Noob needs help... Buying prebuilt or building own?

WARHURYEAH

WARHURYEAH

WARHURYEAH

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Joined
11 Feb 2009
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653
Location
Barnsley, South Yorkshire
Okay, so for my birthday I wish to buy a PC, now how I go about it is an issue.

Many people say building a pc is easy and it's just like Lego etc. However as I'm putting some serious dosh into this and my knowledge on PC's is minimal I'm not over confident.

So my options are; building a PC from scratch and just go for it.
Buying a prebuilt PC from overclockers and ask them to slap in a network card then upgrade that when required in the future, also there's an option of getting one of those overclocked bundles, that way the part that I'm most sketchy about is kinda done for me.

As i am looking to overclock the prebuilt and bundles do appeal to me more as overclocking for a noob that doesn't want to risk anything is great.

I will update this with more information when im back home, typing this on an iPod is annoying. Opinions and suggestions would greatly be appreciated.

Thank you.
 
Build it yourself to save some money.

The overclocked bundles are nice but you can overclock it yourself to save some money.

What is your budget?
 
Personally for yourself I would go for an overclocked bundle and then do the rest yourself. It really is easy, even for people who aren't very technical with their hands.

after you fit the motherboard into the case, it's just a matter of hooking up the dvd drive, hdd, psu and the slotting the colour coded cables into the right part.

Take a look at this. If she can do it anyone can. http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18232832
 
I have around £700-800 to spend, I need a monitor, network card and an OS to be included.

Mainly using it for TF2 and Brink when it comes out, I do some video editing also with Sony Vegas and after effects/premier.

The OC bundle appeals to me a bit as it's already OC'd etc.

Pre built is nice hut more expensive and building it from scratch is naturally a daunting task but I'm willing to give it a go.
 
With your budget, and needing everything in, I recomend you build it yourself, reasons being, AMD is best suited to your budget in order that you can maximise performance for your money, OcUKs Intel bundles are very good, their AMD bundles dont tend to be clocked much higher than stock anyway, so imo theyre not really worth paying the premium, it is really simple, have a read of greywolfs guide at the top
As such a potential build could look like this

Untitled-39.png


This build has decent monitor, OS and wireless network card included
decent CPU, good gfx card, good case with good cooling (though if you do want to give OCing a go yourself you will also want to invest in an aftermarket cooler like the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7) the mobo and PSU both support the addition of a 2nd gfx card in xfire later if needed
Oh and with free P&P which you qualify for the cost is £787.64
 
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It all depends how confident you are building your own system.

I think the deal breaker for some people is the 1 year warranty and the overclock you get with a pre-built.
 
The most I've done to a PC is pretty much cleaned it all out and replaced a GPU, I'd want to OC which is why a bundle seems appealing because it's already done, as well as a prebuilt one.

I'd also prefer to have an Intel core as well, not sure why, maybe just a bias.

It is just mainly the fact that a prebuilt one is already OC'd and pretty much ready to go, as well as the bundles, building it myself will mean I have to spend a day pooping my whitey tighties and harrassing everyone I know about if I have done it right.
 
Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Argon Intel Core i3 540 3.06GHz @ 4.00GHz Overclocked Bundle - MSI £239.99
(£199.99) £239.99
(£199.99)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6850 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99
(£124.99) £149.99
(£124.99)
BenQ G2222HDL 21.5" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £107.99
(£89.99) £107.99
(£89.99)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £81.98
(£68.32) £81.98
(£68.32)
Corsair TX 650W ATX SLi Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-650TXUK) £64.99
(£54.16) £64.99
(£54.16)
Antec 300 Three Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £52.99
(£44.16) £52.99
(£44.16)
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) £30.98
(£25.82) £30.98
(£25.82)
Pioneer 24x Internal S19LBK DVD Rewriter including Labelflash SATA Retail £19.99
(£16.66) £19.99
(£16.66)
* Sub Total : £624.09
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £19.10
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £128.64
* Total : £771.83

Something that I have come up with, forgot a sound card, but would I really need one?
 
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Well naturally I have no idea on what's better :)

I just assume the bigger the number the better.

