[biggles2008]

Hi

I had this idea that i wanted to build my own comp since i saw some cheap RAM in this shop

I know what i need:
Case

Motherboard

Processor

RAM

Drives (CD+R)

Monitor

I priced up a case at £40 .. it was like a custom designed one with neons and stuff and a few fans on the inside etc.

Motherboard: I am a complete noob when it comes to MB's what price should i be expecting to pay and does price matter with a mother board?

Processor: I was after a computer that could play COD4 and more so 2.4ghz + .. I went one a website that sold computers and the the CPU was 3.0ghz dual core so thats like 6.0ghz .. is that too good to be true? P.S what price for a 2.4ghz plus processor i donmt know what to look for in them

RAM : easy 1-4gig ram so i can have a 32 bit system and relatively cheap

Drives: NP quite cheap

Monitor: standard price for a 19" is £109



I have give you all this info to make sense of it for me and a general outline of the price. Would i be safer buying one and would it work out cheaper to buy one?

[thehat]

I really enjoy building my own computers, and have never bought one pre-built. If you're wanting to build a games machine, it is worth buying good components so it may cost more but the performance increase is well worth it.

Motherboard: Buy Asus. Don't worry about on board graphics because for a games machine you'll need a dedicated graphics card. Depending on what exactly what you want, expect to pay £80-£150 for a motherboard.

Processor: I'm and Intel man when it comes to processors. the Q6600 is great value for money as it's a quad-core 2.4GHz that can easily be overclocked to 3GHz if you have a decent cooler. I'd recommend the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro, which you should be able to find for less than £20. That'll work for any of the Intel Core Duos too if you don't want to dive into quad core just yet.

Ram: You'll need 2GB minimum if you're wanting to play modern games. 3GB or more if you intend to run Vista, which you will need to do if you want to get all the benefits of DX10. If you want to have more than 3.5GB of RAM under Vista you'll need to get 64bit Vista and the 32bit versions cap your RAM at 3.5GB. Don't skimp on the RAM, get a good make. Corsair, OCZ or Kingston. You should be able to find 4GB of any of these for under £100.

Drives: No worries, £20 for a DVD re-writer. Again, a games machine needs performance, so pay attention of data tranfer and cache size when looking at hard drives.

Graphics card: You will need a separate graphics card for gaming. Now that the new GeForce 9 cards have emerged, you can get a GeForce 8 for reasonable money. the 8800GT is probably the best value for power of all the 8 series, but I went for a GTS 512MB on my last machine because of the slightly faster processor.

Buying a pre-built PC can offer you greater peace of mind, but if you build it yourself, are careful and follow the instructions properly then you will have a more rewarding experience. It's not always cheaper though as you can't afford to buy you components in bulk. The best thing to do is tp price up systems in bits and pre-built all over the place and see what you're most comfortable with. Here are some links to get you going:

Overclockers - read the readers reviews to get an idea of what works well with what.
eBuyer - I used these guys last time cheap and fast
Dabs
Dino PC - good value pre-built systems

Hope that helps

[bodom658]

you can expect to pay $200 to $500 or more for a motherboard, depending if you know where to look.

do not think that 3 ghz core duo is the same thing as a 6 ghz pentium M chip. It will process a single program at the same speed as a 3 ghz pentium M chip, but can handle running twice as many processes at the same speed. Think of a parallel circuit. You can have 2 programs, and one goes to each seperate CPU, but you cannot split one program between the 2 processors (without some clever coding on the programmers part).

3.0 ghz core duo is very good though, and you will be well off. Dont forget the graphics card... i did not see it listed. You may also want to look into a Physics Accelerator, just another thing to help enhance your gamming experiance.

[Nykc]

NewEgg is a great place to price your system. I had a mid-range gaming rig all mapped out for under $1000.00 not including software.

[thehat]

Prices in pounds chaps

[Nykc]

Use a currency converter, I am american.

