Buying a new PC: It's a nightmare
 

It come time to buy a new PC and I have £1000 ready to spend.

However, I have no idea where to start! :o
Is £1000 even a reasonable budget or do I need to stretch to more?
How on earth do I know if I am getting my money's worth when I know little
about how much things are worth and I don't know where I can get
independent advice?

I have made my own PCs back in the late 90s and would be happy to do this
again, but I have no idea what the best set of components to buy might be.

Does anyone have any advice?

Well first thing is what your trying to build? Gaming rig? and if so how powerful. 1000 pounds should, I think, be plenty sufficient to build a good system.

As for where to start, start digging around sites that offer built computers of the kind your looking for, then see what components they are using (or poke around the threads here for builds). Then start researching components, like video cards, motherboards, cpus, etc. Look for reviews and customer feedback (like say newegg.com). Also ask questions here about parts your interested in. When you have narrowed your build down you could ask for comments on it from us on it as a whole.


That or just buy from Dell or the like. XPS is their gaming rigs (or Alienware but I don't like them as you pay through the nose for the name)

How much is L1000 worth in real money Letum ? :har:

Is it like that Canadian Monopoly money ? :rotfl::har::rotfl:

Thanks Neon, Yup, it's a gaming rig.

Looks like I had better start doing my homework. I'll come back when I have
some ideas.

Firewall: what are you on?

Look for processor and mobo packages. Once decided, the rest falls into place.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128384

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103471

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145182

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130339

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129021

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139005

Add a Seagate hard drive (16MB cache) and a DVDROM W/R and you're off to the races. I'm considering this configuration for myself. Already have the video card and its excellent.

Happy Shopping!!!

:yeah:

EDIT: I've used this case/Power Supply combination for a couple customers and it works great. Customers are very happy with how well the case keeps their systems cool. I don't recommend it for dual video card (SLI) setups though as the 2nd card sits too close to the power supply for my liking... Then again--I don't believe in dual video card setups when a single 9800GT(X) cranks out high frame-rates by itself.

Just j\king with ya Letum. :DL With $2,000.00 you can build a good rig.

If in US I'd point you towards TigerDirect.

As your in the UK I assume you have someone simular there.

As stated by AVG bundle setups cpu\mobo , psu\ vid cards are good deals to look into.

IMHO buy brand name recognized hardware and look carefully at the Warranties.

:yep:

TigerDirect and Newegg are great sites for parts and deals. I generally get all hard-drives from Tiger because they package them better than newegg.

FYI--I do this for a living but I won't charge you for advice :03:!

I rarely use NewEgg as there right down the road and I have to pay sales tax and shipping.

With TG no sales tax and free shipping over $100.00ish

I can't think of better reasoning than that! :up:

I like Asus mobo's and I hear people like Gigabyte too. I imagine the nVidia one's have to be pretty decent as well, but I'm no chip-head.

:hmmm:
Last I looked I noticed Asus had removed a few chip fans and replaced em with non-mechanical heatsinks. I think one of my chip fans is about to die... the pipe heatsinks might be standard issue now.

I've also used a lot of ASUS boards but we started having problems with some of the new ones (up to DOA) and then their ts seems to have slipped a lot. Those problems got me to shop around and I've found that a few companies I used to avoid (including Gigabyte) have stepped up their components a lot.

I do like the passive cooling of the chipsets as well but there are quite a few companies using that technology now. Those little chipset fans have always been trouble-some and tend to be noisy as well.

It's really impressive how much good gear is available at very reasonable prices. I paid more for my C64 than I have to pay for a decent dual core today :hmmm:.

Way I figure it:

Asus- good after revisions/BIOS updates. They push new tech out the door too quick, might be due to shoddy QA.

MSI- best overclockers, excellent BIOS, stable boards

Gigabyte- high build quality, good bios, decent/good overclockers, stable

Basically;
Overclocker? > MSI
Full-featured? > Gigabyte (typically most expensive)
Budget? > Asus

That's how I pick boards for systems, haven't had complaints yet. :up:

the last ASUS board I had fried itself after 4 short years and I found it quiet unstable, especialy if you do not replace the onboard soundcard for a real soundcard as my biggest crullpit of the BSOD's I had with the old pc was due the onboard soundcard.

now I'm using a ASrock MoBo, and with this new pc which I bought march last year not a single problem so far.

