Is building right for me?

ralph09

ralph09

ralph09

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Joined
31 Jul 2009
Posts
49
Hi guys,

Great forums you have here. I've been reading for a good few hours, taking in what I can, as I'm wanting to buy a new PC for my final year at uni. I'm wondering which route to go down and hoped you might be able to give me some valuable advice.

My budget's about £600 for base unit and monitor. I want it for many many uses, and all equally as important as each other really: Office, Photoshop, AutoCAD, Sketchup, C++, Films & Music, Gaming, Browsing, etc.

I'm 'good' with computers but have never done any custom builds or anything like that before, so I'm basically wondering what the pros and cons of building might be for me, and if you would recommend it to me or not.

All advice is gratefully received!
 
Go for it yourself, just take your time.

I found it quite rewarding the first few i put together.
 
I would highly recommend building the pc yourself since you know what goes into the pc so problems are easier to sortout, it's much cheaper.
Building a pc is very simple even with very little knowledge you can since one piece can on only into one place.
 
I literally cannot think of a single con when it comes to building a computer, other than it takes a bit of 'time' (2 hourish for me, but I'm not exactly an expect) and it can be a bit stressful if it doesn't spring into life on the first press of the 'on' button.

The pros are obvious -
Money saving
You can tailor the spec to precisely suit your needs
If something was to ever go wrong hardware wise on your or a friend's system, you'll have a lot better idea of what the fault might be which saves you taking it to a computer store who will probably try to rip you off majorly
Money making (I've built a few systems for friends/family over the years. If you put some effort into it, you could make a sideline out of it)
And Dare I say it, it's fun!

I did my first build when I was 12, and it has been the most useful skill I've ever learned. If you think of it as an expensive Lego set and read the instructions, you can't go far wrong!
 
built my first pc last weekend core i7 it was very easy.

i7 920@ 3.5ghz

6gb kinston hyperx ram@ 1750mhz

2x 4890 xfire core clock 950 mem clock 1045

mobo ga-ud5

first time overclocking...was really suprised how easy it all was


oh...and i never read any of the manuals
 
ITs a myth that it is actully cheaper, it all depends where u buy the ready made computer from.

But why most build there own is so they get a 100% say in what components are in that machine.

Any advice i would give to anyone wanting to build for the first time is this, make sure u research all components, and that they all fit together, then when u have all the stuff, don't rush, lay everything out and take your time.
 
Building your own rig is not only a fantastic learning experience, it's really satisfying once you're done and it's all working. It's hardly rocket science and there are lots of helpful people here who will make sure you're not left with a £600.00 paperweight at the end of it.
 
Thanks for the encouragement guys, I do actually really want to build my own - it just feels much better than buying one off the shelf.


One thing I was worried about is what kind of waranty you get if you build your own. I'd quite like to have the piece of mind that I can garuantee it running for the next two/three years.

@bifday2k if there was little difference in terms of price I think I'd want to go for the option that gives me the best warranty.

So in terms of components, I've been looking at what people have been recommending for similarly specced systems, and trying to build up a vague idea of what sort of things I should be looking at getting:

CPU: AMD Phenon II X2 Black Edition - This seems to be a popular choice

GPU: There's so much choice out there I really don't know what it all means! I've seen ATI 4850 and 4870 a lot, and someone said the 4770 outperforms the 4850. Thoughts on this?

I've also not got anywhere with monitors either...

I'm gonna go with Windows 7 RC.
 
Warranty issues with building your own stuff, is all down to the component warranties, not an overall one, so the main thing is no matter where u get the stuff keep all forms of reciepts be it real ones or e-mail ones.

For example last month my hard drive failed so i RMA'd it via the shop i bought it at, throught the the manufacture.

So i would'nt worry to much about warranties and the like.
 
