Planning A New Build

[icudan 5]

Hello everybody, So My computer is getting a little bit outdated now and I fancy something new and fresh pretty much all of the best stuff so I don't have to worry about upgrading for a good few years. I've been doing a little research anc put together a few things on overclockers website which will sort of be what I'm looking for. Obviously it won't be for a while until I've come back from my friends stag do and I've saved some of my wages over the next couple of months. Anywho, I screenshotted what I put together to see if I was on the right track.

I want to limit myself to £1500 max really possibly less I didn't fancy doing a self build as I haven't done once for over 5 years but it seems like the cheapest route and I'll give it a go again.

Any suggestions welcome!

[allardjd 1,853]

I've never built a computer from components myself. I believe there's safety in numbers and typically buy a high-end machine designed for the mass-market and manufactured in the tens of thousands. My observation of friends and acquaintances who have gone the build-your-own route indicate to me that about 9 out of 10 work pretty much OK, possibly after some initial teething and tweaking issues. They end up with a great computer at a bargain price.

The other one out of the ten turns into an absolute nightmare that no amount of tweaking, adjusting, testing and throwing more money at ever sets right. Part of the problem is there's noone to hold responsible, to stand behind it with a reputation to protect, with deep pockets that can afford a wholesale replacement of a lemon. If you buy the pieces and build, the prime contractor is - - - YOU. Complaining to the vendors usually results in a circular firing squad, with each one pointing at someone else's hardware as the source of the problem, or back at you.

I have two friends who have self-built nightmare computers (actually one was by a store-front shop, a one-man show, one level up from a hobbyist) that have never been right and which have defied post-problem attention by experts. The one who did it himself is a retired IBM employee who knows his way around a mother board and he struggled for a couple of years trying to make the darned thing into a decent computer. The numbers were good in both cases - high-end components from places you've heard of before but in those cases it just didn't work out. He ended up shipping several components back to the vendors for them to do bench testing on, on his dime for the shipping costs.

The home builder cannot successfully mimic the OEM computer vendor's process and testing and he gives up having that vendor available to stand behind the machine if it's not right.

I'm not trying to talk you out of doing it yourself if that's the way you want to go, just relating my observations, which have convinced me that home building a PC is not a risk I'm willing to take. If you go that route, I hope you're one of the nine.

John

[mutley 4,492]

Hi Dan,

The spec looks pretty much on target for your budget. At the moment, the more you can spend on the CPU the better.

Cheers

Joe

[rob16584 42]

Hi Dan,

If you consider buying the pc pre-made speak to Aquilla Computers. They did mine and I'm more than happy http://www.mutleyshangar.com/reviews/rob/gz/gz.htm

[icudan 5]

Hi all, John I agree with your comments about a self build I was never too keen on building a system this powerful on my own especially with the amount of money put into it, The last system I built was only a dual core etc so It cost less than $800 I'll probably get a ready built custom one.

Mut thanks for looking over it I'd go for the most powerful processor I could but at the price I really cannot afford to I can get away with a 3.2GhZ Sandbridge though.

Rob, I read your review on Aquila and have looked on their website, I can get a build I'm looking for cheaper than other places I have looked at so I'm seriously considering using them after your recommendations!

Appreciate the comments chaps Thank you!