Building Own PC - How Much & How Easy?

tonytee

As the title states I need help.

I want a desktop - either ready made or built by someone. If it's easy enough to build myself I can try. However I have someone who can build me one. I have come on here to get a second or third opinion.

I want to be able to surf the internet very fast, stream football on a very large, very clear screen and do other work related tasks - spreadsheets etc. A large screen is needed for that so I can see a full weeks schedule.

I have a budget upto £1500 and want a machine that will last 4,5 or maybe 6+ years. I want all the add ons such as speakers, office etc etc because I don't want any issues adding these on at a later date. In any case, if I am paying someone to build it for me it's better I have it all built at the same time.

I expect my budget is pretty healthy but I want your views.

Please help :T

23n1th

You don't need £1500 to do spreadsheets, browsing the internet, etc. Unless you're playing games you can do what you want for a third of your price, if that.

fwor

Agreed - even with a decent quality large screen you shouldn't need to spend more than half your budget.

DIY is generally pretty easy provided you are able do up a few screws and clip stuff into place.

Teacher2301

I have been looking at this site http://www.dinopc.com/default.asp and dreaming of customising my own gaming PC - It'll be about £600 to £800 to do to get the specs I want to be able to play online FPS (I know - how old am I?) but then again, that's my reward for when i have saved up enough.

If you have £1500 then the builds that are available are very wide - don't forget that every 6 months the processor speeds double - so never plan to buy a PC for 6 years - I did 6 years ago and my current pc is now relatively defunct - no new games will run on it and it is only because I have a large HDD capacity and RAM that I can run Office 2010. It is a Vista OS and it is starting to lag on booting so it may be time for an upgrade.

I also use ebuyer as well - these guys are reputable and great delivery/ customer service.

victor2

tonytee wrote: »

I want to be able to surf the internet very fast

That requirement has got very little to do with any modern computer but everything to do with your broadband connection.
If you haven't got cable, then see if you can get it. Either way, put some of your very generous budget into fast unlimited broadband. If you're going to be streaming football, you'll probably hit any limits imposed otherwise.

Richard_T_

I bought a barebones bundle from novatech many years ago, that consisted of a case ( outer box) with a motherboard, CPU and Ram mounted inside all i had to do was source the graphics card, DVD drive, keyboard, mouse, monitor, and operating system.
theres a few companies selling barebones and motherboard only systems out there.

robmar0se

victor2 wrote: »

That requirement has got very little to do with any modern computer but everything to do with your broadband connection.
If you haven't got cable, then see if you can get it. Either way, put some of your very generous budget into fast unlimited broadband. If you're going to be streaming football, you'll probably hit any limits imposed otherwise.

Spot on. Internet will always be the slowest part of what the PC does.

Yes, you will get a PC that does what you want for less. Does the analogy of a Ford vs BMW fit? Both will do 100mph, but which will last longer?

A well spec'ed Desktop should last 10 years. If you get the right motherboard and processor, then the other parts should be upgradeable as years pass without too much cost.

I tend to look at price performance graph, you get 80% of the performance for 20% of the price; conversely the extra 20% performance could cost you the other 80% (80:20 rule). Hence the Intel 2500k is probably the best price/performance CPU out there today (can be clocked upto 4.6GHz). Match that with a reasonable Gigabyte board should be the basis of a good system?

In addition to good speakers would you also need a good all-in-one multifunction printer too?

If you have relations/family in education, you can get Windows 7 & MS Office Pro for around £40 ea - student discounts are being withdrawn by Microsoft at the end of March 2012.

Take a peak at Chillblasts systems, may be built around your requirmensts, but generally around Asus boards which are also quite good qualitatively - http://www.chillblast.com/

Wig

Is it still worth building your own though?

I imagine what is available retail will be available for as cheap or cheaper than you can build yourself these days.?

robmar0se

Wig wrote: »

Is it still worth building your own though?

I imagine what is available retail will be available for as cheap or cheaper than you can build yourself these days.?

Good question........

I would say at the economy end, you wouldn't be able to match on price.

The advantage of self build is you can have exactly what you want - there are risks though eg the cpu must be compatible with the motherboard, PSU needs to have the all the right connectors you need, etc.

At the more expensive end you probably could be able to compete on price, but any mistake will cost...

WLM21

A few years ago I did an evening class on computer maintenance. I, like many of the students had the idea of building our own PC.

The instructor explained, like a previous poster has said, building your own will mean you get exactly as YOU want, but as far as economy is concerned, it wouldn't be any cheaper than a shop bought model and may in fact be more expensive. The big manufacturers and even your local PC shop will be buying items in bulk, so they'll get cheaper deals.

In the end I never bothered making my own.

esuhl

robmar0se wrote: »

Good question........

I would say at the economy end, you wouldn't be able to match on price.

The advantage of self build is you can have exactly what you want - there are risks though eg the cpu must be compatible with the motherboard, PSU needs to have the all the right connectors you need, etc.

At the more expensive end you probably could be able to compete on price, but any mistake will cost...

I agree -- for a basic PC, it'll be cheaper to get one ready-made (but it's easy to avoid mistakes if you do your research). There are also some good deals around if you're into gaming and need a high-end PC for that.

I use my PC a lot, and wanted a super-fast machine, but I don't play games. I found that all the pre-built machines on the market either had high-spec components that I didn't need, or were under-spec'ed in areas that were important to me. I spent about the same (maybe a bit more) than I would have on a pre-built machine, but I was able to choose exactly the components I wanted, and use a few components from my old PC to save money.

The only way to decide whether it's worth building a PC yourself would be to look at a few pre-built machines and see what components they use and how they might meet your requirements. Then check out some alternatives and decide what you would use if you built the machine, and compare your "dream machine" (on price & performance) to the pre-built ones.