Buy a pre-build or build my own?

[kontraband]

Hi all, my first post here.

I've decided to jump ship from the xbox360 and get a gaming PC (need a new desktop anyway). I'd like a fairly good system, preferably an AMD ATI setup.

My budget is around the £1300 mark, could maybe stretch to 1500 max.
Any advice would be appreciated.

Cheers!

 

[Locke]

Hi and welcome

Remove the link to the competitor since that's not allowed here firstly

Secondly, it's always cheaper to build your own PC, fact. For the price of the one you linked, you can probably get an awesome i7 + 58xx build!
I would spec you one, but I'm lazy - just take a look at the pre built ones though


Edit:

For example, this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-065-OE&groupid=43&catid=1270&subcat= is leaps and bounds over the one you originally linked and it's only £60/70 more! - if you bought and built the pc yourself with all the components in it, it would probably work out the same price! or cheaper!

 

[kontraband]

Hi and welcome

Remove the link to the competitor since that's not allowed here firstly

Secondly, it's always cheaper to build your own PC, fact. For the price of the one you linked, you can probably get an awesome i7 + 58xx build!
I would spec you one, but I'm lazy - just take a look at the pre built ones though

ok i'll take a look, thanks for that.
sorry about the link btw

 

[cmndr_andi]

I totally agree with locke, building your own PC is almost always the best option: you get to pick the exactly configuration to fit your needs, it will cost less (or you get a more powerful machine for the same money) than buying a prebuild and often the warranty of the individual components is longer than the warranty a company will give you for the entire machine - so you can get free replacement kit for longer if you build yourself.

The main barrier for building your own machine is knowledge and confidence. For knowlegde, having a read of PC building threads/guides around the internet (this one by greywolf is excellent) and checking out detailed instructional videos on youtube is the best way to acquire the knowledge you need. As for confidence, this will come after acquiring all this knowledge and asking fellow enthusiasts about their own PC building experiences. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to post in the relevant sub-forum on OCUK and we will all be happy to give you a hand.

I would be happy to spec you up a set of componenets for an excellent gaming machine to fit in your budgett, but may I first ask you a few questions:

- Will the machine mainly be used for gaming, or will it be used heavily for other tasks too (eg movies, photoshop, CAD, disributed computing, video editing etc.)?
- Do you need any peripherals along with the main box (eg. monitor, speakers, keyboard, mouse, wireless adapter, gamepad etc.)?

 

[Marine-RX179]

How does this look?

Similar price to the "Ultima Vanquish" Intel Core i7 930 2.80GHz @ 4.00GHz Quad Core DDR3 Crossfire Option System, but you get a i7 920 @ 4.00GHz (same speed as i7 930 @ 4.00Ghz because they are the same chip), also you'd be getting a pair of 5850 for Crossfire instead of a single 5870. The PSU is cut back from the Corsair TX 750W to Antec TruePower 650W, but it is still more than sufficient for a i7 920 @4.00GHz with Crossfire 5850 system:

 

[kontraband]

I totally agree with locke, building your own PC is almost always the best option: you get to pick the exactly configuration to fit your needs, it will cost less (or you get a more powerful machine for the same money) than buying a prebuild and often the warranty of the individual components is longer than the warranty a company will give you for the entire machine - so you can get free replacement kit for longer if you build yourself.

The main barrier for building your own machine is knowledge and confidence. For knowlegde, having a read of PC building threads/guides around the internet (this one by greywolf is excellent) and checking out detailed instructional videos on youtube is the best way to acquire the knowledge you need. As for confidence, this will come after acquiring all this knowledge and asking fellow enthusiasts about their own PC building experiences. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to post in the relevant sub-forum on OCUK and we will all be happy to give you a hand.

I would be happy to spec you up a set of componenets for an excellent gaming machine to fit in your budgett, but may I first ask you a few questions:

- Will the machine mainly be used for gaming, or will it be used heavily for other tasks too (eg movies, photoshop, CAD, disributed computing, video editing etc.)?
- Do you need any peripherals along with the main box (eg. monitor, speakers, keyboard, mouse, wireless adapter, gamepad etc.)?

Hello, firstly thanks for the advice.

The machine would be primarily used for gaming, i'd like it to be able to handle the latest games there is hopefully on max settings. I'd also be running Adobe illustrator, Photoshop and maybe do some HD video editing.

I've got the peripherals covered, no need for them or a display.

I think I could build it, the minefield for me is actually matching these components up and making sure everything is compatible. The furthest my experience goes is changing a video card and hard drive.

 

[cmndr_andi]

How does this spec look?

I only included the one 5850 as in my mind it is more than enough for almost all modern games, and you can always add a second in crossfire further down the line for even more power.

 

[kontraband]

@Marine, that looks like a pretty sweet set-up. What's your opinion on the performance of those cards and maybe what they'll be like with the upcoming games a year or two down the line?

I was thinking about maybe one Radeon 5870 now, and maybe putting another one in maybe a year down the line?

Also you're the second person to pretty much give the intel i7 the thumbs up, what do you think about this processor?

 

[cmndr_andi]

@Marine, that looks like a pretty sweet set-up. What's your opinion on the performance of those cards and maybe what they'll be like with the upcoming games a year or two down the line?

Its very difficult to guess how game engines will change in the coming years and how they will perform with current hardware. But you can be safe in the knowledge that even a single 5850 can max out almost all games currently out at 1080p resolution. As the majority of upcoming PC games also need to work on the consoles, then multi platform games made in 4 years time will likely work just as well as current ones do with a 5850. For PC exclusive games, things are much less certain - however, developers know that a 5850 is a high-end card and most people have a card which is a mere fraction of its power, so most likely PC exclusive games for the next few years will be perfectly playable on a single 5850.

I was thinking about maybe one Radeon 5870 now, and maybe putting another one in maybe a year down the line?

A good idea, however, please be aware that in most games the 5870 is only ~15-20% faster than the 5850 and around £100 more expensive. It is up to you whether the extra performance is worth the cost.

Also you're the second person to pretty much give the intel i7 the thumbs up, what do you think about this processor?

This is a good CPU, but as you will see in reviews it is no faster than an i7 in games. It also doesn't overclock as well and is much more expensive than an i7 920. This is a good chip if you are going to be using all 6 cores, however - modern games don't and most likely won't do for sometime. Either way, games are currently not CPU limited, but graphics card limited, so spending an extra £60 on a CPU will not raise your framerates. Investing in a more expensive graphics card would be a much more effective use of the money.

 

[Marine-RX179]

@Marine, that looks like a pretty sweet set-up. What's your opinion on the performance of those cards and maybe what they'll be like with the upcoming games a year or two down the line?

I was thinking about maybe one Radeon 5870 now, and maybe putting another one in maybe a year down the line?

Also you're the second person to pretty much give the intel i7 the thumbs up, what do you think about this processor?

i got nothing against amd, but their cpus are more suited for people with a tight budget than people that can afford to spend more performance parts like you. one thing amd cpu for gaming is that they tend to deliver lower minimum frame rate for games due to architecture limitation and is slower comparing to i5/i7 quads.
have a read at this and it might give you a better understanding how cpu scale with graphic cards. also, most people considering the minimum frame rate would need to be at least 25 for smooth gameplay:
http://www.legionhardware.com/artic...ossfire_cpu_scaling_performance_part_2,1.html
Do ignore the bar chart's scaling though as they are inaccurate, so use only the numbers for frame rate as reference.