Building a PC!

[Al_G]

Yo!

Thinking about building a PC (should keep me entertained for a while)

Looking to spend around £600 on components (I already have a monitor) but I have no idea where to start (component compatibility is my main concern.

Any hints or tips.

I'm guessing I'll need the following.

Motherboard
CPU
RAM
Graphics Card
Sound Card
RW DVD Drive
Power Supply
Network Card
Case

I'm not after anything to play games on but something quick (everyday tasks etc) and reliable.

Any ideas or advice?

 

[Gareth]

I'd expect network and sound card to be on the motherboard, so you don't need to budget for those.

HDD(s)

I'll try and take a look later, but for the budget I'd expect your looking at an i5 system with an SSD possibly for the OS drive and then a bigger conventional drive for storage with a reasonable graphics card and amount of memory.

 

[seb]

http://www.cliosport.net/forum/show...eSloth-my-first-self-build&highlight=Thesloth

My self build thread.

 

[sbridgey]

If you go on scan.co.uk, as you add items to the basket it shows you what else you need to build your PC to stop you forgetting anything.

 

[Don]

Have a look at aria.co.uk as they do overclocked systems whereby they do all the work in overclocking an i5 so will be pretty good to use. I have one and highly recommend them. Good prices and they have a forum should you have any questions or issues.

 

[Lal B3N]

Should be able to build a great machine for 600. Our new work ones are only around 330 each and they are fantastic for every day use.

Scan, Aria, Overclockers, Ebuyer, ccl online are a good few to check.

 

[Gareth]

I've recently discovered Scan sell the majority of their stuff on eBay with free delivery as well (I get free delivery through the store but only when spending circa £100), so it helps with the smaller items.

 

[Al_G]

Cool! Thanks very much for all the info it's much appreciated.

I'd also like to buy a quality tower case. I see there are many shapes and sizes to chose from, how do you ensure compatibility with your chosen motherboard, CPU heat sink etc?

 

[Lal B3N]

Any midi tower should be up to the job unless your running a ridiculous cpu cooler.

Have a look at the coolmaster 450 i think it is, around £50 on Aria. Its great, comes with sound deadening built in and has really good build quality for the price. Great cable management too!

 

[MikeoftheQuays]

Yeah, just look for any decent quality ATX tower.

£600 is quite a lot if youre not planning to play games. I built my Dad a machine that'll run the odd older game and do everything else easily for less than half that.

Depends what you want it for I guess. If I didn't play games I'd be looking at maybe a decent sound card, headphones/speakers and a good amount of storage for a media PC. Or perhaps a good quality CPU and lots of memory for photography post-processing. If all its gonna be doing is surfing the Internet then I'd be looking to spend less than £300.

Scan is quite good as its only a short hop down the '61 to pick your gear up. Overclockers is my favourite vendor but they use DPD (an arse if you can't get someone to take the delivery or have it delivered to work) which is quite dear.

 

[Al_G]

Yeah, just look for any decent quality ATX tower.

£600 is quite a lot if youre not planning to play games. I built my Dad a machine that'll run the odd older game and do everything else easily for less than half that.

Depends what you want it for I guess. If I didn't play games I'd be looking at maybe a decent sound card, headphones/speakers and a good amount of storage for a media PC. Or perhaps a good quality CPU and lots of memory for photography post-processing. If all its gonna be doing is surfing the Internet then I'd be looking to spend less than £300.

Scan is quite good as its only a short hop down the '61 to pick your gear up. Overclockers is my favourite vendor but they use DPD (an arse if you can't get someone to take the delivery or have it delivered to work) which is quite dear.

Thanks for your input.

I want something for longevity and reliability rather than out and out gaming performance.

i5 would be good as would a quality motherboard and graphics card - I'm guessing most will say that an i5 would be overkill?

How does the SSD SATA hard drive combination work? Is this a wise move or would it be better to buy one or the other?

 

[Gareth]

SSD and conventional HDDs are both SATA, it makes no difference to have an SSD alongside a HDD.

SSDs have come down a lot in price and there are pretty much daily deals on hotukdeals for them. My advice would be to get a 60GB or if possible 120GB for the OS, then get a convential 1TB for all your programs/music/photos etc.

I'd also go for an nVidia graphics card as they have better driver support than AMD/ATI.

As for cases I'd recommend a Corsair, they make good quality cases:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/cors...r-gaming-performance-case-with-usb-30-w-o-psu

Here as said with free delivery (usually next day):

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Corsair-C...ting_DesktopComponents_RL&hash=item19d57b5a23

 

[Al_G]

SSD and conventional HDDs are both SATA, it makes no difference to have an SSD alongside a HDD.

