New PC: Buy or Build?

Watty_3

This seems like a friendly enough place with clever techies who could spare a moment or two to help and advise me.

I'm in the market for a new PC for my son. He's heavily into gaming and although that will not be the sole use, I understand that this means it has to have extras or more expensive components than a bog standard internet browsing PC.

I would prefer to spend no more than £500 although this is flexible and at a push I could be persuade to go up to £700 if it makes a stellar difference!

My next door neighbour's son has offered to build the PC if I supply the parts and has indicated that this can work out considerably cheaper than popping into PC World or the like, so my question/questions:

Where do I start? I understand that I need a motherboard, CPU, memory, graphics adaptor, hard disk drive, dvd drive and then the external stuff like keyboard, mouse, screen etc. Can someone recommend which components would best suit my requirements?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Many thanks.

MercilessKiller

How familiar are you with building pc's? Easy? Medium? etc etc...

Reason I say, is that the last thing you want is something small to go wrong and the insurance and warranty flies out the window.

These days prices of components aren't good value anymore meaning buying a pre-made machine is as expensive/cheap (depending on if your optimistic )

So I'd personally advise having a look at ready made pc's then take the spec's and add up the prices you can get.

Places i recommend to check prices:
amazon.co.uk
microdirect.co.uk
cclcomputers.co.uk
pixmania.com (think its .com?)
novatech.com (though these have got more expensive recently)

Microdirect is my fav personally but hey.

For gaming you'd need either an AMD 64 or the new Intel 64 bit processors.. I'd recommend AMD64 Dual Core.. anything more than 3.4GHZ would do.

I'd recommend 1gb of DDR at minimum. Possibly 2GB of Dual Channel Ram if you can afford.

Also recommend a PCI-Express SLI Graphics card. The Nvidia Geforce range is a good one. Just look at the 7xxx rang on microdirect.. the most expensive one will last the longest.. but mid range priced ones will play all games now and for a good few months! The more you pay the more it lasts.. I bought a 6800 Ultra 256ddr nearly 2 years ago for £400 - it still plays new games like F.E.A.R and the new Doom VERY well indeed! Though in anothter year or 2 it will be out the window!

DVD RW As standard

Hard disk drive - I'd recommend minimum 80GB 7200RPM 8mb Cache SATA. Western Digital are a good company for hard drives. Very reliable. Maxtor are very cheap but they dont last too long.... Hitachi are also VERY good (surprisingly).

Keyboard/Mouse you can get as combo... I'd go for a logitech package with an MX700 minimum.. poss the MX1000 (laser) is a good option.

Monitor - The way TFT has gone you can get a low ms which is good competition for CRT's. I'd go with a maximum of 8ms.. and a minimum of 19" screen resolution. ACER has some great prices through the amazon website..

As for the motherboard.. my a mobo to fit the processor.. not the other way round. Onceyou know what processor you want, look at motherboards that suit that processor! - Sometimes you can get bundles, Novatech do them so check that out!

HTH

BTW: I gave the high end options so that would all be well over £700.. but the way games go these days ye... thing is that machine would last MANY years.. if you go for mid range.. in 2 years max it will be redundant!

johnmcn

I would say that unless he is into heavy gaming and looking to overclock then buy a complate system from a online manufacturer..
Building your own does have the benefits of being a learning experience and you then have the option of picking your choice or hard drive,ram,motherboard etc but as i said that is for the heavy(or hard core ) gamer who dont mind spending an extra £100 to gain a small increase in performance..
unlike the poster above i would advise against buying an sli board,it realy is money down the drain (costs more for the motherboard) unless you intend on buying another graphics card the same down the road to increase graphics performance (bear in mind you need to up the power supply to compensate for the extra draw)
For £500 you aren't going to get much game performance as chances are the graphics will be built into the motherboard so look for a pc with a graphics card,nowadays this will more than likely be PCIe but even at £700 you are limited to what is going to be fitted and an nvidia 7600 is around the limit you should expect..this while being able to play games now may look pretty dated in a year when newer games with fancy lighting etc comes out...

PC gaming is an expensive business with guys who spend too much time doing also spending too much money
I know people who buy new graphics cards and CPU's just about every year (and new motherboards etc every 2)just to give then a wee edge ,its not something i would recommend to anyone .

