Building Own PC sub £400

AWOL_2

I was planning on building my own PC to help save a few quid and was hoping for some advise! I built my last one about 6 years ago and its time for a new one, the old one is looking pretty old in comparison to the new ones - specs have dramactically changed.

Should I even bother building my own or should I buy already built.

Not much I can recylce from old machine apart from the monitor keyboard and mouse!

Am looking at atleast 2.2GHZ 2BG RAM 500GB Hard drive. 256MB Graphics card. TV tuner card.

I have all the softwear etc i was looking at some dell deals and the aldi deal that both look interesting.. whats your thoughts!

BenL

The cheapest way to a new pc is to buy one ready done.

Dell deals come out on hotukdeals with prices that are hard to beat, and pretty much impossible to build your own same spec for same price.

The machines have their merit, some people like, some don't.

Just over £200 will get you a base unit deal with specs that rival what you have put.

£400 gets you a base unit with a hell of a lot of power. pre built from them.

The likes of ebuyer do pre built machines.

Also take a look at Mesh and suppliers like that who will have some good machines ready made.

Stubert

On another forum I go on, somebody drew this up about 2 weeks ago. A little over your budget but gives a fair good idea of what you can get:

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y243/SMPS/PC.jpg

Sorry to completely disagree with Ben, but you'll get far better spec building yourself than you will buying 'premade' from Mesh or anyone like that.

I would have just posted the pic but this forum doesn't automatically resize pics which is annoying.

Fliss_Harper

Stubert is right, if you know what you're doing you can save yourself money.

Stubert

And especially as the OP doesn't need the software that will come prebundled with a computer. You'll be paying Mesh or whoever for their license from Microsoft. They also have a monitor which again is likely to come with it.

Fliss_Harper

Stubert wrote: »

And especially as the OP doesn't need the software that will come prebundled with a computer. You'll be paying Mesh or whoever for their license from Microsoft. They also have a monitor which again is likely to come with it.

Exactly.

[Deleted User]

I bought a PC about a year ago that had those specs for 280 quid from Dell... i think you should have a look at their outlet site

Dell outlet

Edit: I just did a search and found this for [FONT=arial,sans-serif]£262.70[/FONT]:

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]SYSTEM SPECIFICATION[/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Inspiron 531 (System Identifier. FLXDDJ0W)[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Inspiron 531 AMD X2 Processor 5600 (2.8GHz)
English Windows Vista Home Premium [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=arial,sans-serif][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]perating System: [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]English - Vista Home Premium [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]English Windows Vista Home Premium [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1] Memory: [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Memory Dual Channel 2GB (2x1024MB) 667Mhz DDR2 [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1] Hard Disk Drive: [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]500GB HD [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1] Video: [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]256MB ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1] Modem: [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Modem not included [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1] CD Read-Write Drive: [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]DVD+/-RW, 16 [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1] Software: [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]BT, AOL, Tiscali ISP Combination [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1] MISC: [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Mouse Dell Wheel USB 2 Button Scroll Black [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Dell Quietkey Black Keyboard [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Roxio Vista - Creator / MYDVD 9.0 [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Image Restore - Vista [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Assembley Mod [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Vista OnLine Getting Started Guide (WW [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][SIZE=-1]Internal Wireless PCI Card [/SIZE][/FONT]

BillScarab

Lots of comapnies including Dell will sell just a base unit. I think you'd struggle to save a significant amount building one yourself these days. If he has a retail XP license and wants to use that it could be a saving but there are companies who sell units without an OS. Even Dell sell ones with Linux on so you don't pay for the Windows license.

I would only build one yourself if you enjoy the process of building one and are prepared to spend the time sorting out drivers etc.