Pre or Self Build

markomania · 21 Oct 2010 at 03:02

Hello peeps

My dads looking for a new work pc so I've been having a look and wondered if it would be better/cheaper to build one rather than buy ready made

His only requirements are windows 7, be fairly quiet and run at a decent speed

Its used for email, office programs, youtube/iplayer, bit of solitaire etc, so nothing taxing.

Max budget £400

Hopefully you guys have some good suggestions

XILLAX · 21 Oct 2010 at 04:34

Self build almost always works out cheaper & better.

You could probably just get a motherboard with onboard graphics since he won't be playing any intensive games.

GFX card is normally the most expensive part of a build so, you will be able to get a really fast pc for £400 if it doesn't need to play games!

I'm not great at specing, but I'm sure someone else will swing by and post the best you can get for your money

!

Throrik · 21 Oct 2010 at 05:08

Self building gives you the satisfaction of building it yourself, as well as being cheaper for the most part. Getting it pre-built however can save you the trouble of doing it.

hp7909 · 21 Oct 2010 at 05:40

Does he need OS, monitor, peripherals, etc?

Just base:

That should last a number of years + upgradable.

ran_out · 21 Oct 2010 at 08:17

For myself i would always self build, for someone else I'd have to consider whether I wanted to be bothered with every tech-support query they have for the rest of the life of the thing,

Greboth · 21 Oct 2010 at 08:28

That depends, the only other person I have built a PC for was my parents and I was tech support for them anyway.

Pre or self build is one main thing for me: Price. At the low end of the market it is possible to get pre built systems cheaper than if you built the same system. The other factor is ofcourse, can you get a pre built at the spec you want?

touristtam · 21 Oct 2010 at 08:39

If you are living not far from your parents and are willing to do ALL the tech support, the sefl build is the best option price wise. Now if you do live far away from your parents' home and that you still need to do the tech support for them, a pre built with warranty is your best friend.

I had to explain how to get a floppy disk out that was containing memtest from the machine I left my parents back in 2004: "yes while the machine is off", "No it is on the front and you need to push the button next to the slide", "Please ask dad when he is coming back to have a look". They now have an HP laptop bought from a retailer like PCWorld and have a 2 years on site support.

A laptop like this Samsung R730 17.3" LED Intel Dual Core T4300, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, DVD-RW, Win7 Home Premium should do fine in your price range considering the expected usage.

I hope this help.

Tam

Nelson Santos · 21 Oct 2010 at 11:22

hp7909 said:
Does he need OS, monitor, peripherals, etc?

Just base:

That should last a number of years + upgradable.

Looks good, maybe a slightly bigger HD as the price increase for double the size isnt that much extra.

hp7909 · 21 Oct 2010 at 12:30

Nelson Santos said:
Looks good, maybe a slightly bigger HD as the price increase for double the size isnt that much extra.

For office & general use, IMO 500GB is more than enough. 250GB would also do but costs about the same :eek:

Nelson Santos · 21 Oct 2010 at 12:58

Personally i would depending if the Office documents use any image or video. Or the amoutn of work that is used, i have gone through 2 TB just with images ect. Uncompressed.

markomania · 21 Oct 2010 at 21:25

Thanks for all the replies!

hp7909 said:
Does he need OS, monitor, peripherals, etc?

Just base:

That should last a number of years + upgradable.

That spec looks perfect, hes got all the above so will probably go for this!

touristtam said:
If you are living not far from your parents and are willing to do ALL the tech support, the sefl build is the best option price wise.
Tam

Still live with parents so that won't be a problem, he prefers a big screen for home use so laptop isn't suitable but thanks anyway!

Cookeh · 21 Oct 2010 at 21:29

I'd get a Pentium G6950 over an i3.
Really nothing in it - except the Pentium will overclock further

- and the pentium is cheaper.

If you're really looking for cheap as cheap, AMD Sempron or Athlon II is worth looking at, LGA775 is another possibility.

VFM Addict · 21 Oct 2010 at 21:59

Sure you've probably already got it covered but if not I'd certainly spend the rest of the £400 on a decent external usb hd. Even these days its amazing how many folks keep important work or private files at home on pc but have no back-up strategy whatsoever. Nowadays with external hd's being so cheap there really is no excuse. Strangely I find its usually the folks who spend a fortune on home contents insurance but totally forget that there is no such things as new for old when it comes to data.

hp7909 · 22 Oct 2010 at 04:24

The Intel Core i3 540 is only £2 more but is on TWO offer

alan whitaker · 22 Oct 2010 at 06:10

Hi
Just go out and get a lap top, less problems if you have not built a PC before, there are many sub £400 ones on the market and for what you will use it for you have the piece and mind of a manufactures warranty.

Alan

Cookeh · 22 Oct 2010 at 10:12

alan whitaker said:
Hi
Just go out and get a lap top, less problems if you have not built a PC before, there are many sub £400 ones on the market and for what you will use it for you have the piece and mind of a manufactures warranty.

Alan

markomania said:
Still live with parents so that won't be a problem, he prefers a big screen for home use so laptop isn't suitable but thanks anyway!

Read posts

Steveh_monkey · 22 Oct 2010 at 10:52

From my own personal experience of building PCs for my dads works I've found that it's not always cheaper to self build. If you're going for the lower end of the power spectrum and only wanting internet and office applications it can sometimes be cheaper and more convenient just to get a pre build. Anything more taxing than that which maybe requires a more powerful graphics card of CPU then suddenly self build is the best. For £400 you really want windows and a monitor to be included in that price.

Also you can plug a laptop into a big screen and use that as the monitor, so a laptop might still be viable.

markomania · 22 Oct 2010 at 14:50

Steveh_monkey said:
From my own personal experience of building PCs for my dads works I've found that it's not always cheaper to self build. If you're going for the lower end of the power spectrum and only wanting internet and office applications it can sometimes be cheaper and more convenient just to get a pre build. Anything more taxing than that which maybe requires a more powerful graphics card of CPU then suddenly self build is the best. For £400 you really want windows and a monitor to be included in that price.

Also you can plug a laptop into a big screen and use that as the monitor, so a laptop might still be viable.

Its not just the screen size, he tends to manhandle laptops so I'd rather get him something he isn't going to move

matt_fsr · 22 Oct 2010 at 15:02

markomania said:
Hes a solicitor so only really ...

Wait, what?

He's a solicitor and wants a £400 PC to rely on his data being safe and secure? :eek:

Thats what, 3 hours work at most?

Utter, utter madness. Get a decent spec pre-built machine with a warranty, and look into a home or small business NAS with RAID storage. I'm no storage guru but RAID 4 or 5 at least, on a mirrored array.

If your home HDD goes down, you'll be a bit unhappy, lose some game saves, possibly some photos if you're unlucky enough not to have backed them up lately.

If his HDD goes down and is irrecoverable, how much work would he lose? How much would that cost a client? How big is the negligence lawsuit that he'd be facing?

markomania · 22 Oct 2010 at 15:25

Nearly all the important stuff he deals with is paper based. That being said hes got 2 external hard drives so back ups are covered