But I'd prefer to have a better GPU than a monitor, I'll be sitting to close to it so a 21"' is fine.

But I guess the GPU I chose is no better than the one you selected?
 
thats right, and its cheaper, so you can have a extra inch.

and the Antec 100 case is much nicer, the 300 case is now a rip-off at that price, use to be £37 late last year.
 
is the mobo in that bundle ready for crossfire?

always nice to be able to add in a 2nd card in a year or 2 if/when you need the extra gpu power

an listen to stulid the mans a genius :P

:EDIT:

yea its crossfire ready so 1 5850 now, good enough for any game at the monitor sixze you want
then add in a 2nd in the future :)
 
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It terms of building your own it is fairly easy but I can understand being concerned at getting something wrong when you've spent a decent amount of money. I've always built my own pc's but I started off making broken 386's (It was the early 90's) work again by swapping bits over. It may be worthwhile to pick up an old pc, p4 or athlon which should be very cheap, to take apart and put back together again so you get an idea of how everything works.
 
Right, this is a bit over budget but has an overclockable i5 2500K.

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £189.98
(£158.32) £189.98
(£158.32)
MSI ATI Radeon HD 5850 Twin FrozR II 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £134.99
(£112.49) £134.99
(£112.49)
BenQ G2222HDL 21.5" Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £107.99
(£89.99) £107.99
(£89.99)
Foxconn P67A-S Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) £99.98
(£83.32) £99.98
(£83.32)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £81.98
(£68.32) £81.98
(£68.32)
XFX Pro 650W Core Edition Power Supply £66.37
(£55.31) £66.37
(£55.31)
Antec 100 One Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £44.99
(£37.49) £44.99
(£37.49)
G.Skill RipJawX 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (F3-12800CL9D-4GBXL) £41.99
(£34.99) £41.99
(£34.99)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) £40.99
(£34.16) £40.99
(£34.16)
Sony Optiarc AD-5260S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.98
(£12.48) £14.98
(£12.48)
Sub Total : £686.87
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £13.75
VAT is being charged at 20.00% VAT : £140.12
Total : £840.74

£824 as you get free shipping

Board will allow you to add in another 5850 for some crossfire goodness later on.

Remember you'll need to add in an aftermarket cooler too if you plan on pushing your CPU.
I3 540 V I5 2500k Comparison

If this is too over budget then I'd recommend the Phenon II X4 build above.
 
The only thing i would say if your not that confident about building your own is things Can and do go wrong (not very often) so you would need to beable to troubleshoot and fix these problems.
 
I'd go for Shadows spec but I am then doing the whole mobo/processor/RAM shizzle which I am not to confident with.

The bundles just require me to do some of the easier stuff, barring the PSU (dunno if they're hard to do).

Not sure if I'm just being overly cautious either but all I have done so far is installed a GPU and hilariously unplugged a hard drive which took me about an hour to realise what I had done.

Even then I was pooping my pants over the whole thing.

There's also a list of questions I have before I order this shizzle (some of these will be hilariously retarded but I must put my mind at ease with this before I order anything):

1. Can someone link to me a really really simple PC building guide for the mentally challenged?

2. This is gonna sound stupid, but I guess the PSU comes with a power lead as well? :S

3. When installing a new Hard Drive, is there anything special I need to do or will it just read one?

4. How do you install Network Cards? Is there a slot for one on the Mobo? I'd assume there is.

5. Should I get cable tidy's so then my PC looks really neat?

6. Is this even a wise investment?

7. Does the case (Antec 100) give good air flow and will everything fit in it?

9. Is the PSU powerful enough?

10. Have I forgotten anything?

11. Did you notice I missed out 8?
 
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WARHURYEAH said:
I'd go for Shadows spec but I am then doing the whole mobo/processor/RAM shizzle which I am not to confident with.

The bundles just require me to do some of the easier stuff, barring the PSU (dunno if they're hard to do).
Click to expand...

your spec is good if thats your budget, just change the case and graphics card to what I said.

and a psu isnt hard to fit, you can always ask here.
 
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