Building a PC!

Anonmouse

I am planning to build a PC just reusing my existing case and DVD, have listed what I am planning at the moment below - any advice appreciated for alternative components or cheaper prices!

[STRIKE]
CPU: Intel i5 2500k 3.3Ghz £159.90 Pixmania
Fan: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 £ 14.98 Dabs
Mobo: Gigabyte Z68P £ 71.99 Ebuyer
GFX: Nvidea GTX 560 £126.99 Ebuyer
RAM: 8GB Corsair Vengance £ 33.99 Dabs
HDD: 1TB Samsung Spinpoint £ 69.99 Pixmania
PSU: CIT 850W £ 41.76 Ebuyer
OS: Windows 7 Premium OEM £ 70.73 Ebuyer

Total Price: £590.33
[/STRIKE]

CPU: Intel i5 2500 3.3Ghz £159.99 Dabs
Mobo: Gigabyte Z68P £ 74.98 Dabs
GFX: Nvidea GTX 560 TI £159.99 Dabs
RAM: 8GB Corsair Vengance £ 33.99 Dabs
PSU: Antec 650W £ 59.99 Ebuyer
OS: Windows 7 Premium OEM £ 70.73 Ebuyer

- £25 Discount on £399 spend at Dabs

Total Price: £534.67

EDIT: Decided to drop the 2500k and cooler and instead opt for the standard 2500 and upgrade the GFX to a 560 TI.

Myser

I would buy a better (branded) PSU. You don't need an 850W PSU to run the GTX 560.

Spank

Unless your planning on getting another GFX card 850W is overkill, 700W will be plenty

pcombo

I just bought a 700watt CIT from ebuyer works just as good as branded ones.

SteveJH200

The CPU comes with a cooler. Both that and the hard drive are quoted as ex VAT so your budget will be stretched a bit!

Anonmouse

I was thinking that as it was a budget brand PSU I would go a bit bigger, but the 700W version is only £31.29 so that's a tenner off the total if it's up to the job.

Branded PSU are all £60+ and trying to keep costs down as much as possible.

Borrisx

Sounds good although I'd be tempted to go for a modular PSU. You can get a 650W for approx 60 or so and help minimise the barrage of cables.

Anonmouse

SteveJH200 wrote: »

The CPU comes with a cooler. Both that and the hard drive are quoted as ex VAT so your budget will be stretched a bit!

just checked again and definately including VAT - you scared me then! can't go over £600.

In my experience the stock fans can be rather inefficient and noisy - had problems with several in the past and this seemed like a cheap solution.

masscrazy

Anonmouse wrote: »

I was thinking that as it was a budget brand PSU I would go a bit bigger, but the 700W version is only £31.29 so that's a tenner off the total if it's up to the job.

Branded PSU are all £60+ and trying to keep costs down as much as possible.

Thats possibly the worst decision, to keep costs down on a PSU.

I've not experienced it before myself and I dont want to scare you into buying a 'branded' 'more expensive' PSU, but have read alot on it, you dont want to skimp on the PSU. Basically cheaper units are known to take everything with them if they blow, thats the cpu, ram, hdds, everything.

So really what you want is yes a branded PSU, not because they're branded neccesarily but because they good quality mostly.

It doesnt even have to be top of line, maybe a Coolermaster GX RS650-ACAAE3-UK 650W Power Supply or OCZ ZS Series 650W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply both are under £60.

I myself run a very power hungry 4890, and i believe it needs more power than a gtx 560, with 7hdds, overclocked cpu on a corsair 520W PSU.

Sooo do your self a favour get a slightly better PSU, its worth the extra spend.

Also do you really need a HDD atm, cant stay without one for a few months, that HDD was under £40, and you could buy 2TB for £55 few months back. I'd hold off on hdd purchases for a few months if that possible. They say it may take a year for price to go back to what they were but i've seen a 3tb for 106£ on pixmania few weeks ago (cheaper than they were).

Anonmouse

I was working to a recommendation of a minimum 700W for a GTX560, I hear what you are saying about the HDD and think you are probably right - could easily reformat the one I am using which would more than justify a few extra £££ on the PSU.

Antec 650W Modular one here looks good value: http://www.ebuyer.com/159920-antec-truepower-new-650w-modular-psu-0761345-07660-9

londonTiger

i recently built a similar system, bought the 2500k cpu only second hand off ebay 137 quid delivered.

I know some people are fussy about used parts, but i am cool with it, the only part I wont buy used is a motherboard, mainly because they always have stuff missing when you buy them used.

You can probably get it a lot cheaper if you're active on overclockers forums, if you have 250+ posts and been a member for more than 90 days you get access to the members mart on the forums.

there are no listing fees on there, and must people take BACS so you buy used parts from other members for much cheaper than ebay prices. I sold a q9400 cpu on ebay for £90. ebay took close to £8, paypal took probably £4-£5.. that's a huge margin taken off just from the cost of selling. because these fees dont apply in members mart the prices tend to be a lot lower

the forum is full of computer performance enthusiasts who go through all the up to date stuff, so even the "old" stuff from their standards are still pretty good