[thehat]

I meant more that consumer electronics are cheaper in America than over here. It sometimes balances out when you include import tax and handling though. With the exchange rates as they are buying US is certainly an option, but I personally would fear for the safety of expensive electricals sent across the pond.

[Nykc]

Don't they have a NewEgg equivalent over there?

[thehat]

Well yeah, the sites I posted above are all of a very similar nature, but I've never heard of newegg themselves. newegg.co.uk doesn't bring any joy so I guess they're just US. It's good to have a recommendation if I ever get stuck in America without a computer though

[Nykc]

Any Luck with Misco?

Looks alot like a UK Version of TigerDirect.

[Sonic88]

Newegg is great. I live in Nashville, TN and they have a shipping warehouse in Memphis so shipping is typically very fast. Ive ordered stuff at 1PM and received it the next day on standard ground shipping. Unfortunately, since the warehouse is in TN I do have to pay sales tax. So, big orders sometimes come out cheaper elsewhere. There customer service is the best though.

[girasquid]

I live in Canada, So instead of using Newegg I just used TigerDirect to get my parts. Another thing you might want to look at is computer shops in your area - sometimes you can find the things you're looking for nearby, and therefore don't have to pay the shipping on them.

I think I spent about $100 on my motherboard, but I bought commodity parts.

[PsychoCoder]

bodom658, on 27 Mar, 2008 - 05:36 AM, said:

you can expect to pay $200 to $500 or more for a motherboard, depending if you know where to look.

Not really. I got a kick ass ASUS MB:

• on-board NVIDIA 7 series graphics
  
• on-board 7.1 HD Surround Sound
  
• on-board RADI 0/1/5, 7 SATA plugs/ports (3Gbs transfer)
  
• on-board GB Lan
  
• supports 8GB DDR2
  
• AM2 Socket
  
• 4 PCI, 2 PCIE x16

I got that for $125 believe (God I love NewEgg). I got the processor (AMD64 X2 5000+) for $89, DDR2 memory ($45 per 2GB), NVIDIA 9 Series $375'ish. So as you can see, in the US if you use NewEgg.Com you can built a decent system for a fair price. My system plays DOOM III, Quake 4, London Nights, HL2, etc very well, no frame rate problems, no lagging whatsoever, so I am pleased with the products I got from NewEgg for only $750. Also, right now NewEgg has 19' widescreen monitors for $169 a piece ($13.58 for shipping)

[Trotter]

Motherboard- go for the Gigabyte DS3 line. Great Intel board, solic overclocker, really good price.

PSU- don't skimp here. A cheap PSU will eventually blow and take other components with it. i don't fool with PSU's as much but check the lists here for a good run-down of brands.

GFX card- COD4 is actually pretty forgiving as far as graphics go. Any of the 8800 or 9600series from Nvidia will run it perfect, as will the 38xx series from ATI. Lesser cards work, too, but if you're gonna build, yada yada yada. I run it with my trusty X1950XT with no problems.

RAM- go with a good brand, not the super cheap stuff or value series. Corsair, G.Skill, OCZ are all great.

CPU- the Q6600 is a great chip. The E8400 is a gaming beast as well, but only a dual core. The new lower end duals from Intel are good overclockers if you have to save a little money, but the Q6600/E8400 are the stars of the show right now.

I am an AMD guy myself, but Intel has the speed crown at the moment, and it looks like they will hold on to it for a while yet.

[ferrari12508]

I love how all the so called system builders totally forgot he needs a hard drive. And just because a processor is 2.4GHz Quad-core doesnt mean its good, you need to look at the Bus speeds. Also look at the latency of the RAM and also the frequency. The motherboard does not have to be $200-500 to be good. I have a $30 mobo, about 13euros i want to say. The thing is in a $500 system and I can run GoW on High and i still get 50FPS. Thats because i have a fast gfx card and Processor and a good HD. make sure you get a SATA hard drive if you plan on playing games. 7200RPM is preferable. You just have to know the more intricate things to look at when buying a product, not just "Ohh its 2.4GHz so its automatically better than a 2.2GHz processor."