Building my own PC

spud17

Just to add to custardys good advice, if you go to ebuyers site, pick your processor, add to basket, then often the site will suggest a motherboard.

It's a start.

steveandel

Sorry to hijack, but I thought I'd add to this rather than starting another self build thread. I'm looking to spend around £400 on a system to be used for general computing plus photo editing and light gaming (nothing as draining as COD Black Ops for example). I must admit it's a loooong time since I last did this so I'm a bit out of the loop with regards to the current technology but I've put the list below together for people to comment on if they have any suggestions?


Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium - Licence and media - 1 PC - OEM - DVD - 64-bit - English £66.86
Coolermaster Elite 310 Case with Side Window and Coolermaster Elite 500W PSU *Special Offer* £59.99
Gigabyte GA-MA78LMT-US2H 760G Socket AM3 DVI VGA HDMI Out 8 Channel Audio MATX Motherboard £48.57
Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1333MHz Memory Kit Unbuffered CL9 £35.97
LiteOn IHAS124-19 24x DVD±RW DL & RAM SATA Optical Drive - OEM Black with Nero Essentials £11.99
Western Digital WD10EARS 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 5400rpm 64MB Cache - OEM Caviar Green £44.99
AMD Athlon II X4 640 Socket AM3 3GHz 2MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor £76.36
ASUS HD 5550 1GB DDR3 DVI VGA HDMI Out PCI-E Low Profile Graphics Card £54.58
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 Socket 775, 1156, 1155, 1366, AM2, AM3 Heatpipe CPU Cooler £14.69

Cart total inc vat: £414.00

redcard

I would go for a 7200RPM drive rather than a 5400, and I would spend a bit extra on a decent CPU cooler - that one gets mixed reviews.

custardy

spud17 wrote: »

Just to add to custardys good advice, if you go to ebuyers site, pick your processor, add to basket, then often the site will suggest a motherboard.

It's a start.

I actually prefer Scans search system over ebuyer
far easier to sort by catagory

CoolHotCold

For Roughly £400 I got this

Windows 7 HP 64bit £74.30
1TB Samsung F3 7200RPM and 4GB Corsair DDR3 PC3-12800 (scroll down to storage and add to cart) £69.99
CoolMaster 310 + 500W PSU £59.99
Liteon 24x DVD +-RW £11.99
Gigabyte GA-MA74GMT-S2 £38.39
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition £109.99
1GB DDR5 PALIT GF GTS 450 £90.31

Total at £454.96 Thats my recommendation, steveandel. You can drop the price by £40 by replacing the Phenom II X4 with the Athlon X4.

Humphrey10

rob7475 wrote: »

I'm sorry, but if you have to ask how the parts go together and if there's any fiddly bits, you should really reconsider whether you should build your own PC or not.

Anyone can build their own PC, it's very easy. The hard part is deciding which bits to buy, but after that they all fit together easily.

steveandel

Ok, thanks for the suggestions people. Now to shop around and buy everything!!

moocoo

Sorry I am slow in catching up, but in terms of value and AMD v Intel, I have tended to be an AMD fan. I have just updated my PC with ... well almost everything. Specifically on the MoBo and processor I went for an ASUS M4A78LT-M Socket AM3 motherboard and Athlon II X3 455 3.3Ghz processor.

The clever thing was that the X3 is a triple core processor (doh!) but the motherboard allowed me to unlock the 4th core (the way AMD manufacture) so now I have an X4 ... for free. I now wish I'd saved and got the X2 and unlocked two cores.

Hope this helps.

PS - as I am new to this, I don't know how to remove the 'angry' face at the start - but I'm not in the slightest!!

custardy

moocoo wrote: »

Sorry I am slow in catching up, but in terms of value and AMD v Intel, I have tended to be an AMD fan. I have just updated my PC with ... well almost everything. Specifically on the MoBo and processor I went for an ASUS M4A78LT-M Socket AM3 motherboard and Athlon II X3 455 3.3Ghz processor.

The clever thing was that the X3 is a triple core processor (doh!) but the motherboard allowed me to unlock the 4th core (the way AMD manufacture) so now I have an X4 ... for free. I now wish I'd saved and got the X2 and unlocked two cores.

Hope this helps.

PS - as I am new to this, I don't know how to remove the 'angry' face at the start - but I'm not in the slightest!!

there are no guarantees with unlocking cores
so your X2 may not have unlocked at all, or been unstable

amonra

Another little "saver"...
Do you have a brother/sister/friend who is in full time education ? As long as they have an email address with the uni or college, then they qualify. Then you could persuade them to buy a student's copy of Windows and give it to you as a present.