PC Build for ~£300

irace

I've recently been looking on eBay at desktop PCs and components.

For example today on eBay Brand New:

Processor: Dual Core AMD 7550 2.50GHz
Hard Drive: 500GB (Picture Shows Western Digital)
RAM: 4GB DDR2 800Hz
PSU: 500W
Motherboard: ASRock AMD with DDR3 compatibility
Chipset: NVidia GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a
Audio: 5.1 CH
DVDRW

£199

Obviously I'd have to buy Windows OS which is about £70 i think, but would this be a good PC or not? It seems a lot cheaper than in shops so I am slightly worried that I will get it and it will be rubbish!???

:mad:

irace

My other option was to buy components off eBay or online seperately and build a PC myself. On other forums people seem to spec ridiculous budgets of say £500 / £1000 / £1500 / £2000 etc whereas I'm looking for more like £300 all in!

People sell bundles on eBay such as a PC case that comes with a PSU (power supply unit) and motherboards that can come with the CPU (processor) and even RAM! Are these any good? I don't really know what to look out for?

It all seems a bit confusing, I have never built my own PC before by cherry picking individual parts so I don't really know what motherboard to get, what case it will fit in, what type of hard drive to get that will work with the motherboard etc etc!

asbokid

irace wrote: »

My other option was to buy components off eBay or online seperately and build a PC myself. On other forums people seem to spec ridiculous budgets of say £500 / £1000 / £1500 / £2000 etc whereas I'm looking for more like £300 all in!

Since you've already got a screen, a keyboard and a mouse, £300 will buy quite a nice machine.

Obviously I'd have to buy Windows OS which is about £70 i think, but would this be a good PC or not?

To save on the unnecessary cost of Microsoft Windows, there is the alternative of Linux which is free. Linux tends to have better performance than Window as well.

People sell bundles on eBay such as a PC case that comes with a PSU (power supply unit) and motherboards that can come with the CPU (processor) and even RAM! Are these any good? I don't really know what to look out for?

Usually there's very little to gain from buying bundles, except from the savings on shipping that you get from buying all the kit from the same retailer. Watch out for the seller who bundles obsolete components just to clear his storeroom. In general, if the kit is current, then ebay is little to no cheaper than buying from a mainstream retailer.

It all seems a bit confusing, I have never built my own PC before by cherry picking individual parts so I don't really know what motherboard to get, what case it will fit in, what type of hard drive to get that will work with the motherboard etc etc!

There's no hard and fast rule for finding the best components to buy. If you've got a set budget, you will want to get the best kit you can for your £300.

For CPUs, use http://www.cpubenchmark.net
For memory, a faster speed usually means a higher price
For motherboards, check the type of the support chipsets, the bus speeds and tech reviews. It's usually false economy to buy a m/b with an integrated graphics unit. They tend to have poor performance.
For hard drives, there is a trade-off between capacity, speed and cost.

spakkker

90% of motherboards sold have onboard graphics and are fine if you don't game - you can always add a graphics card later if you want. Oddly motherboards without graphics usually cost more !
Ebay is not usually cheapest for components but full systems seem not too bad prices.

Less ram, not too big a deal, better cpu - £176 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/253549