With your buget you could go for something like the following:

XFX ATI Radeon HD 4890 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £145.98
Iiyama ProLite E2208HDS 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor £136.99
AMD Phenom II X2 Dual Core 550 3.10GHz Black Edition (Socket AM3) - Retail £77.99
OCZ ModXStream Pro 600w Silent SLI Ready Modular Power Supply £64.99
Gigabyte GA-M720-US3 (Socket AM2+) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £57.49
OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-8500C5 1066MHz Dual Channel (OCZ2RPR10664GK) £41.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) £38.99

Total: £564.41

It leaves you some headroom for a more powerful PSU/an aftermarket cooler for overclocking/a cheap case, or something else along those lines. The other nice thing is if you get a a good X II you can potentially unlock the two inactive cores and end up with a dirt cheap quad core. This is all stuff you can work out after the build is done, like I said it's an ongoing learning process and very satisfying.

Warranty is normally provided by the component provider, it's quite simple to get a broken part replaced generally! Oh, and I picked the 4890 because I am a 4890 evangelist and it will last you a good long while and they're cheap as hell right now!

ralph09 said:
Also if I buy OEM does that mean I get no warranty?
Click to expand...

Generally means a shorter warranty.
 
yeah would definitely go down the build your own. LOADS of videos on youtube on how to do it, and you always have here if anything goes wrong :D

How about something like this, and use W7 for just now, is under budget to have some money to pre-order W7 :)


Product Name Qty Price Line Total
GX-111-HT_60.jpg
HIS ATI Radeon HD 4850 1024MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card - OEM £79.99
(£69.56) £79.99
(£69.56)
MO-074-VS_60.jpg
Viewsonic VA1926w 19" Widescreen LCD Monitor £78.99
(£68.69) £78.99
(£68.69)
MB-198-GI_60.jpg
Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P AMD 770 (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £76.99
(£66.95) £76.99
(£66.95)
CA-005-CS_60.jpg
Corsair HX 520W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-520HXUK) £76.99
(£66.95) £76.99
(£66.95)
HD-053-SA_60.jpg
Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103UJ) £64.99
(£56.51) £64.99
(£56.51)
CP-248-AM_60.jpg
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 250 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £59.00
(£51.30) £59.00
(£51.30)
MY-172-OC_60.jpg
OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel (OCZ3G16004GK) £56.98
(£49.55) £56.98
(£49.55)
CA-101-AN_60.jpg
Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black (No PSU) £45.99
(£39.99) £45.99
(£39.99)
CD-038-OT_60.jpg
Sony Optiarc AD-7240S 24x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£14.77) £16.99
(£14.77) Sub Total : £484.27 Shipping cost based on delivery to Credit/debit card billing address, G69 6AP with:
FREE SHIPPING (DPD Next Day)
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : FREE VAT is being charged at 15.00% VAT : £72.64 Total : £556.91
 
OEM stuff is generally 1 year warranty.

Another advantage of building your own is that individual parts have longer warranties, for example my CPU = 3 years, PSU = 5 years RAM = 3 etcetc

Whereas ones you buy complete generally only have a 1 year warranty on everything as standard
 
Thats awesome, I really appreciate all the help. So if I could ask you about the two setups posted above, could I ask what sets them apart in terms of the difference it will make to my system? Why would you choose either the AMD Athlon or Phenom, and what sets the two motherboards apart? In order to choose a system I really want to know why I'm going for a specific component over another!
 
I usually buy a pre-built system firstly because i get an idea of how it should look and where everything pretty much slots into place, then when it get's to the part where it's time for an upgrade, it's pretty simple to do.

Get an anti-static mat and an anti-static wristband and you're safe to make a start.
 
ralph09 said:
Thats awesome, I really appreciate all the help. So if I could ask you about the two setups posted above, could I ask what sets them apart in terms of the difference it will make to my system? Why would you choose either the AMD Athlon or Phenom, and what sets the two motherboards apart? In order to choose a system I really want to know why I'm going for a specific component over another!
Click to expand...

His board supports DDR3, mine DDR2(an older, but cheaper standard), my board also will allow you to unlock two cores on your processor if you do a BIOS update meaning you can potentially get 4 cores instead of 2.

Basically my machine is a bit more powerful with a bigger monitor and will last you a bit longer, the other machine has more hard disc space and has a case and optical drive in the price and is a bit cheaper.
 
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