Build or buy? (£500)

mcgriffo

mcgriffo

mcgriffo

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Joined
5 Dec 2006
Posts
376
If I have a MAXIMUM budget of £500 and want the best "all round" PC I can muster, would I be better off building from scratch with separately bought components, or buying a ready-made, well reviewed model? Which side does "bang for your buck" generally fall into?
 
build your self, unless your really really lucky and find something special, most ready made computers will have increased prices for being ready made
 
I recently built a £500 mini-ITX system, after looking at a few Dells, both their little thing and standard desktops, decided that self build was the way to go. Especially if you can get a few components 2nd hand.
 
anyway heres a £500 base unit amd build.

builds.png
 
"and an intel mini itx build."

That graphics card won't go in that case... not without a major fight... especially with a 3.5" HDD and a non-modular full ATX PSU.

If you swap the case for a Silverstone SG05 then it would fit, and you wouldn't need a PSU as it has a 300W one built in... which should have enough juice. If not got for the Lian-Li PC-Q08.



In short... Just go for the AMD build
 
It would be nice if people only offered specs from positions of authority. Anyone can click a few buttons and select components, I expect some people will assume the 'builder' knows what they are doing so it's a bit of a worry when one later learns that the components won't fit.
 
i think the main question would be, if you really wanted a small mini-itx pc or if your not bothered by a normal sized pc.

mini-itx tend to be more expensive, and more difficult to built.

if your not too bothered about size, then just got for a normal atx pc, and u'll be able to get slightly better performance that way.

also, when you say all rounder, what do u plan to be doing on your pc ?
mainly, do u plan to play games, if so, what type?

and does it need to include monitor, keyboard/mouse, OS, etc?

Code: 
OcUK Value GeForce GTX 460 768MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card		£146.99
(£125.10) 	£146.99
(£125.10)
	Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9)		£86.94
(£73.99) 	£86.94
(£73.99)
	Intel Core i3 530 2.93GHz (Clarkdale) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail		£82.24
(£69.99) 	£82.24
(£69.99)
	Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H Intel H55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 microATX Motherboard		£66.99
(£57.01) 	£66.99
(£57.01)
	Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ)		£48.49
(£41.27) 	£48.49
(£41.27)
	Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK)		£29.99
(£25.52) 	£29.99
(£25.52)
	Xigmatek Asgard Midi Tower Case - Black		£26.99
(£22.97) 	£26.99
(£22.97)
	Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM		£13.99
(£11.91) 	£13.99
(£11.91)
 	 	Sub Total : 	£427.76
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout)	Shipping : 	£11.75
VAT is being charged at 17.50%	VAT : 	£76.91
 	Total : 	£516.42
 
Building yourself is always cheaper although with the overclockers PC's I say those might be an exception since they don't seem to add any labour or Windows operating system + crapware to their systems.

Like for example, look at these:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-237-OK
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-252-OK&groupid=43&catid=1444&subcat=

Absolute bargain compared to what you'd get in PC world or other retailers.

Can't even stress that enough, those places rip you off but if you look at all the component prices, OcUK pretty much builds it for free.
 
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