SSDs have come down a lot in price and there are pretty much daily deals on hotukdeals for them. My advice would be to get a 60GB or if possible 120GB for the OS, then get a convential 1TB for all your programs/music/photos etc.

I'd also go for an nVidia graphics card as they have better driver support than AMD/ATI.

Sounds good, thanks.

What kind of processor? There are many variants of the i3, i5 etc.

 

[Lal B3N]

Sounds good, thanks.

What kind of processor? There are many variants of the i3, i5 etc.

If the price isn't too bad go i5 if you can. Should be easily within your budget, always on offer on various sites.

 

[Al_G]

Cool, what type of i5?

I presume there won't be many compatibility issues between cpu's and mother boards?

Thanks for all you help.

 

[Lal B3N]

They are determined by socket type. Long as the socket type of the cpu matches the board you will be fine.

 

[Gareth]

I had a quick play on Scan:

 

[Al_G]

Cheers everyone.

Do you need a CPU heat sink?

 

[Al_G]

I had a quick play on Scan:

Looking good

 

[guysy]

Cheers everyone.

Do you need a CPU heat sink?

If you mean in general, rather than it missing off that list above, yeah you do. Some processor kits come with a heatsink fan but I think most come without these days as people like to fit there own.

If I'm building a computer these days I look for quietness because I mainly watch films and my tower is next to me at ear level so thats something to think about when building, you obviously need the fans but if you spec well and buy a good case you can just have the cpu fan, graphics card fan and then maybe one other fan to expell excess heat, that way you will have a fairly silent pc.

Depending on what socket CPU you have, something like this as a heatsink fan is perfect http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-035-AR

Thats what I have and its quiet.

Also regarding cases, you might be after one that looks cool with a window to see the insides etc, or you might be after something that looks smart and quiet.

This looks like a nice quiet case to me, it has internal sound proofing and look decently made.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/cool...out)-silent-case-usb-30-with-35-x-doc-sd-card

 

[Al_G]

This is what I came up with:

Overkill much lol?

 

[Lal B3N]

Personally i would go for a proper hdd rather than that model. One with 500mb+ read amd write speeds. 250mb is quite low really.

 

[guysy]

Without looking at the reviews for the Akasa.. It might be good I'm not sure, but the Arctic cooling I linked before would fit your socket I'd go for that if it was me.

Cheaper case could be bought, like the one I linked, but the Corsair does look nice.

Also make sure you get a decent thermal paste, this is what I use: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=TH-008-AR

 

[Al_G]

Personally i would go for a proper hdd rather than that model. One with 500mb+ read amd write speeds. 250mb is quite low really.

Something like this mate?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-021-CS&groupid=1657&catid=2101&subcat=2103

 

[Al_G]

Without looking at the reviews for the Akasa.. It might be good I'm not sure, but the Arctic cooling I linked before would fit your socket I'd go for that if it was me.

Cheaper case could be bought, like the one I linked, but the Corsair does look nice.

Also make sure you get a decent thermal paste, this is what I use: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=TH-008-AR

Cheers mate, just updating my basket.

Will try and source the bits and bobs elsewhere if they can be bought cheaper, I'll need to have a proper hunt.

I'll also need to buy a copy of windows from somewhere

 

[Al_G]

How we looking?

 

[guysy]

Yep, get a round idea of what you want then do some bargain hunting.

Some of the aftermarket Heatsinks will come with a layer of thermal stuff on, if you want you could just use that, but its better to scrape it off and use good thermal paste.

Also if it was me knowing its just a home computer Id boot of a normal SATA drive, I know SSD drives are fast and all but I just run a 1tb sata hard drive with good read/write speeds as the main hard drive.

 

[Al_G]

Yep, get a round idea of what you want then do some bargain hunting.

Some of the aftermarket Heatsinks will come with a layer of thermal stuff on, if you want you could just use that, but its better to scrape it off and use good thermal paste.

Also if it was me knowing its just a home computer Id boot of a normal SATA drive, I know SSD drives are fast and all but I just run a 1tb sata hard drive with good read/write speeds as the main hard drive.

Cool, so get rid of the SSD and buy only the normal SATA drive?

Is the one I listed up to the job?

 

[guysy]

Im not really sure mate, I've thought about adding one to mine before but left it due to cost, they are coming down in price lately, but size wise for an affordable one I haven't bothered.

