Buying a PC

[Jonny_Darko]

I desperately need a new PC. Can anyone recommend a site where I can get something reliable for a half-decent price.

Ideally I'm after a P4 3 ghz, 1 gig of RAM, 2 x 80 gig hard drives, gfx card, audigy soundcard a DVD Drive and a CD Writer. Not bothered about DVD writer really.

Any ideas? I know I can save money by building it myself but I don't have the know-how

Also, am I going to want a GeForce FX? (If so which one?) Or this new Radeon Cards that Half-Life 2 uses?

Thanks

 

[dysfunction]

www.meshplc.com

 

[Will]

Hardware Forum.

 

[Deadmanwalking]

What dys said but be warned. I just got a new cheapy comp off them and while it was amazing for it's price, it has since borken twice. First time a dodgy motherboard, second time a dud PSU.

Just a warning.
Oh and Depends when you are planning on buying the new PC

Edit: Hardware forum as you get Jonty to give you advice then.

Edit: Well moved jonny

 

[Will]

Do you not work with lots of people who can help you build a PC? I'm not much use at helping with off the shelf PCs, but from your question about graphics cards, I'd recommend the Radeon.

If you want looks over cheapness, you could try Alienware UK or (just silly) Savrow.

 

[Deadmanwalking]

Building a PC is stupidly easy (Even i managed it, not to mention will )

And can save you alot of money and hassle in many cases.

 

[Jonny_Darko]

Originally posted by Will
Do you not work with lots of people who can help you build a PC?

If you mean our IT department, don't have a laugh!

If you mean the BW crew, they could help but they all live and work remotely .

 

[Will]

Heh, I meant the BW people.

And DMW...

Seriously, it is easy. I got a friend to help with my first, and after that it was easy as pie for me. If you get a good case, that's half your work done for you. Shuttle micro PCs in particular come with a very clear step-by-step guide, though they are a little toasty if you want lots of storage, and a hardcore gaming system rolled into one.

 

[Jonty]

Hi Jonny

Do you have a budget to go on? It's easy to recommend the very best money can buy, but having some kind of limit really helps.

As for the kit you describe, that sounds like the makings of a nice system. I'd personally go for a Pentium 4 (Revision C) 3Ghz CPU. There is a P4C 3.2Ghz chip, but as it's just come out and because it won't be outmoded until at least September, then the price of the 3.2Ghz chip is artficially high, whereas the 3Ghz is (relatively) low.

RAM can come in varying flavours, but brands such as Corsair tend to be amongst the very best, although there is a premium to pay (usually you pay twice as much, so a 128Mb stick of Corsair could buy you 256Mb of 'normal' memory). Whether it's worth the difference is debatable.

Pretty much everyone on these forums loves Western Digital's Special Edition hard-drives, which are very reliable, fairly cheap and come with 8Mb of cache (most hard-drives come with only 2Mb, so the difference is noticable). You can get these drive in sizes up to around 200Gb. Alternatively you could go for a RAID setup, as I'm sure some people would advice, but that maybe a bit advanced for your needs.

Working along your list, in terms of graphics cards, you're looking really at a top end ATi or nVidia card. If you're going for nVidia, you'll be wanting a GeForce FX 5900 Ultra: the fastest card on the market, and extremely impressive in term of features, driver stability etc. You will have to remortgage your house to afford one (£350-£450) but they may well be worth it. Otherwise, a 5900 (non-Ultra) is cheaper, but sacrifices some of the features and raw power of it's bigger brother. If ATi is more your cup of tea, then their Radeon 9800 Pro is a great card, and is only fractionally less powerful than the 5900 Ultra. If you plump for one of these, go for the 128Mb model. To be honest, you wouldn't be disappointed with either card.

In terms of soundcards, if you're not happy with the integrated sound solutions (which vary in quality) then an Audigy 2 card is arguably the best there is (or the older, but still impressive, Audigy (1) cards). These cards come in varying flavours. The cheapest is ideal for gamers, but if you're an audiophile and like making your own music, then some of the more expensive versions may be worth the money.

In terms of CD/DVD drives, you could either get an integrated DVD/CD-RW drive, or two seperate drives. Often seperate drives have better performance, but obviously it may well work out more expensive. You could alternatively opt for a DVD±RW drive, which can read and write to DVDs as well as CDs, but whether you'd use the extra capacity DVDs bring is for you to decide (plus such drives tend to be expensive and write speeds are, at the moment, fairly slow).

I apologise for rambling on, I know it's a lot to take in. What you're best off doing is posting a rough budget and we can then draw up some possible specs, if you'd like? I know building a computer yourself can seem daunting, but it's genuinely not too hard (I'd say go for it ). Still, if you're genuinely against the idea, then people like Alienware build amazing, bespoke, high-performance PCs (with a price tag to match). Alternatively, there are companies like Mesh, which dysfunction mentioned, Dell (love them or hate them) and NovaTech who are all supposed to build bespoke computers with good reputations for quality and such.

Kind Regards

Jonty

P.S. Sorry for anyone who read the uneditted version of this post, a few mistakes crept in
P.P.S. If you were interested in a Shuttle small form factor system (which include instructions on how to fit everything), then Enigine may interest you, who build Shuttle systems according to your specifications.

 

[Jonny_Darko]

Rough budget, at a guess...hmmm, I could stretch to £1200 but that's the ultimate limit.

Also, not that bothered about an expensive flatscreen monitor or anything. Just a cheap 17" Illyama (is it them who are quite cheap?) will do the trick.

 

[Deadmanwalking]

If you are going to build your own then i can prob help (Though not as much as jonty ) As that was the budget i had for my new computer a few months back.

All in mine cost me £1178 except with 19" monitor.

