Building Own PC - How Much & How Easy?

robmar0se

Desktops haven't in the past had wireless capability pre-installed (having said that came across a new HP desktop with a wireless chip pre-installed last week). You will need to either connect to your router via (i) an ethernet cable, (ii) via a wireless dongle, or (iii) via an interal wirelss adapter:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Netgear-Wireless-N-WiFi-N300-USB-Network-Adapter-Dongle-/120863910764?pt=UK_Computing_Networking_SM&hash=item1c240ceb6c

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Netgear-WG311-V3-802-11g-Wireless-PCI-Network-WiFi-Card-54Mbps-win-7-win7-/400278706706?pt=UK_Computing_Networking_SM&hash=item5d32785a12

tonytee

Thanks,

Is this a better deal:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Netgear-Wireless-Dongle-WNDA3200-USB-Adapter-/270907277877?pt=UK_Computing_Networking_SM&hash=item3f13550235#ht_747wt_1154

?

Thanks.

or this one with an extension cable:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NETGEAR-USB-Wireless-N-Series-Adapter-/170786493481?pt=UK_Computing_Networking_SM&hash=item27c3ab1429#ht_500wt_1169

robmar0se

I was just showing examples, not a recommendation, I'm sure that the ones you've researched will do the job. Of course in a hurry you can pick one up locally it you wish, also Amazon are always a good bet too. On Ebay I always like to 100% sellers even if a little more expensive etc.

m5rcc

Teacher2301 wrote: »

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.

i can recommend Dino PC: very good, small and proactive team

JamesK10

23n1th wrote: »

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.

Even though the OP has bought his, for anyone else I can vouch for the quote above, in 2008 my self-build was £500 and I only needed to cut corners on the graphics card to get a good power supply, so I upgraded that two years later, along with more RAM to run Windows 7, but the backbone is the same. I want to get to Easter next year before I look around to build another one and then it's cost me £100 per year and hard drive prices might have got back to normal.

So buy a magazine like Custom PC from larger supermarket branches, which has another one of its regular build a PC features in it this month. I think after 17 years I'm too used to only having the components I want in my machines to go back to something shop-bought now. A laptop for just the net is cheaper to run power-wise though, so I still borrow one from rellies whenever I can.

tombruton87

Fractal Design Define XL Black
Intel Core I7-3930K 3.20GHz Socket 2011 12MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor
Vengeance 16GB (8x4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz CL9 1.5V Non-ECC Unbuffered
Powercool 1050W PSU 80+ Quad 12V V2.3 High Efficiency
OCZ 120GB Agility 3 SSD - SATA-III - Read 525MB/s Write 500MB/s 85,000 IOPS
WD 2TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s Caviar Green Hard Drive - 64MB Cache - WD20EARX
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional w/SP1 - Licence and media - 1 PC - OEM - DVD - 64-bib
Palit GTX 560Ti Sonic 1GB GDDR5 Dual DVI VGA HDMI PCI-E Graphics Card
2 LG IPS235V IPS LCD LED 23" HDMI Monitor

something like that would be a good bet if u wan a spend the full 1500 can upgrade to next gen graphics cards when they are released later this year or next and upgrade to 128 gig of ram 2 monitors there swell once u go dual u never go back

discoass

victor2 wrote: »

Ditto that.
Knock a drink over on your desktop keyboard and the most you need is a new keyboard. Do that to your laptop keyboard.....

and you change your laptop keyboard..:cool:
(admitedly the drink could have gone elsewhere lol)

letsbehonest

what part of the country are you in?

rmg1

I built my own desktop machine last year for a shade under £600 inc the O/S. It's a good machine (for me) and I don't see me doing anything to it for a good few years.

I did get some good deals, bought it all from one place and fitted it together myself (it's Lego for adults these days!!).

Here's the thread I was on to get advice
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3007218

I didn't need a monitor, keyboard or anything else, just the tower and components.

The most scary part was closing the CPU clip (you need a lot of pressure to make it clip into place and it makes you very nervous!!)

Ainsley1

I would tend to agree with the doubters about build your own.
For what you want most decent 'middle of the road' to top end PCs off the shelf will do what you need. Large monitor can be driven by one with a good video card, streaming video limitation will probably be your internet connection (especially if not a fibre fast connection).

Time to learn, source your components, build, test, install software etc. will be substantial.

I have gone down this route out of choice and interest but it usually does not make economic sense. If you have excess cash spend it on decent speakers, external amplifier and the VDU for the benefit of watching the football. Having worked with spreadsheets for many years most PCs will cope admirably and the good VDU and video card (as well as lots of memory/disk size) will be as good for that use as video streaming or even a second card monitor for a two screen spreadsheet solution could be considered and if you are confident you could easily add this on yourself provided you get a decent enough expandable PC in the first place!