Build or Buy?

[Jam]

I know there are other forums dedicated to these things but you guys are always helpful.

Anyways, I'm looking to build a decent gaming/media rig, I am fine with building one as I feel I have a good enough understanding of everything, and I have around £500-£600 to spend. Of course for that money I'm not expecting anything brilliant, but I currently have a dual core 2.1GHz VAIO and that isn't capable of playing Dawn of War II or GTA IV and such without being on low to medium graphics with noticable lag.

So any suggestions of decent computers to buy or any parts that you would consider good for money.

Thanks.

PS. 2500th Post.

[Kieran]

Definitely build, you get much more for your money and also the satisfaction of having done it yourself. For £500-600 you can get some pretty decent parts. With that money would you be needing a monitor or is it just the tower you're after?

[Jam]

I've got a spare 19" monitor and there's always my TV so I'm not worried about a monitor.

[N!ck]

Build.

You can probably get a reasonable i5 machine for that money.

[Markeh]

Build.

You can probably get a reasonable i5 machine for that money.

or alternatively, a decent Phenom machine too.

Definately build if you feel confident enough to do it.

[Jam]

Do they bother making high quality cases that don't have the windows or LED's in them? All the 'plain' cases seem to be significantly cheaper and the reviews always say they're crap.

[Recursion]

Look at the Antec 300 case, the only LEDs are in the front fans and they aren't that noticable.

[xxMATTGxx]

Look at the Antec 300 case, the only LEDs are in the front fans and they aren't that noticable.

The front fans don't come with it though? They didn't come with mine and I bought the LED ones anyway.

[Kieran]

Do they bother making high quality cases that don't have the windows or LED's in them? All the 'plain' cases seem to be significantly cheaper and the reviews always say they're crap.

There's quite a few nice cases out there that just require you to take the coloured fans out if you don't want them.

[Stephen!]

Do they bother making high quality cases that don't have the windows or LED's in them? All the 'plain' cases seem to be significantly cheaper and the reviews always say they're crap.

If that's what you want, Lian-Li is definitely the way to go.

[Jam]

Going to go for that Antec 300 case, the Lian-Li ones are also nice but just too much for my budget.

Another question, are DDR3 and/or USB 3.0 worth it? I know DDR3 costs quite a bit and that USB 3.0 has a very small userbase so if they aren't needed that's more in the processor and graphics fund.

[Kieran]

If you can push for it, get DDR3. It's certainly a worthy upgrade if you can afford it. If not, make sure you get a DDR3 compatible motherboard. Then at least in the future you can upgrade to DDR3 without needing to get a new motherboard.

[The Professor]

If USB 3 is an option go for it, its only a matter of time until the standard is widely adopted then you'll be laughing! As long as it doesn't cost much though :P

[Stephen!]

If you can push for it, get DDR3. It's certainly a worthy upgrade if you can afford it. If not, make sure you get a DDR3 compatible motherboard. Then at least in the future you can upgrade to DDR3 without needing to get a new motherboard.

I would say only go to DDR3 if you need to. Performance differences are hardly noticeable compared to DDR2. Benchmarks will improve, but real life performance will not.

[Jam]

So far I plan to buy:

Antec 300 Case - £40
WD 1TB HDD - £60
650W Silent PSU - £40
LG GH22NP20 DVD-RW- £15 (Although may use from another PC)
Belkin Ethernet & 'N' Wireless Cards- £30 (As above)
Windows 7 Professional - £100 (Swear I've seen it advertised at that price)

So £315 left for RAM, Motherboard and Processor :/

[Kieran]

Well if your going to go i5, cheapest is around £140-150. A 1156 motherboard is probably around £70-80 leaving about £70 for Ram... Plenty of money for those three components ;)

[Stephen!]

You may have difficulty finding 4GB of DDR3 for £70. Anything decent, anyway.

[Jam]

Yeah, I noticed its about £120 so I might just spend another £100 so its upto scratch and might be able to get a 2.8GHz instead aswell.

[N!ck]

So far I plan to buy:

Antec 300 Case - £40
WD 1TB HDD - £60
650W Silent PSU - £40
LG GH22NP20 DVD-RW- £15 (Although may use from another PC)
Belkin Ethernet & 'N' Wireless Cards- £30 (As above)
Windows 7 Professional - £100 (Swear I've seen it advertised at that price)

So £315 left for RAM, Motherboard and Processor :/

Graphics card?

Why an ethernet card? Motherboard will have ethernet.

If you're a student you can get Windows 7 for £30 (if you have a student email address) or you could pirate it. Otherwise it's £75.

