To build or Not To Build.. New Pc help ?

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11 Nov 2007
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122
Hi guys and girls,

Spoke to a lot of people and they all suggest talking to you lot to help me with a PC building question...

Basically I want to get a new PC, I've built a few in the past and they have always had something not quite right.. USB ports not working driver issues... its safe to say I'm not great at it.
..................................
Sorry for the long post.

I'm always let down by my PC performance but dont have thousands to spend.

I was hoping and I know this is a really cheeky first post, but someone could suggest both a price and the bits to build a good PC.

Software not included.

My PC is used for gaming, such as Doom3, CS:S and soon COD4 and I always notice jumps in frame rate and such which really annoys me. I also use my PC for quite a bit of video editing and ideally wanted the Quad core for this reason.

My current PC is

p4 3.4
2Mb Memory dunno speed
7950GT

all of which I plan to leave together.

The only thing thats important to me in a new pc would be a dual layer DVD writer which is standard now anyway and a nice looking case...

I dont really want to go over the top and I'm sorry I dont have a price limit as I dont know if I need to save up or what... I'm completely lost


Thanks a lot for any advice or information !!
 
USB ports not working driver issues... its safe to say I'm not great at it
Build with the guide or advice from here & most of those issues can be avoided or (easily) solved ;)

How about...



If you need peripherals & or a monitor, the Dell might come out cheaper but wheres the fan in that? Besides, you'll be using top notch components for your build.
 
Its a pretty good spec to be honest, if you built it yourself you may choose to double the amount of RAM, if your going to be running a 64bit OS.

Also a self-build advantage would mean you can choose your own motherboard, which would be handy if you want to overclock it, also you could ensure you get the "energy efficient" version of the Q6600....but if not overclocking then its not really an issue.

But as HP7909 has show, you can get a better spec for less money building it yourself.
 
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Fantastic replies !!! So I'm looking at £1000 at my cost !

Ok thats the first answer done with, great thank you.

Looking over that build it all looks great but this is where I need more opinions.. is this something you'd build knowing as much as you do? or is it a case of just grabbing the first thing on the list to put a PC together for me..

Dont get me wrong thank you very much for doing it for me, I just need to know if that is the exact list I need to be buying for if anything on there would be worth changing ?

thanks again
 
Oh and my plan is to build the machine in Jan as I was told this would be the best time to purchase all the bits and chance for a few games to come out ??
 
are you planning on overclocking the machine at all?

if you o/c'ing the gpu and the cpu you may want to opt for the 620w version of that power supply, it will also allow you to comfortably add more devices in future with out worrying about wether the PSU is up to it.
 
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Nice ! What I'm doing is writing down the suggestions here and pricing them on a few sites..

I'm hoping I can come back with each piece I need and talk about it in the correct parts of the forum !!

Thanks guys you've been excellent
 
That spec does look pretty good , but id go for a 8800gt instead of the gtx purely for a best bang for buck situation :) Plus you save around £100.
 
Hi sorry to gate crash! ;)

Im thinking of upgrading also and was wondering how likely it is to successfully build a pc (of a similar spec mentioned a couple of posts above). Having not built one before is it something that can realistically be done by a complete novice..?

Also, performance wise how does the above spec compare to say a Dimension XPS 720. Is it worth paying a couple of hundred quid more for the peace of mind of buying a machine already built??

Thoughts welcome...
 
I really like the CoolerMaster Stacker 832 in Black... Looks amazing! combined with Corsair HX 620W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU!!

I think that would make a ground breaking start to my hopefully exciting time here :)
 
Hi sorry to gate crash! ;)

Im thinking of upgrading also and was wondering how likely it is to successfully build a pc (of a similar spec mentioned a couple of posts above). Having not built one before is it something that can realistically be done by a complete novice..?

Also, performance wise how does the above spec compare to say a Dimension XPS 720. Is it worth paying a couple of hundred quid more for the peace of mind of buying a machine already built??

Thoughts welcome...

The parts from Dell are lower end spec to the one you can choose yourself. Its really easy to throw the parts together.. christ I've done it and I'm a total retard !!

Follow the advice from these guys and your laughing
 
Ive dabbled in changing the odd hdd and memory card before - thats about as adventureous as its got! Was just thinking it might be a bit more scary when theres a grand's worth of gizmo's to chuck in! Im confident, but just need a little push in the right direction I suppose! :)
 
Ive dabbled in changing the odd hdd and memory card before - thats about as adventureous as its got! Was just thinking it might be a bit more scary when theres a grand's worth of gizmo's to chuck in! Im confident, but just need a little push in the right direction I suppose! :)

Again mate the guys on here myself not included are the dogs and can help with all the issues you might run into.

The best advice I can give is to take it slow, its all obvious what goes where but any doubt ask !

As I said I've done it a few times and the only mistake I made was replacing a CPU fan and didnt replace the paste !! BOOM !

Other than that ! :)

my issues are with getting the most out of my systems
 
Yeah theres definetley a wealth of knowledge on here!
If you come on here regularly i'll keep you posted with how I get on! No doubt I'll need a fair bit of advice!

Cheers for the responses and good luck with your project! ;)
 
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