Need help choosing a computer

Ashok_2

I wish you hadn't taken the time to do that lol.. I'm waiting on the other guys quote!

Well I've told the guy from Nv Forums what I'm looking for, and I'll wait for his quote tonight (He said I'll have it by 9PM and then I'll post it here).

This guy does have experience, so I'm guessing it'll be more pleasing to you!

Thanks all for taking so much time into helping out..

Cerro

Its no trouble - I am constantly checking new hardware out (wish it was my job, then i'd get paid for it) and speccing new systems or upgrades. Plus its kinda fun! I'm a tech head at heart...

Its worth mentioning that you might find a few of those items cheaper at either overclockers or ebuyer - however I refuse to use either of them, for various reasons like making a mess of orders, selling faulty goods, delivering the wrong parts and worst of all refusing to refund those parts or at least making it so difficult to return that you have to wait a month before you get your money back... its not just me, but several of my friends have had similar experiences and as a result, I haven't used either of them in 3 years.

Ashok_2

I won't get this guys quote till this evening, but he has told me £1000 is more than enough for my needs, and he's going to try and include 8800 GTS 320MB for graphics.

And he says £75 for his fee of building.. and we'd do it through eBay (seems safest possible way for me.. he has 100% feedback over a few years, but hasn't done that much selling in a while)

Cerro

Ashok wrote: »

And he says £75 for his fee of building.. and we'd do it through eBay (seems safest possible way for me.. he has 100% feedback over a few years, but hasn't done that much selling in a while)

I dunno... he might well do it for you and it will probably be fine but what happens if there are problems with the PC? Hardware failure for instance... who will take care of that, most resellers warranties only cover the original buyer - have to be careful with those kinds of things. And if the thing just cops out, will he fix it or will you?

Thats an advantage with going for a "proper" company like dell - they do the support if needed. Or if you build it yourself you can at least fix it, because you put it together, going halfway its abit of a risk. To be honest, it really isn't hard to do and there isn't much that can go wrong - honestly!

Ashok_2

I appreciate your assuring me nothing could go wrong (If I built it), but I'm still worried something would..

I mean first thing is I may buy parts which are not compatible or something, or not good enough.. (I accept you have several times given me full list of parts that I should buy), but really I'd need to properly spend a while discussing the parts needed for my own needs and keeping under a budget.

Ordering the parts is one thing, but then building it is another.. if it is 100%just fitting in the parts and there is a step to step guide to what to do, then maybe that's okay, but if something goes wrong that I'm screwed..

Maybe I could build or, the best alternative now maybe is to once more decide on a spec (with your help or Gaffers), but carefully making sure they're to my needs, and then either I can possibly build it or pass on that exact spec to the person I would have otherwise let build (the one from eBay who's reputable, and would fix it if anything went wrong)...

Look forward to your reply again mate!

Sorry if the post is confusing, typed it quickly!

Ashok_2

Okay I've got my quote from the other guy from other forums.. Full specs below..

The motherboard seems bit cheap, not sure.. I still need to add on wificard, but otherwise I think it's everything..

Please recommend any addons/upgrades needed? And let me know what you think of system lol..

Also, I can push it to £1100 , so if there anything worth adding/upgrading let me now..

You know the drill by now

Motherboard: MSI P965 Neo-F £62.13

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 £137.76

Memory: 2GB OCZ Gold Series DDR2 Dual Channel KitX2 £101.00

Memory Cooler: OCZ XTC Cooler £10.58

Graphics Card: 256MB XFX Fatal1ty GeForce 8600GT £103.73

Power Supply: 650W CoolerMaster eXtreme Power £43.95

Case: Thermaltake Shark VA7000 - Black £90.75

CD Drive: LITEON SATA 20X DVDRW/RAM Black X2 £39.96

Hard Drive: 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 £64.61

80GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 8Mb SATA £27.99

Monitor: Samsung Syncmaster SM206BW 20" LCD £189.54

OS: Vista Home Premium 32 £64.97

Building and shipping £75.00

Total: £1011.97

GoofyGAT

Motherboard: MSI P965 Neo-F £62.13 - Not a 'bad' motherboard by any means. Cerro has spoiled you with his 'luxury' offerings . I wouldn't spend more than £70-80 on a mb. For a really 'high-end' system, I may stretch it to £120 (but that's only me)

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 £137.76 - E6750 would be better & cheaper(?) - we'll have to wait & see about the price. When the price drops ask for another quote with this included

Memory: 2GB OCZ Gold Series DDR2 Dual Channel KitX2 £101.00 - £37 too much! Where's he buying his memory from? Even the Platinum version = £70

Memory Cooler: OCZ XTC Cooler £10.58 - Not required (even if you were overclocking I think), as the RAM modules have their own heatsinks which are sufficient

Graphics Card: 256MB XFX Fatal1ty GeForce 8600GT £103.73 - Don't go for this. As I said before the X1950XT for £105 is a much better choice for now

Power Supply: 650W CoolerMaster eXtreme Power £43.95 - Good one. This is usually £75-80, so does this make up for the memory price discrepancy above?

