whitstella
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| posted on 19/12/11 at 01:23 PM |
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gaming pc - DIY
hi
is it worth building a gaming pc or is it down to the shops????
and how much would a good gaming pc cost to build, i have always faniced building 1 from scratch.
but i dont know alot about pc's to be honest.
cheers
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mcerd1
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| posted on 19/12/11 at 01:37 PM |
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I've built my own for 10 years now and had much better results than off the shelf ones
and you can save a fair bit of money depending on what you want to build....
my current one is nearly 2 years old now (CPU: i7 920, MB: Asus PT6 Deluxe V2, GC: GTX285, SC: Xonar DX2) and its been a beast and even now still runs
almost anything despite the older graphics card 
at the time it turned out that both the top spec dell xps and allienware ones used the same MB but with a 'slightly' faster CPU and hard
drive - but cost double 
did you have a budget in mind ?
[Edited on 19/12/2011 by mcerd1]
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jossey
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| posted on 19/12/11 at 02:15 PM |
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i wouldnt buy something i can build for half the price but i dont mind having issues with it spending hours working out what the issue with it the pc
is and then getting the part replaced under warranty.
i tried for ages to get friends to build there own and i helped many of them. if you dont like taking stuff apart if it goes wrong and fiddling with
stuff and researching conflicts in hardware ETC then wait till jan and get something ready built from the likes of ww.CCLONLINE.com or someone more
local to you. scan computers etc.....
if you enjoy diagnosing issues if you have any then defo get one.
if you wanna play games why use a £1500 pc when playstations are £100 and they have simular processing power to a top PC.
i have a good pc with the q6600 processor over clocked to 3Gig. 4gb ram, 640 graphics card SLi ready, £300 motherboard, cooler stacker case, razor
copper head gaming mouse and mousemat. 2 19" monitors for working from home which helps alot. 1TB hard drive, raid array with 2 x 10000 rpm
raptor harddrives.
motherboard, ram and processor has a lifetime warranty...
i paid over £1500 for all this and i bet you could get something simular for £600.00 just without the £100 case and £50 mouse, they look cool but not
worth the money really. (gaming mouse is worth its weight for games)
im selling it for £450 at the moment with very little interest.
anyway good luck with whatever you decide.....
[Edited on 19/12/11 by jossey]
Thanks
David Johnson
Building my tiger avon slowly but surely.
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beagley
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| posted on 19/12/11 at 02:18 PM |
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+1 to the above post.
It is MUCH cheaper to build your own, however there are a couple things to keep in mind. From experience.... make sure that the RAM you buy will
actually work in the mother board. IMO, you don't need to go to the top level of performance. I usually aim about 3/4 up the ladder which can
save quite a bit of money, but you will only lose a small amount of performance than somebody who spends a lot more getting the top dog equipment.
Thats my two pence
Beags
I'm not scared!!! I'm just marking my territory.
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mcerd1
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| posted on 19/12/11 at 02:56 PM |
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I'd just add, stick with quality parts from reliable brands where it counts (like the motherboard and ram)
to date asus motherboards havn't let me down 
but like beagley says these don't need to be the fastest/ most expencive ones they sell... ~3/4 of the top spec will get you enough band for
alot less buck.
my motherboard doesn't have all the fancy top end overclocking features and dedicated seperate xfi soundcard that the top end one had - but its
just as quick and cost £130 less - and anyway I got a better sound card for £70
[Edited on 19/12/2011 by mcerd1]
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jossey
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| posted on 19/12/11 at 03:20 PM |
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+1 for asus boards if you dont buy budget stuff. ONLY downside is if it comes with coolers upgrade them.
Thanks
David Johnson
Building my tiger avon slowly but surely.
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flak monkey
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| posted on 19/12/11 at 04:01 PM |
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Yep, even lower spec machines work out cheaper than you can buy one built for.
My recommended brands:
Cases - Lian Li, Akasa and Coolermaster
Motherboards - Gigabyte and Asus (Asus are still better for O/C)
RAM - Kingston or Crucial
PSU - Corsair (modular for gaming machines)
Optical drives - Sony (normally the cheapest too)
I reckon you could currently build a watercooled gaming machine for around £850-900 (tower only) that would wipe the floor with most commercial stuff
at the same price.
Sera
http://www.motosera.com
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Liam
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| posted on 19/12/11 at 04:31 PM |
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I'd never buy from a shop. I always build my own - that way you can be sure what goes in there and avoid cheap tat that builders/shops often use
to keep the price down - like a ticking timebomb crap PSU. Always cheaper too, and cheaper still if you dont mind second hand bits.
I picked up an i5 750 rig from ebay with a 5850 GPU and water cooler for only £550, and that was over a year ago when that was pretty much top spec.
Have since overclocked it to 4GHz and added an SSD and a nice case. As said a spec like that is fine even for the latest games (maybe could use a GPU
upgrade to run hi-res with all eye-candy cranked up on the latest titles). The (slightly sad) fact is with most titles being developed with consoles
in mind, PC hardware isn't really pushed, so as above you really dont need the very latest spec CPU, etc for gaming right now. This probably
wont change until new consoles come along.
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Pezza
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| posted on 19/12/11 at 05:17 PM |
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Just built a new gaming rig for bf3
i5 2500k
6950
8 gig ram
etc
came in at about 700 quid from Aria.co.uk
infact
plays bf3 and skyrim fine on ultra
You couldn't pwn your way out of a wet paper bag, with "PWN ME!!" written on it, from the "pwned take-away" which originally contained one
portion of chicken tikka pwnsala and the obligatory free pwnpadom.
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MikeR
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| posted on 19/12/11 at 10:38 PM |
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What OS do you run (aka i didn't see an OS)
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Pezza
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| posted on 20/12/11 at 09:45 AM |
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Win 7 64bit you need it for the latest games and for anything more than 4 gig of RAM.
You couldn't pwn your way out of a wet paper bag, with "PWN ME!!" written on it, from the "pwned take-away" which originally contained one
portion of chicken tikka pwnsala and the obligatory free pwnpadom.
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mcerd1
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| posted on 20/12/11 at 11:04 AM |
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quote:
Originally posted by Pezza
Win 7 64bit you need it for the latest games and for anything more than 4 gig of RAM.
thats another ~£70 for the x64 home premium one then 
I run win7 x64 pro on mine
(pro one can get the xp virtual machine for free, although I've not used it since the RC version of win7)
I got the full 'retail' pro version for £99, it comes with both 32 and 64 bit discs (but only one licence) the home version was £49 at the
time, but they were the pre-order deals before win7 was released..... even the OEM singel disc versions are more than that now
[Edited on 20/12/2011 by mcerd1]
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