Building my own PC

[Eddie Hitler]

Right..

Basic outline. I won't have any trouble building, installing and all the other odds and ends when it comes to building a PC. I was an I.T technician for a year when i was 16-18 years old. Also had no end of trouble with my own PC and other peoples.

Only problem is I havn't taken any interest in PC components since I left that job. So I have no idea what to buy!

I have a budget I would like to keep at (£250), although I can splurge a bit more if necessary.

I already have a monitor etc. I'm just looking at the base unit.

It will be used for gaming, although I'm not a "hardcore", I currently have an old Dell with a 256mb ATi and it seems to run everything I want at the moment, bar Oblivion. It runs, but not worth playing.

Any help is greatly appreciated. I really don't know where to start.

[Scotsman37]

Do you have the latest operating system - Windows Vista ?

If not, then best to buy a complete base system as it's cheaper that way rather than sometimes buying seperately when you don't have a legit copy of Windows Vista.

If you were in Glasgow I would suggest the following place to check out for a bargain;

World of Computers

https://www.e-woc.co.uk/

If not then;

Misco

https://www.misco.co.uk/applications/Category/category_tlc.asp?CatId=54


Overclockers

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=43&catid=1078


SCan

https://3xs.scan.co.uk/Category.asp?SystemMasterCategoryID=25

[Eddie Hitler]

I'd rather use XP home which I have a few legit copies for, and install that. But again I don't know if hardware would still be compatible etc.

[The Artist]

I suggest you use xp pro. Easy to get copy's of. Works fine etc. It means your budget pc will remain budget and not be slow and horrible. All hardware would still be compatible. If you want a copy of xp pro, pm me.

At the moment, go for Intel cpu/mobo dual core, or quad if you want to go for it but no real point. Even vista can't use 4 cores properly.

Graphics card, you can get a decent card for under £60 these days, refer to previous thread in this section.

Case, get something you like the look of that comes with a power supply. As long as you are not planning on getting expensive dual core ati graphics cards then there is no need for a massive power supply.

Ram is dirt cheap now so go for something well known like kingston or corsair as it won't cost that much more. 2gb should do for now. Can always buy another stick and add it in whenever you want.

Hard drive. Well the sweet spot with price is around 400gb at the moment. As in the price jump between 400 and 600 is disproportionate to the space you get. I got a 500gb hard drive for £39 from somewhere. You can get a 1tb for £70 delivered now.

Cooling, get a couple of decent akasa fans. Only a few quid each. One at the front, one at the side of the case.

Dvd rewriter, £15 unless you want a blu-ray type thing which are still expensive.

Make sure mobo has surround sound built in and get yourself a decent speaker set. I got a phillips 5.1 system off ebay for £30!

In the good old days it used to be AMD/Nvidia but seems to have changed. Intel have the lead on processors and ATI are producing stupidly fast graphics card for a lot less than Nvidia.

[Scotsman37]

It's true that XP or Pro version of it requires less powerfull hardware to run quickly, and so with current hardware available it would make your system appear to be very quick indeed. The only exception is that XP or XP Pro will eventually be left behind, as one day Microsoft will stop providing updates like what happened with Windows Me in the past.

Windows XP software updates was supposed to end this year except the deadline was extended due to an uproar by the public.

Windows Vista has a lot of nice features built-in like; partitioning a hard drive, better presented desktop along with Windows side bar, plus other neat features!

The only downfull with that is your base system's hardware needs to be fairly up to date to stay fast due to the fact that Windows Vista requires a minimum of 1Gb of RAM to make use of all the features and therefore you will need 2Gb+ RAM installed system for memory hungry games, while XP really requires 512Mb RAM to run at a proper speed without it lagging but with 1Gb it works very well with games.

Due to the fact XP alone was not designed for dual core and therefore you can download AMD's dual core software, but with Intel has already started leaving updates for earlier chipset software with no future support for Windows Vista. So you require the latest chipset to get support for Windows Vista.

[The Artist]

Exactly why xp would be better. They won't stop updates any time soon.

By the time they do, shitsta will have improved a lot and windows 7 will be out which is supposed to be a lot better.

[teampots]

https://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=21704&category_id=677&manufacturer_id=0&tid=ccl1020

that and a seperate graphics card would be ideal, throw your copy of xp on and your laughing
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[panrider_uk]

[Scotsman37]

[The Artist]

[Scotsman37]

Here it is and other appropriate drivers too

https://support.amd.com/us/Pages/AMDSupportHub.aspx

[Fnatic]

It's easy.

Built my first at 14.

[Eddie Hitler]

[UrbanRacer]

[The Artist]

[Scotsman37]

[Eddie Hitler]

I think i'm going to buy most of the components from eBuyer, i've had good experiences with them in the past so sticking with what i know.

So from the advice in this thread Intel is the best to go for, so whats a good mobo to start with?

Bare with me, you can tell im not up to speed at all with PC's.

[The Artist]

Motherboards are strange. Depends what you want out of it. I usually go with Asus as they don't fail. Proper well built boards and never had a problem. Sometimes slightly more expensive than others for the same features but rock solid.

Make sure you get one with enough ram slots for your needs and correct cpu socket etc

[Scotsman37]

[NSR Mick]

Get a decent named mobo from the likes of Asus, Gigabyte etc.

Dont get a biostar, I've built 2 pc's recently with exactly the same spec except one has a Gigabyte board the other a Biostar and for some reason the Biostar seems laggy even with a dual core 2Ghz celeron 2gb ram and a ata 300 hdd running xp while the system with the Gigabyte board flies.
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If you dont like the way that I ride.......Stop trying to keep up!!!

[Theoutsider]

[Theoutsider]

I`m only 17 but i built computers since i`m 12 lol ) ,and I have to say that Abit are very good,never go for a biostar they are utter shit

[Scotsman37]