Like Jonty mentioned investing in a good case can make life a hell of a lot easier. And personally i would opt for the radeon gfx card.

 

[Jonny_Darko]

The problem isn't so much physically building the PC as buying the right bits which will work with each other.

Though I'd rather not build it myself, a site where I can build my own then they put it together would be ideal. I think I could do it but if I got stuck I'd be in a position where there'd be no-one around to help.

 

[Deadmanwalking]

Well in terms of buying the right bits, that's not a problem as before you buy we can advise on bits and what would work with what etc etc.

But those sites Jonty mentioned allow you to customise your computer within certain limits but will charge a little more than your own build.

Dell for instance. You would start with a basic or advanced system then add/upgrade the bits you wanted and then it would chuck you out a price at the end.

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

Sticking together a pc is so insanely easy it's stupid. I was worried the first time I tried it but as long as you know how to push plugs into sockets and insert pci/agp cards you'll do just fine.

 

[Jonty]

Hi Jonny

People such as Dell, NovaTech, Enigine (for Small Form Factor PCs) etc. all provide services where you select a one of several systems and then tailor it to your needs (I would add Alienware, but having just checked their site, I believe they'll be out of budget). It's not as liberating as building your own PC, but it does mean that everything will 'just work' and you don't have to worry about building anything, as it all arrives pre-built.

Given the budget, you should be able to build a system with a P4C 3Ghz CPU, fairly good motherboard, 1Gb of 'normal' DDR SDRAM, Radeon 9800 Pro (128Mb), etc. and still have change for the other bits and bobs you need (though you'll probably be uncomfortably near the £1200 limit when you've finished). It's hard to guess the price exactly when you're not building it all yourself, but good luck with whatever you decide

Kind Regards

P.S. Stores such as Overclockers UK are happy to provide advice about what works with what over the phone or via email, as they genuinely seem to know what they're talking about (which is always good ).

 

[Jonny_Darko]

Thanks a lot for this guys.

 

[Jonny_Darko]

How's this?

Case: MESH ATX MidiTower +360W PSU with tool free access (Beige/Black)
Motherboard: ASUS A7N8X nVIDIA nFORCE2 with 10/100 Ethernet LAN
Processor: Upgrade to new AMD Athlon XP 3000+ with Quantispeed Technology
at £120
Memory: Upgrade to 512Mb PC2700 DDR (333MHz) at £30
Floppy + Portable Storage Options: 1.44MB Floppy Drive
Hard Drives: Upgrade to 120Gb Ultra Fast with 8Mb Buffer (7200rpm) at
£55
Video Card: Upgrade to 128MB ATI Radeon 9800 Pro - TV Out + DVI at £239

Monitor 1: 17'' Mitsubishi DPRO 750 - 96Khz, .25mm, NF, TCO99 (Analogue)
at £124
Optical Drives: Upgrade to 16x DVD-ROM + 52x24x52 CD-RW (2 Drives) at
£39
Sound: Soundblaster compatible multi channel audio
Speakers: Creative Soundblaster SBS250 Speakers at £10
Modem: 56kbps V92 Modem, featuring data and fax.
Keyboard & Mouse: Logitech Internet Keyboard & Optical Mouse
(Black)
Scanner: BENQ 4300 Colour Scanner at £40
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Warranty: 3 years On Site Warranty (Mainland UK only - Terms Apply)
Delivery: Insured Del within Mainland UK (+ £39) at £39
Price Excluding VAT: £ 1035

Price Including VAT + DEL: £ 1216.12

 

[Deadmanwalking]

That does look a good system, however. I would advise upgrading to Windows XP Professional. And as i said earlier when purchased a system from them i did buy the Monitor seperately as i found it to be cheaper.

The saving on the monitor can make up for the upgrade price for XP pro

 

[Jonny_Darko]

Oooh - £ 1129.17 with pro.

AND they do finance!

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

That seems like a lot considering for about the same price you could stick together pretty much the same componants with a 17" TFT and 1 gig of Crucial ram if you did it yourself, and that wasn't even me looking for decent deals.

 

[kameleon]

johnny you could always ge the vendor to build it for you, it usually costs about 35 quid extra, but theres no messing about if anything goes wrong.

I would reccomend Spot On Computers As they're prices are reasonable and they are a friendly bunch of people.

 

[Ch3tan]

Did you get the MESH one in the end Johnny? I'm looking for one now, but I keep going over my budget :/

 

[Cdr]

Personally I wouldnt have 'gone' with Mesh (if you've already bought it, tad late I know )

I have a mate who has 2 Mesh PCs, the 1st one he had 2 major HDD failures within the first year. From the day he bought it, he's had nothing but crashes, instability, errors, major failures (hes only had it for about 2 years).

The 2nd PC he got the same instability as the first, so he decided to reinstall windows - unfortunately unknown to him Mesh dont actually supply you with a proper XP CD (its called a recovery CD), and so when it came to reinstall XP, he couldnt. He had paid Mesh for an XP upgrade (legal ramifications of that - another thread methinks). You also have to be careful of what voids the warranty, as they are particularly picky of what you can upgrade and what you cant - it took them an awfully long time to decide if he put another stick of RAM in would that void his warranty.

Like people have suggested, building your own is very very simple and extremely easy - assuming you dont do something real silly, like put a huge screwdriver mark across the motherboard - you'll be okay.

I bought a real cheap system the year I started Uni (by cheap, I mean £700), throughout Uni, I started to upgrade various parts - RAM, GFX, chip + hs/fan, then the case, then the motherboard (twice now), so I kinda did it bit by bit, which got me used to opening up my PC and stick bits in, knowing what pressure can be put onto the cards / motherboard. I'm now up to the stage of where I've just built a mate a whole system, and going to do one for his dad aswell.

Good luck!