Buy a PC within your budget and if it's games he wants to play buy a console,at least with that games released 3 years after theconsole will still play as well as the day you bought it..


Edit:
http://www.meshcomputers.com are about the cheapest build to order i've seen,i have also seen some bad reviews from customers but then you'll find that from all volume builders..

marleyboy

I personally would go for a build, you can build a pc for roughly £300 the same spec as one you would pay in excess of £700 to buy, if your neighbour has the knowhow, then I would recommend it, start of with the tower, and work your way up from there. You could alternatively buy a cheaper £300 pc, and simply upgrade the graphics, HD and memory for around £100-£200.

As above I higly recommend Micro Direct as your starting point. building pc's is all plug n play nowadays (you just plug the parts into various slots). Most hardware you buy, would tell you how and where to plug them. I think the most costly item would be the monitor.

Aside from buying, building a pc, will give you a far better insight into the workings of a pc, and should faults occur in the future, your more inclined to know what the fault is, and how to repair it.

Its not as technical as you think, in fact once completed, you would not only feel you have acheived something, but also would be suprised at just how simple it is to build.

Good luck.

pin

Building a pc and buying one, probably work out the same price. However when building a pc you will be able to choose your own components and they will in general be of a higher quality than buying a computer.

MercilessKiller

Just found a not too bad one:

http://www.ankermann-pc.com/uk/cpu_configa21.php?artikelnr=10748

tazzababe

I got someone to build mine. I was looking for one for a while so had a general idea of what I wanted-(£1000 in comet) I went a pc guy at my local market and talked to him about it. Three wks later I had the exact specs, plus I got to choose the tft monitor and the tower. It only cost me £550. I was well impressed. :T
I was concerned though about it breaking down, but I got the 12 month warranty and I have his mobile, work number and email addy. Overall he has been great, and if he sees me when I am doing my shopping he always asks to make sure things are ok.

LittleJo

Hi,
Regarding ankermann, their address is
Ankermann PC
Kaiserstuhlstr. 2
D - 79211 Denzlingen
Wonder what returns policy is, also VAT etc..
Jo

Raffles_3

It used to be cheaper to build your own. This is no longer the case, unless you can get a whole lot of components for nothing. Otherwise your homemade computer will cost about the same as the latest bargain bucket in PC World but without the software.
Be careful to check the hard drive that your motherboard will support BEFORE you go down to Maplin's to be offered a huge disc for only £X, only to find that the thing won't work till you've juggled about with jumpers and reformatted the hard drive.

wolfman

As mentioned above self builds aren't any cheaper these days. What you get with a self build, is the choice of components and the opportunity to make a more balanced system.

If you can afford it, the Intel Core 2 Duo CPU's are well worth going for. I've got an E6300 cpu, with the Gigabyte DS3 board, and can overclock it faster than any AMD cpu. It's perfectly stable too, and still runs cool (41C idle).

Some parts worthy of a mention:
- For the case have a look at the Antec Sonata II. It comes with a decent 450W psu. The case is excellent, well built, has good ventilation and is extremely quiet. It's about £80, a good buy for what you get.
- Generally speaking, ATI cards run hot, but are quieter and nVidia cards run cooler but are more noisier. Just something worth considering. Something like an nVidia 7900GT or ATI X1800XT (or X1900GT) would be a decent id-range gaming card to buy.
- For a mouse the Logitech MX500 series are very good. I'd avoid the MX700, it's an older cordless version. I sold mine and got the MX1000 which is excellent, but does cost around £35. I still hold onto my MX500, it's been great, especially for gaming.
- If possible try to spend all your budget on the pc and none on the monitor. It is the part of the machine you interact with most. You should be able to pickup a nice 19" tft for around £180-200.
- Be careful what you buy. Some people have mentioned self building is easy, but that's not always the case. Sometimes there are conflicts, poor hardware support etc... Read around on forums and look at people's signatures as they often put their spec in it. If you decide to go for an Intel Core 2 Duo, then definitely post back here.

If you do a self build, make sure you're getting the best components for your money. Read reviews etc... and post on forums like this to get opinions.

MercilessKiller

LittleJo wrote:

Hi,
Regarding ankermann, their address is
Ankermann PC
Kaiserstuhlstr. 2
D - 79211 Denzlingen
Wonder what returns policy is, also VAT etc..
Jo

Didn't think VAT would be a problem as within the European Constitution :x