Get this 1TB drive, not the WD. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173804

[Jam]

Yeah I was looking between a WD one and a Samsung one (not sure if it was that exact one) but that price is cheaper than what I seen it at. As for the student discount, I'm only 15 and I've always thought that it was in 6th form/college you get given those, so not sure if I would get one if I asked.

Thanks everyone for being so helpful so far, my lack of knowledge would result in me proberly buying overpriced crap if it wasn't for you's.

[N!ck]

Yeah I was looking between a WD one and a Samsung one (not sure if it was that exact one) but that price is cheaper than what I seen it at. As for the student discount, I'm only 15 and I've always thought that it was in 6th form/college you get given those, so not sure if I would get one if I asked.

Thanks everyone for being so helpful so far, my lack of knowledge would result in me proberly buying overpriced crap if it wasn't for you's.

Tha Samsung that I posted is the fastest hard drive out at the moment. If you have an email address that's .sch.uk or whatever then you can get Windows 7 for £30.

If you say your budget I can have a look at some configurations. What you have so far looks ok though.

[Jam]

Preferably £600 but I'l go upto £700 if there would be a significant improvement.

[N!ck]

I'd build something like this.

http://i40.tinypic.com/a0a3cz.png

[Markeh]

If you wanted to go with the AMD alternative, then http://www.ebuyer.com/product/186428 and http://www.ebuyer.com/product/190021 would be good, especially as the motherboard comes with a USB 3.0 card, and also uses DDR3 RAM. However, with that CPU, I'd recommend a decent cooler to go with it, such as http://www.ebuyer.com/product/167791

Use that with THIS PSU: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/127861 (trust me, the higher wattage is worth it) HDD, GPU, ODD, RAM and case that Nick posted, and it comes out at around the same price.

[Jam]

Which is better? I've no intention of overclocking or messing about with it, and I know the speed AMD state isn't the true one. If they're similar I would always go with Intel parts.

[Markeh]

Fair comment, I just thought I'd offer an alternative, thats all.

The i5 system posted by Nick would suit nicely, too.

[Jam]

So they are pretty much identical? I wasn't negating your suggestion, I've just always thought of Intel's to be superior, so if they were similar.

Should begin to start buying parts tomorrow, haven't got all the money yet so I'l have to wait for the graphics card. Plus its all dependant on if I can get a .sch.uk email otherwise I'l have and extra £70 to find.

[Tomm]

At the moment there is no point buying an AMD processor when Intel offer a superior alternative at your current price range.


So they are pretty much identical? I wasn't negating your suggestion, I've just always thought of Intel's to be superior, so if they were similar.

Should begin to start buying parts tomorrow, haven't got all the money yet so I'l have to wait for the graphics card. Plus its all dependant on if I can get a .sch.uk email otherwise I'l have and extra £70 to find.

[N!ck]

If you can't get the £30 Windows 7 then it's £75 here http://www.ebuyer.com/product/173791

[xxMATTGxx]

If it's the £30 for student thing Microsoft started a while back, then didn't that end in January time?

[N!ck]

If it's the £30 for student thing Microsoft started a while back, then didn't that end in January time?

Good point I didn't think about that. Looks like students can get Windows 7 Professional for £70.

[Jam]

http://i40.tinypic.com/a0a3cz.png

+ OS + Keyboard & Mouse (so +£100)

http://i44.tinypic.com/e9de1h.png

I went on Dell to compare the prices and found this on offer. Plus if I customized the lower one to match the build parts it came to £690. Now I really would like to build a PC but at this cheap price I don't know if I can let it pass.

[Tomm]

Reason it has a discount is that the i7 860 is the first model to be released and is now pointless since you can get the 930 for the same price that while having the same clock speed has QPI rather then the older DMI I/O bus and has a triple channel rather then dual channel memory controller. Only "advantage" over the 9xx core i7 is that you can fit it in a LGA 1156 socket rather than having to use the LGA1366 socket which is now going to be exclusive to the higher end intel processors.

[Richie]

Build if you know what parts you need, if not still build but ask someone with knowledge.

@Nick
Does the student thing apply in Ireland do you know? Because I don't wana be paying 200 odd quid for software.

[Jam]

Just a question or two; does the mobo have intergrated graphics so I can use it while I wait for the money for the GPU and is there anyway to use an Upgrade version on a new machine? I can get W7 Professional for £43 from Software4Students but they don't sell full versions.

[Markeh]

The board does not have integrated graphics. And you'd need a full version, I think.