It a personal thing really, if you can justify the price go for it, but for me I'd wait, do you use photoshop or anything? 8gb of ram would seem more useful to me but I edit videos once in a while.

Edit: I see you've already specced 8gb, nevermind.

Someone else more in tune with whats current might be able to help you more, I just know how it all goes together .

 

[Al_G]

Im not really sure mate, I've thought about adding one to mine before but left it due to cost, they are coming down in price lately, but size wise for an affordable one I haven't bothered.

It a personal thing really, if you can justify the price go for it, but for me I'd wait, do you use photoshop or anything? 8gb of ram would seem more useful to me but I edit videos once in a while.

Sure.

Nope, no video editing. Just the usual word processing, web browsing, video watching, music listening etc.

Any programs that will need to run on it from a works prospective aren't memory or CPU intensive.

 

[Lal B3N]

Something like this mate?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-021-CS&groupid=1657&catid=2101&subcat=2103

I have this one in mine and now have it in all the machines at work. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-076-OC&groupid=1657&catid=2101&subcat=2103

Excellent ssd for the money, enough space for your OS plus plenty of programs, as Windows 7 does take up quite a lot of space these days.

They make booting the OS, opening up programs etc much much quicker than your average 72000rpm hdd. Especially now on Sata 3 6gb connections.

I can build you a machine on a couple of sites within your budget if you like and see how they come out?

 

[Gareth]

I'd be including an SSD as said previously, not just for boot times but also for responsiveness when using the operating system and programs.

The Artic Cooler is a good shout (I've had one previously) but unless your planning on overclocking it's not at all required, as long as you buy a retail version of the cpu the included heatsink fan and thermal compound is fine.

The price of the memory on your list seems expensive, over twice the price of that I listed from Scan and my memory was faster and dual channel, don't forget with Scan selling with free delivery on eBay you can easily buy bits and pieces from them without racking up delivery costs.

 

[Gareth]

Actually Scan work out a lot cheaper (this is with twice the amount of memory, IMHO you should be going for a minimum of 8GB):

 

[Lal B3N]

The aftermarket cooler isn't needed imo, unless gaming. The temps on stock cooler will not get high enough to warrant a bigger cooler so its wasted money in my eyes. Apart from it looks better.

16GB is a bit overkill too, not going to be needed really for the things he has mentioned he will be doing. May as well keep costs as low as possible.

 

[Lal B3N]

Actually Scan work out a lot cheaper (this is with twice the amount of memory, IMHO you should be going for a minimum of 8GB):

I would remove the cooler from that and change the case to the Coolermaster Pro 450 and it would be under £500 then. Would be a bargain for the spec then.

 

[Gareth]

I'd remove the cooler and the thermal compound, I was just trying to show like for like on the difference in price, IMHO the Corsair will be the better case (I've got both Coolermaster and Corsair cases at home)

It wouldn't be under £500 btw.

 

[Lal B3N]

I'd remove the cooler and the thermal compound, I was just trying to show like for like on the difference in price, IMHO the Corsair will be the better case (I've got both Coolermaster and Corsair cases at home)

It wouldn't be under £500 btw.

Ahh my mistake, was looking at the without VAT price. Thought it seemed cheap lol.

 

[MikeoftheQuays]

How we looking?

Everyone's sticking their oar in so I figured I'd have a go too...

Your motherboard is dual channel memory but you've only specced one stick of RAM. If you only want 4GB of RAM then I'd go for 2 x 2GB sticks. But RAM is dirt cheap so you may as well go with 2 x 4GB IMO.

And, also IMO, you could lose the CPU cooler. Unless you're planning on overclocking it isn't needed. The big boxed retail CPU's like you've ordered there always, in my experience anyway, come with a cooler. They also come with their own little sachet of thermal compound. Shaves £9 off the price!

Other than that, looks good to me. The solid state drive isn't essential but it's nice to have. Those Corsair Sandforce ones are supposed to be quick.

EDIT: Oop, just noticed you've ordered two sticks of the RAM! Ignore the first bit!!

 

[Lal B3N]

Other than that, looks good to me. The solid state drive isn't essential but it's nice to have. Those Corsair Sandforce ones are supposed to be quick.

They are essential when speccing it yourself though, the difference is night and day between an SSD and normal sata hdd. Especially as they seem to be cheap as chips at the moment.

 

[Al_G]

Immense guys, thank you so much for your input.

Let me update the shopping cart one final time.

Once everyone's in agreement I'll start the hunt to see if I can buy the same parts cheaper elsewhere (I've already found the case £20 cheaper).