Custom building my new computer

Jamez · Thu 26 Jan, 2006 01.24

Hey folks,

I need a new computer and I have a £750 budget!

I've built this one myself at http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk, and I think it suits my needs very well - even if it does creep over my budget by nearly £100.

I know it's 160GB HD, but I really don't think I'd need more than that. I don't download huge movies or create large video files very often.

I want this to be fairly future proof to last me 3 or 4 years - so what do you techies think of it?

Oh, and don't worry about the soundcard being crap - I'm going to get that seperately soon.

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CPU
INTEL® PENTIUM® 4 640 (64 BIT) @ 3.2GHZ 800mhz FSB/HTT/2MB

Memory
1024 MB DDR400 PC3200 WITH LIFETIME WARRANTY!

Motherboard
HIGH END ASUS®: DUAL DDR, SATA, x16 slot, 3 PCI ETC

USB Options
SIX USB 2.0 PORTS (4 REAR + 2 FRONT)

Hard Drive
SATA 160 GB HARD DISK @ 7200rpm 8mb cache (Special Offer)

Second Hard Drive
NONE

RAID
NONE

DVD ROM/Combi Drive
NONE

CD/DVD Writer
4x +R DUAL LYR DVD WRITER (16x +/-R) (& RW) + 40x CD-RW (£25)

Graphics Card 1
128MB INTEGRATED ATI RADEON X300 PCI Express (SMA)

Graphics Card 2
NONE

Sound Card
HIGH END ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL SOUND (RECOMMENDED)

Modem
NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND

Network Facilities
10/100/1000 NETWORK CARD FOR BROADBAND

Floppy Drive/Card Reader
INTERNAL 12 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD FORMAT) (NO FLOPPY)

Case
Stylish Black X-Plode Case + 2 Front USB

Power Supply & Cooling
Silent 400W PSU + 80mm internal Fan (£11) (Recommended)

Operating System required
MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® MCE 2005 (inc. Remote, CD & licence) (£99)

Firewire & Video Editing
NONE

Monitor
17 INCH TFT SILVER/BLACK 1280 X 1024 RES: 12MS (£145)

Keyboard
Logitech® Cordless Rechargeable Optical Keybrd + Mouse Silver/Black £36

Mouse
NONE

Speakers
NONE

Printer
NONE

Anti-Virus
NONE

Office Software
NONE

TV Card
DIGITAL TV CARD (TV/Radio/Remote/Pause Live TV) (Special: £32)

Warranty
1 Year Return-to-Base Warranty + 1 Month Free Collect & Return

Quantity
1

TOTAL: £834 (Inc. VAT)

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marksi · Thu 26 Jan, 2006 07.23

It's pretty much exactly what I bought from the same company this time last year. I got 512MB of RAM and added another 512MB of RAM from PC World yesterday for £27.99. I also had a second hard drive. C: drive is 80GB and the D: drive for storage is 160GB. Didn't get a TV card.

The onboard sound is crap (for some reason it kept losing sound from one channel and you had to reinstall the driver to fix it) so I added a separate soundcard and now it's all very happy.

Very pleased with it.

Sput · Thu 26 Jan, 2006 12.26

What's it for?

all new Phil · Thu 26 Jan, 2006 16.28

That's a lot of money to spend on searching Faceparty for fanny isn't it?

Etc etc...

Jamez · Thu 26 Jan, 2006 16.54

all new Phil wrote:That's a lot of money to spend on searching Faceparty for fanny isn't it?

Etc etc...

:roll:

I have a girlfriend, so I don't need the tinternet to find totty. Not for the time being at least...

marksi · Thu 26 Jan, 2006 17.31

Jamez wrote:
all new Phil wrote:That's a lot of money to spend on searching Faceparty for fanny isn't it?

Etc etc...
:roll:

I have a girlfriend, so I don't need the tinternet to find totty. Not for the time being at least...

Didn't Simon Hughes say something similar recently?

Davidjb · Thu 26 Jan, 2006 21.24

Thats an awfull lot of money for a PC like that. Seriously, that spec is not worth that price.

Check this one out:

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products ... _uid=95739[/url]

Davidjb · Thu 26 Jan, 2006 21.28

And how about this monitor while were at it. It's fantastic and really is cheap as chips.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products ... _uid=98788

and because it's ebuyer, you will 9 times out of 10 get it the next working day.

Gavin Scott · Thu 26 Jan, 2006 21.38

Davidjb wrote:And how about this monitor while were at it. It's fantastic and really is cheap as chips.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products ... _uid=98788

and because it's ebuyer, you will 9 times out of 10 get it the next working day.

I bought two of these for £102 each (+vat). Open-box, but complete and in perfect condition.

Excellent value (although they have a slightly slower response rate than the model shown in your link).

Neil Jones · Thu 26 Jan, 2006 22.46

Jamez wrote:I want this to be fairly future proof to last me 3 or 4 years - so what do you techies think of it?

There's no such thing; whatever you buy will be considered outdated within a year.

CPU
INTEL® PENTIUM® 4 640 (64 BIT) @ 3.2GHZ 800mhz FSB/HTT/2MB

Pentium 4's are painfully expensive and at this time I really can't see any point in investing in one when you can buy an AMD processor and board etc for sometimes up to a third of the cost of an Intel processor on its own. Plus it performs just as well.

Memory
1024 MB DDR400 PC3200 WITH LIFETIME WARRANTY!

Lifetime Warranty is pointless if the memory you get is crap quality in the first place.

Motherboard
HIGH END ASUS®: DUAL DDR, SATA, x16 slot, 3 PCI ETC

This is where I have doubts now because you don't know which motherboard you're getting and you run the risk of getting a bastardised board that you can't do a lot of upgrading in the future with. Some of them come with crappy onboard graphics and no slot for a decent graphics card (common trend with Dell and crappy eMachines) so you'll spend more in the long run.

SATA 160 GB HARD DISK @ 7200rpm 8mb cache (Special Offer)

Brand? IBMs are considered to be crap, Western Digital is often crap, Maxtor are going to be absorbed into Seagate soon and Seagate make great drives.

No details in your spec, I find little on the site you've posted. I have little faith in it in all honesty.

128MB INTEGRATED ATI RADEON X300 PCI Express (SMA)

I loathe the word "Integrated" because it usually translates to "cheap as chips".

Sound Card
HIGH END ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL SOUND (RECOMMENDED)

Onboard sound is shite, yes, but most users will be hard pushed to spot the difference between it and a separate card.

Case
Stylish Black X-Plode Case + 2 Front USB

Assuming its this one:
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/index.php?page=case3

Then it looks quite ugly IMO.

Operating System required
MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® MCE 2005 (inc. Remote, CD & licence) (£99)

Windows Media Center Edition is quite possibly one of the most pointless things I think I've ever seen. All it basically is is Windows XP with a different skin and a whole bunch of things you can do yourself with additional software which is free for download from the Internet. It's not worth the extra dosh IMO; stick with XP Home.

Jamez · Fri 27 Jan, 2006 01.03

Cheers for that advice!

I've been to PC World - just to price check, but I have no intention of getting a PC from there whatsoever.

Normally I would've waited until this autumn and be one of the first to use the new MS Vista OS, but I suppose I can upgrade to it later providing I get myself a 64-bit processor.

I'm not particularly well up on on makes and brands of hard drives and memory, so if there is anyone here who can advise me, that would be fab.

Please bare in mind that I have a budget of £750!