Mist wrote: »

Perhaps. But with regards to computers, I'm pretty much in the "you get what you pay for" camp. Top of line graphics cards are normally in the 300-400 range, for the extreme hard core gamers. So I probably wouldn't get one of them, but I probably would go for the next block down, like 200-300. That way i'd be at least getting a card that will play current games for a year or so. Instead some folk will get cards that are 2 or 3 generations old and then moan that they can't play the latest FPS at 2000x4000 with all the options on "high".

Likewise motherboards. Everything in your computer runs across your motherboard, but some people scrimp and save in this key component. Personally I think Asus has a great range, and their high-end boards ooze quality. Combine this with a decent branded power supply and you get a rock-solid system, instead of the flakey POS that people end up moaning about.

Like I said in my post, it makes no sense getting a more expensive card. The x1950 is in the league of the 'best' of the dx9 cards, £115. Will run every game on full settings. I can happilly run Supreme Commander on full. With the split screen too

but that's confusing without two monitors.

Your only option for spending more would be the 8800, and that doesn't make sense. It's good, of course, but it's been branded as a dx10 card when *really* it's not completely. Later this year / beginning of 2008 when we start to see *true* dx10 cards rolling out, when the initial bugs have been ironed out, then it would be ok to go for the top of the line one. At the moment there are a lot of 'ceilings'. I just like the x1950 because it's actually fairly cheap

I paid £150 for my motherboard. But a lot of the cost came from all the extras they gave me:
- remote control
- dual gigabit lan
- 3 raid controllers
- integrated wireless
- some obscure ability to use an mp3 player to play music through the speakers without turning the computer on
etc. etc.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good motherboard, but a £50 motherboard is still ok. As long as you avoid MSI :grump:. I heart Asus, but have heard a lot of good things about gigabit.

Former Member · February 2007

I've got a P4 Prescot 2.8ghz CPU if yo want it, also got 1GB Kingston ram.

Former Member · February 2007

I actually ended up with the dell one and upgrade the pc slowly, they slashed almost £200 off of it so im not to sad bout it, with building, I have built many pc's but the problem is time, I needed a new pc asap and do not have time anymore with working 7days a week and a baby, it's limited. also the thing with building it, and saving is all well n stuff but its postage costs,

alot of websites charge me £30 a time so it's still expensive.

thanks anyway but I got dell to cut n cut so it's all paid for,

I wish i'd seen your post earlier I might've reconsidered shyboy, thanks anyway mate.

New pc, need help been out of the loop

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