Components to build a new PC

Dead_Eye_Jones

Just when you thought it was simple, the other side of the argument...

Ive been a longer term tracker of components and the drop in price over time is normally steady. Sure prices may well drop in the order of tens of pounds but then you have lost maybe months of use of the computer, not a great trade off.

Get onto tomshardware.com and start looking at the benchmarks, the differences these days are so insignificant, only the real enthusiast geeks can get excited by DVD encoding taking 10mins instead of 11mins. You'll never notice the difference in slower RAM in real use. Honestly. Dont take my word for it, look at real benchmarks in real situations and think whether Office opening in 0.02 seconds is really better than it opening in 0.03 seconds lol!

I had a similar socket choice last year, the older 754 or the newer 939, everyone I spoke to said I was mad to go with 754, totally crazy I just had to have 939 or I was a loon! The benchmarks showed the equivalent 939 chip to be about 1% quicker, yet the chip cost exactly £100 more! Not really moneysaving is it?!

So maybe I needed 939 to be future proof? Well here we are a year later, are there any 939 chips that out perform my 754 one to the point its worth spending money? Of course not!! Infact 939 is on the way out so I can be super smug that I went with the old tech now lol! Things move so quick, anything you buy this year will be out of date next year , so just get the cheapest that does was you need lol!

Unless you are an enthusiast gamer, steer clear of premium products, go for the previous generation cheap stuff. If you can get a 754 setup dirt cheap then go for that, mine runs everything fine and I also do plenty of encoding off an old analogue camcorder. Sure a new machine will do it 2mins quicker, but when its 2mins over 30, its not significant. As a competative online gamer tbh I can run all the current games fine too so I really dont buy into these arguments you need the latest and greatest...

Only you can decide how much of an enthusiast you are... dont get me wrong im all for the geeks eeking every drop of performance from the latest equipment, afterall, they help drive the market forward .

If you need a PC now, buy one now, please dont wait. You can always wait. There is always a newer better chip round the corner. Everytime anyone posts anything like this you'll always see a 'you have to wait for x y z'. If the PC can do what you want it to, and do it now - buy it! If you go for previous tech, like I suggest above you can afford to upgrade lin two years anyway. Else you'll wait for ever...

I spend about £2-300 every 2yrs and have always had a PC that can run the latest software. My last upgrade to a 3700+ cost me £200 lol (£50 for the m/b, £150 for the chip, all else was recycled). I had to laugh at the peeps saying I needed to spend £100 on a m/b and £250 on a chip - crazy people. Crazy! A year later Im still waiting for them to explain the mistake they think ive made, meanwhile Ill get on with enjoying my super quick PC .

Wait by all means, but you'll continue to get frustrated by very slow moving prices and will either spend more than you wanted or will just buy - the industry is designed in this way to extract cash from suckers.

Sorry for posting my thoughts in this way, but what do you expect on the MSE forum, save your money !

wolfman

Dead_Eye_Jones wrote:

So maybe I needed 939 to be future proof? Well here we are a year later, are there any 939 chips that out perform my 754 one to the point its worth spending money?

939 has been out for around 2.5 years. Initially when it first came out socket 754 was a good option as it was cheaper. By mid 2005 though the price difference wasn't very much (and now it's virtually non existant), plus with socket 939 you'd allow yourself the potential to fit a faster cpu.

Dead_Eye_Jones wrote:

If you need a PC now, buy one now, please dont wait. You can always wait. There is always a newer better chip round the corner. Everytime anyone posts anything like this you'll always see a 'you have to wait for x y z'. If the PC can do what you want it to, and do it now - buy it! If you go for previous tech, like I suggest above you can afford to upgrade lin two years anyway. Else you'll wait for ever...

I'd heavily disagree here. Intel are on the verge of making the biggest release since the original Pentium. In fact with the introduction of Core's, Pentiums will be killed off.

Also AMD have announced they are going to make dramatic price cuts to compete with Intel's new chip. In fact prices are already dropping.

Buying is an almost an art form. You have to pick the perfect time. Generally it occurs every 6 months or so. With the new Core's coming out Pentium and Athlon64's look set to become dirt cheap. There will always be something faster, but buying right before a huge release could cost you. Especially too as AMD don't have any short terms plans for a release.

Dead_Eye_Jones wrote:

I spend about £2-300 every 2yrs and have always had a PC that can run the latest software. My last upgrade to a 3700+ cost me £200 lol (£50 for the m/b, £150 for the chip, all else was recycled). I had to laugh at the peeps saying I needed to spend £100 on a m/b and £250 on a chip - crazy people. Crazy!

Exactly what I do. I never like to spend more than £180 on a cpu, or £90 on a motherboard. My last upgrade was an Athlon64 3500+ (£150) and an MSI K8N (£70). Switching my hardware every 18 months or so, means I can upgrade without huge costs.

icebergx

Here is a few suggestions for a system from a guy on another forum:

1) MSI K9N Neo-F nForce 550 (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard (MB-071-MS) £58.69 incl VAT
2) G.Skill 2GB DDR2 LA PC2-5300 (2x1GB) CAS4 Dual Channel Kit (F2-5400PHU2-2GBLA) (MY-012-GS) £117.44 incl VAT
3) AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+ 2.00GHz (Socket AM2) - Retail (CP-166-AM) £111.57 incl VAT
3) Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB ST3320620AS SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-078-SE) £73.97 incl VAT
4) BFG GeForce 7600 GS OC 256MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-024-BG £89.24 incl VAT

Total £450.91 + £11 shipping.

All these items are from a company called Overclockers.co.uk. Their prices seem very good but are they unbeatable? Does anyone have any discount codes for them?

jem16

wolfman wrote:

I'd heavily disagree here. Intel are on the verge of making the biggest release since the original Pentium. In fact with the introduction of Core's, Pentiums will be killed off.

Also AMD have announced they are going to make dramatic price cuts to compete with Intel's new chip. In fact prices are already dropping.

I almost bought my new PC two weeks ago until I read on here about the price cut by AMD. I had the quote from a local supplier all sorted out. I told him that I had heard about this price cut and that I would wait to see. He said he would check each week and let me know.

I've just had an email from him today saying that the prices will be cut next week. :j


I agree that sometimes you are forever saying wait until such and such is out. However the price cut is expected to be quite significant, maybe 30-50% - it seemed daft not to wait.

wiraone

icebergx wrote:

2) Motherboard (Asus A8N-E SKT 939 NFORCE 4 AUDIO LAN PCI-Express ATX for £60. Can I connect my old ATA HDD and DVDRW to this?)

5) Graphics Card

Make sure that you get a PCI-E graphics card ... A8N-E couldn't take AGP card IINW.