Case: Thermaltake Shark VA7000 - Black £90.75 - Excellent case - view at eBuyer. I'd go for the Antec P182 / Antec Nine Hundred (but this is purely personal choice)

CD Drive: LITEON SATA 20X DVDRW/RAM Black X2 £39.96

Hard Drive: 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 £64.61

80GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 8Mb SATA £27.99

Monitor: Samsung Syncmaster SM206BW 20" LCD £189.54 - Buy separately from eBuyer & save £20

OS: Vista Home Premium 32 £64.97

Building and shipping £75.00 - Seems fair, but try to knock off a little if you don't get the monitor from him

Total: £1011.97 - How did I manage to fit a quad core CPU, a 8800GTS & a 22" TFT for only a little more in my original spec?? You don't have to answer this! G

GoofyGAT

Just to add to the confusion & dilemmas...

I've just spotted this eBay PC for £930 delivered. It looks a lot like what you're looking for - E6750, 4Gb RAM, 500GB HDD, good mb, etc. Needs an OS (£65) &, from you're recent specs, additional hard+optical drives (50) (you could get these separately off eBuyer or elsewhere). Total = £1045

I'm not sure it's good value or not (as I haven't checked individual components' prices), but from a glance the main 'savings' could lie in the relatively inferior case+PSU & monitor, possibly knocking £100-120 off our suggestions for the same.

For this reason my main concerns would be about the PSU & monitor (the PC case is no secret, & should be adequate). If interested, you could enquire about these two - make & model numbers required. G

Ashok_2

GoofyGAT wrote: »

Motherboard: MSI P965 Neo-F £62.13 - Not a 'bad' motherboard by any means. Cerro has spoiled you with his 'luxury' offerings . I wouldn't spend more than £70-80 on a mb. For a really 'high-end' system, I may stretch it to £120 (but that's only me)

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 £137.76 - E6750 would be better & cheaper(?) - we'll have to wait & see about the price. When the price drops ask for another quote with this included

Memory: 2GB OCZ Gold Series DDR2 Dual Channel KitX2 £101.00 - £37 too much! Where's he buying his memory from? Even the Platinum version = £70

Memory Cooler: OCZ XTC Cooler £10.58 - Not required (even if you were overclocking I think), as the RAM modules have their own heatsinks which are sufficient

Graphics Card: 256MB XFX Fatal1ty GeForce 8600GT £103.73 - Don't go for this. As I said before the X1950XT for £105 is a much better choice for now

Power Supply: 650W CoolerMaster eXtreme Power £43.95 - Good one. This is usually £75-80, so does this make up for the memory price discrepancy above?

Case: Thermaltake Shark VA7000 - Black £90.75 - Excellent case - view at eBuyer. I'd go for the Antec P182 / Antec Nine Hundred (but this is purely personal choice)

CD Drive: LITEON SATA 20X DVDRW/RAM Black X2 £39.96

Hard Drive: 500GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 £64.61

80GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 8Mb SATA £27.99

Monitor: Samsung Syncmaster SM206BW 20" LCD £189.54 - Buy separately from eBuyer & save £20

OS: Vista Home Premium 32 £64.97

Building and shipping £75.00 - Seems fair, but try to knock off a little if you don't get the monitor from him

Total: £1011.97 - How did I manage to fit a quad core CPU, a 8800GTS & a 22" TFT for only a little more in my original spec?? You don't have to answer this! G

Thanks for that, when you type it out like that in the blue text and all it really does help!

Okay, the RAM - you said it's too expensive, but I don't know if you noticed the x 2 .. There is 4GB worth of RAM.

With the video card, I personally prefer the Nvidia cards as they have PureVideo technology which apparently makes watching my movies a lot better... Is the card you recommended much better, or just a bit?

With your spec.. it is quad core, and with a better graphics card, but I did want 4GB of RAM and this particular monitor, Samsung SM206BW..

But if we made the changed to your spec that you linked too, with 4GB of RAM and the monitor I wanted...

Which one would be better? That narrows my choice down a lot after this question is answered!

The eBay one you linked to, takes up to a month for delivery, really can't wait that long!

I think we're finally get there anyway, once I have your answer and hopefully an opinion from Cerro, then I can also get quotes from the other reputable eBay seller and see what he's price me for both of the specs.

Cerro

I'd agree with most of what GoofyGAT said - although mobo's are pretty central to a system to me, hence why i spend a bit more on them, nothing worse than buying something to upgrade a system only to find you don't have the space for it... I think Goofy would have a heart attack if he spent the £200 on a motherboard alone.

The graphics card isn't that great, its OK, mainstream card, capable of DX10 but as Goofy said, the XT1950X is better. Worth noting that the 8600 will perform better on DX10 games, but not by much. My personal preference is for Nvidia cards too - because their drivers tend to be abit better and more stable (and easier to overclock), but thats my opinion. The 80Gb hard disk, you can get a 160Gb for £2 more...

I'd also get the monitor myself, it will save on delivery and its not like he needs it for anything, so a direct order yourself would be the same.

You can take any of these specs, take any part from any of them and put them together - there are very few parts that are incompatible (there are good parts and bad parts but few incompatible ones). Since we have given you a list based almost exclusively around the P965 or the 680i every part can be switched around and it is just a case of putting it together and then screwing it into the case and there are plenty of case guides (just google the case you want) that will take you through each step, give a few hints and will also give you a good idea on how good the case is.

The worst that can happen is a part is broken and you have to RMA it back to the company you bought it from. Worst I had is when my latest PC refused to boot when i first built it, my motherboard (Asus Striker) would not provide enough volts to the memory to boot, until i ripped everything out except the bare minimum - long story short, I got it to boot and fixed it myself without having to send it back but even if I had, i would have got a replacement. Most companies are very understanding so if you buy something by mistake many of them will offer you a replacement (not that you would since you know everything you want to buy and we can tell you if it is compatible or not).