Help building a PC for the first time

[megadave]

Was hoping a few of you could offer me some pointers or send me in the right direction to learn about this stuff. Although i wont say no to any recommended parts etc

The PC will be used for a variety of stuff; some gaming (empire total war, FM09, several FPSs i'd imagine) some coding, video editting, website design and photoshopping. Not to mention a whole lot of internet browsing and media playing/streaming through ps3.

I've never built a PC before, i used to put them together with my dad all the time when i was a kind. However when it comes to what is compatitble with what, i've no clue.

I'll probably spend about £400, although i've already got a monitor, operatoring system, keyboard+mouse and speakers. So can anyone offer me a good place to start?

 

[Kryten]

400 might be tight, but heres a brief effort:

For a start, you game and you photoshop - the rest won't really mind what they're being run on, but as the two most power consuming tasks your PC will undertake, where does the balance lie?
If it's with photoshop, it will lap up a quad core processor - however it may be a little wasted with most games. However if the balance tips towards gaming, you may be better off with a slightly cheaper dual core.

So, where to start : what it's all built on, a motherboard. Gigabyte P35 here - it's slightly older than some but it won't really affect upgrading as there's an entirely new chip & socket now on the scene (i7) and you wont lose anything performance wise.
£75 : Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L iP35 Socket 775 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard - Ebuyer

Processor : Prices are shooting up as I mentioned in another thread, mostly with memory (which hasn't really started yet) but it's still going to be tight. For instance, my favoured Core2Duo e8400 is going for £131 currently at ebuyer, and I can't see prices dropping too much. This is going to be tight on your budget, so perhaps an e7300 for £90 : Intel Core 2 Duo E7300 2.66GHz Socket 775 (1066FSB) 3MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor - Ebuyer

Memory: Until it goes up, 4gb is a decent all round figure, and OCZ provides some decent stuff at good prices : £40 OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC6400 Titanium Memory CL4(4-4-4-15) - Ebuyer

Somewhere to put it all, your case. Nice deal here for £52 with a fair power supply: Coolermaster Elite 330 Black Case With CM eXtreme Power 460W PSU *SPECIAL OFFER* - Ebuyer

Graphics card: these all have had about 30 quid added to the price within the last month unfavourably, so ATI HD4850 for £140 PowerColor HD 4850 PCS+ Edition 512MB GDDR4 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card - Ebuyer or an nVidia 9800GT for £135 EVGA 9800GT 1GB DDR3 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card - Ebuyer

That only leaves a few pounds for hard drive, dvd drive etc - a 1tb HDD should cost around £60 currently and DVD drives are easily obtainable if you've not already got one in your system, but you might want to ditch it for a drive connected via SATA.

That's only a very quickly rushed together system though, tweaks can easily be made and the motherboard will take far more juicy processor if you feel the need. You can go more mid-range with the graphics, for instance an ATI HD4670 which are proving rather popular for around £70, nearly half the price of the 4850 above - but newer games may very well struggle. I would tend to side with ATI on this build as you mentioned an interest in video editing and streaming/decoding etc.

 

[megadave]

thanks a lot for the advice, i'll probably be tempted to splash some more cash than £400 in the end, especially as ive got a birthday coming up looks like ive got a fair bit of researching to do but this will be very useful info to build on

 

[Kryten]

Oooh birthday time, everyone's favourite
Despite memory prices and a few other things going up, I should expect a small drop in price from now on every month or so with the increasing popularity of the new I7 hardware, so you might even be able to squeeze all the below into 400 notes

 

[megadave]

might wait as long as possible then and just get my RAM in then.

by the way im currently using a 32" HDTV. Should that affect any of my decisions? Although i'll probably buy a smaller HD monitor when i get some cash in a few months.

I'm also undecided about whether to get dual or quad core. Am i correct in thinking (for example) that when it comes to gaming, a dual 3ghz will be faster than a quad 2.6ghz? but for adobe type stuff, the quad would be faster?

 

[Aoami]

buy my pc off me if you want ben, £200.

 

[Kryten]

Word of warning re HDTV's - they're still not as good as using a proper monitor by any means of the term. Think back to trying your old CRT TV for instance, you could play a game and watch a video and it was ok from a distance, but text was a no no. A HDTV, unless it's a VERY expensive one will be about half way - text will be blurry and nearly unreadable in some cases.

And re the dual/quad cores, pretty much. It's just that not many games will properly use multiple cores to their full ability, but the likes of photoshop, video editing etc will all lap them up.

 

[megadave]

buy my pc off me if you want ben, £200.

is it shit?


Since quad seems so much more expensive i'll probably wait a while.

In regards to my HDTV, im using it write this and it isnt really blurry, i love it because im lying in bed at the other side of the room with my wireless KB+mouse I'll get a nice monitor at some point though.


Anyway, big thanks for the help, might be back at some point however

 

[Aoami]

nah its great but i bought a laptop so i can play FM2009 in lectures so i dont need it anymore

 

[megadave]

Ok Kryton and friends this is what i'm on so far. Does it all fit? The other processor went out of stock but i'd favour it because it's cheaper, is there any decent alternative that would save some cash and wouldnt affect performance? The case i have is a pretty new aluminium type which will fit it all in fine so i dont need a new one, just a different power supply.

processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Socket 775 (3.0GHz) 1333FSB 6MB L2 Cache Retail Boxed Processor - Ebuyer £131
gfx: EVGA 9800GT 1GB DDR3 Dual DVI HDTV Out PCI-E Graphics Card - Ebuyer £134
MOBO: Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3L iP35 Socket 775 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard - Ebuyer £75
RAM: OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC6400 Titanium Memory CL4(4-4-4-15) - Ebuyer £40
dvd: Samsung SH-S223F 22X DVD±RW/RAM/DL Serial ATA Black Bare Drive - OEM - Ebuyer £15
power supply: Coolermaster 460W eXtreme Power Plus PSU - 20+4pin 4+4 ATX12v 4x SATA 6pin PCI-E - Ebuyer £30
HDD: Seagate ST3500320AS 500GB Hard Drive SATA II 7200rpm *32MB Cache* - OEM - Ebuyer £42

this is £468.30 on ebuyer atm, anyway to bring it down without affecting performance much?

thanks

 

[Kryten]

Not really, you could drop the processor down a couple of notches which will certainly help the price without killing gaming performance but you might notice it in a lot of photoshopping.

 

[Bodhi]

4850 not faster and cheaper?

 

[megadave]

one last thing, can i expect prices to go up or down in the next month?

thanks again ;d

 

[Ati]

You should really get a better PSU than that - 600W is about average these days. And say it with me: MODULAR!!!!!!! always modular power supplies - much easier to install and much tidier.
I cannot stress enough how good value the 4850 is - I run crysis on medium settings in my rig perfectly.
It is worth spending a little more on a better motherboard than that much on a processor in my opinion (I have a Asus P5Q).
A good processor for you would be the Q6600 - it runs at 2.8ghz quad core and is very easily over-clockable (mine runs at 3.0ghz with no temperature change!!!) perfect for the gaming and sony vegas work that I do and no doubt would suit you also if your doing gaming and media editing.

 

[Kryten]

4850's a fair bit more expensive atm, £120 at cheapest. 9800GT is around £90-95.