HunterICX

Ever tried updating the BIOS during those 4 years? ;)

Asrock have decent boards, but not really geared towards the enthusiast. They lack the full page of tweakable memory timings, for example (last time I chacked anyway). :D

Going mainly with Peto's advice:

M.B:
Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-UD4H AMD 790GX Socket AM2+ VGA DVI HDMI 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard.
~ £125

Processor:
AMD Phenom II X4 940 Deneb 3.0GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM2+ 125W Quad-Core Black Edition
~ £170

RAM:
Cosair (TWIN3X2048-1333C9DHX) DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600)
~ £50 per 2gb

Graphics:
Don't know yet. Anyone got some ATI suggestions?
How about the Sapphire HD 4890?
~ £190

Case:
As cheep as I can get. I don't care if it looks like a pile of crap.
How can I tell if my case will fit everything in?
Less than £100

Cooling:
I have been advised to overclock a little, so I suppose I need some good
cooling, but I don't want to pay for looks.
~ £20

Power Supply:
I have been told that a cheep 700W is just as good as an expensive 700W.
Is this true?
~ £30

HDD:
Don't care. Cheep. I have lots of networked storage in my old PC.
~ £40

Optical:
I can use my old IDE DVD drive, right?
~ Free

Sound:
On board only; I only use headphones.....unless anyone thinks I need
something more...?
Free(?)

OS:
Vista 64 - Right guys?
~ £100


Total:
About £850, perhaps £900 and some with P&P

How does that sound?
Any bottle necks or incompatibilities?

How much RAM should I go for? 2GB seams a little small.

For cooling I'd suggest a Thermalright tower-design. Ultima-90 is what I have, absolute winner, though it's probably a bit more expensive then what you estimate.

PSU: cheap = not good. I would suggest Corsair 650Watt (make sure it has Seasonic components). Corsair TX650w

HD > Western Digital gets my vote

Yes, you can use optical IDE drive, if board has IDE port. Knowing Gigabyte, it likely has 1.

Onboard sound is decent, dedicated soundcard is great. Not strictly nescesary, but recommended. X-Fi Titanium - Fatal1ty Professional, for example.

OS: what you prefer. Vista would be obvious choice for DX10 and DX11 in the future. Could hold out for Win7. 64-bit for 4gb+ memory support.

RAM: 4 to 8GB. You're board likely has 4 slots, I'd fill 2 of them with dual-channel kit (2x2GB). There's also triple-channel, but I'm not up to speed on this.

Personally I'd go with Kingston HyperX memory, but that's just personal preference (lifetime waranty), Corsair is fine.

* that board has integrated graphics. I'd suggest looking for one without.
** according to Gigabyte site, that board is DDR2 board, not DDR3.
*** think this is what you want: GA-MA790FXT-UD5P
This does mean moving to AM3 socket, make sure the CPU matches that. Or go with DDR2 and AM2+

I've updated the BIOS on that Asus, but it didn't improve.
it was the P4P 800SE with Soundmax as onboard soundcard.

I'm not a PC tweaker so I wouldn't know what can be done with this board, all I care about is that it works that it is stable and does what I want it to do...the current PC is doing just that :)

this is the one I have:
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.as...1333-eSATA2&s=

HunterICX

Soundmax? Not a popular choice, might explain the issues. BIOS upgrades can work wonders for troublesome Asus boards. :yep:

But it's not magic. :hmmm:

That Asrock looks like a well-rounded board. Has everything you need. As an enthusiast, I miss 1600FSB and 1200 memory support, but that's not needed for most. :D

Have an Asrock board in older box (AMD Duron 2GHZ). Simply works, no complaints. :salute:

Letum, if it was me building that thing, this would be my pick (sticking with your choice in brands):

MB: GigaByte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P E165,-
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 945 Black Edition 3.00 GHz, 4000 MHz, 4x 512Kb, 8 MB, Boxed E210,-
RAM: Corsair TW3X4G1600C9DHX 4 GB, PC3-12800, 1600 MHz, 9, Non-ECC, Kit Of 2 E82,-

That would kick serious ass. Not i7 ass, but serious ass. :D :yep: