Gaming PC, advice and help required

John 1987

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I was just wondering if people think this is a good system, and for £1754 inc VAT and Delivery whether it's a good price, can people beat this system (any links)? If I were to buy the parts individually how much would I be looking to save? I'm still not sure whether I'm confident enough to build it myself, how hard is it, how badly could I mess it up, do I need tools, what sorts of wires would I need, or do they all come with the components? You see I have little idea. If I were to take all of the parts to a local computer shop, would they put it together for me, if so at what cost, I also wonder if they would let me watch as they build it, so I would know for future reference.

Quote from pcspecialist.co.uk

Processor (CPU)
INTEL® Core 2 Duo E6700 (2 X 2.66GHz) 1066MHz FSB/4MB L2 Cache

Memory (RAM)
2048 MB CORSAIR DDR2 800MHz - LIFETIME WARRANTY! (2x1GB)

Motherboard
ASUS® P5N32 SLI SE DELUXE: 2 PCI, DUAL LAN, SATA RAID, 2 PCI etc

Operating System
MICROSOFT WINDOWS® MCE 2005 (inc. Remote, CD & license) (£96)

Vista Upgrade
Free Upgrade to Vista Premium with purchase of Windows MCE 2005

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS (4 REAR + 2 FRONT) AS STANDARD

Memory
400GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 16MB CACHE (7200rpm)

CD/DVD Drive
18x +/- DVD WRITER (8x +/- Dual Lyr) (5x DVD-RAM) (40x CD-RW) (£18)

Graphics Card
768MB GEFORCE 8800GTX PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT

Sound Card
Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeMusic 7.1: £50

Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 57 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD FORMAT)

Case
Stylish Silver Aluminium Trigon Case + 2 Front/Side USB

Power Supply & cooling
1000W Quiet Five Rail PSU incl Case Fan & CPU Cooler (£179)

TV Card
DIGITAL & ANALOG TV CARD (Watch Freeview / Terrestrial on PC) £29

Keyboard & Mouse
Logitech® Cordless Internet Pro Desktop Keyboard + Mouse (Black) (£17)

Warranty
1 Year Return-to-Base incl 1 Year Free Collect & Return: £5
 
It's a monster!!!

what you going to be using it for?

Personally the E6700 is a massively powerful cpu - but not really needed. a E6600 will be more than enough.

Parts wise - build it yourself.

It's fairly easy to do - all the cabling/wires/screws etc come with the individual components so you shouldn't need to by anything else. Take your time and it is very satisfying job and you will learn alot by building you own pc.

partswise - i have noted rough prices and some changes beside each one.

Processor (CPU)
INTEL® Core 2 Duo E6700 (2 X 2.66GHz) 1066MHz FSB/4MB L2 Cache - change for the E6600 (£204)
Memory (RAM)
2048 MB CORSAIR DDR2 800MHz - LIFETIME WARRANTY! (2x1GB) - Circa -£200, either Geil PC6400 or corsair
Motherboard
ASUS® P5N32 SLI SE DELUXE: 2 PCI, DUAL LAN, SATA RAID, 2 PCI etc - change this for new R600 chipset boards (circa £160)

Operating System
MICROSOFT WINDOWS® MCE 2005 (inc. Remote, CD & license) (£96)

Memory
400GB SERIAL ATA II HARD DRIVE WITH 16MB CACHE (7200rpm) - any hard drive (£60-£100 dependant on size)
CD/DVD Drive
18x +/- DVD WRITER (8x +/- Dual Lyr) (5x DVD-RAM) (40x CD-RW) (£18)

Graphics Card
768MB GEFORCE 8800GTX PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT - super powerful - do you need it? what size of monitor have you got? if GTX then £450 if not GTS for about £350)
Sound Card
Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ XtremeMusic 7.1: £50

Case
Stylish Silver Aluminium Trigon Case + 2 Front/Side USB - £100 max budget or so.

Power Supply & cooling
1000W Quiet Five Rail PSU incl Case Fan & CPU Cooler (£179) - no need for 1000W psu - 700W is way more than enought - seasonic, tagan etc - £80
TV Card
DIGITAL & ANALOG TV CARD (Watch Freeview / Terrestrial on PC) £29

Keyboard & Mouse
Logitech® Cordless Internet Pro Desktop Keyboard + Mouse (Black) (£17) - spend £50-£75 on this area.
So i make that approx £1450 inc Vat for the parts but could make some savings on the case etc.

much more satisfying building your own, a bit of common sense and some patience will see you through.
 
Would recommend getting yourself a mag like PC Advisor or Computer Shopper / PC Pro. They have top 10s of gaming / other PCs ready built. From experience Mesh are OK for built PCs as are Chilliblast.

Can only echo booyaka's comments which are very valid.

However, do you really want to shell out that much on a PC ? For £1000 you could get a decent specced machine like this which would play all the latest games.

Yes a local PC shop would put the bits together for you but there's not much you can do wrong so why not try yourself ?
 
I'd advise buying the bits and either assembling yourself or asking your local computer shop to do it for about 50 quid. If they won't do it for whatever reasons, offer one of the staff members the cash to come round to your house and do it!

As far as parts go, I've specced up something a bit nicer on www.scan.co.uk for a similar amount of cash:

- Core2Duo E6600 with a Scythe ninja plus cooler
- 2GB Corsair PC6400 (800mhz) ram
- ECS PN2-SLI2+ NF680i SLI motherboard - Great motherboards and there's - - SLi should you want to add another card in the future
Seagate barracuda 750GB HDD (these are fast as lightning!)
- Palit 8800GTX
- Antec P180 case (nice looking and great cooling!)
- 600W Silverstone Strider PSU (quad 12v rails will take almost anything!)
- Logitech Cordless Desktop LX 710 (don't skimp in the peripherals! so many people spend thousands on a computer then skimp on stuff like speakers, mouse and keyboard and it ruins the computer!)
- LG lightscribe DVD burner
- Windows XP Pro X64 with Vista upgrade
- Hauppauge WinTV-Nova-T PCI Freeview receiver
- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music Sound Card Retail

That all comes to 1,650 quid delivered. Add in another 50 for a fan controller and rounded cables etc. and then 50 to build and it's 1,750 for a machine that is well cooled, quiet, insanely powerful and will overclock like a complete beast (with the scythe cooler and the RAM you shouldn't have a problem getting well over 3Ghz) which isn't something that you could do with the stock cooling in that machine.

You could, if you wanted, go for no Tv card and a smaller HDD (400GB) to go for 2 x 8800GTS's in SLi, which would be just insane! that comes to 1,700 delivered.
 
I've managed to cut the quote from pcspecialist to £1400 by choosing the E6600, a 320GB hard-drive and a 8800GTS, a little more reasonable.

In answer to some of your questions.
what you going to be using it for?...super powerful - do you need it? what size of monitor have you got?
Well me being me, I've always wanted the top of the range, as unpractical as this can sometimes be given that I'm only 19 and away at Uni. I like to play the most up-to-date games, listen to my music library, play Hi-Def clips/demos, watch DVDs, surf the web and the occasional video-editing. My main screen is a 46'' DLP rear-projector, my screen while at Uni is a 20'' Sony LCD.
do you really want to shell out that much on a PC ?
In all honesty I probably couldn't afford it, but thought I'd start off with the best and slowly trim it down to something both acceptable and cost effective.

So I suppose what I really want to know is, what's the best performing system I could have for a budget between £1000 to £1400
 
TomToole that's an insane PC and love the idea of the dual graphic cards, thank you very much for taking the time to spec it out for me. You've really given me something to think about. Once again thank you all for your help, because I really wouldn't have had a clue where to start.

I've also been thinking I could maybe cut costs by stripping out some components from my old PC. It's as below, any of it useful?

CPU
INTEL® PENTIUM® 4 630 (64 BIT) @ 3.0GHZ 800mhz FSB/HTT/2MB

Memory
1024 MB DDR400 PC3200

Motherboard
HIGH END ASUS®: DUAL DDR, S-ATA, x16 slot, 3 PCI, 3 PCI-EX

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

Hard Drive
SATA 160 GB HARD DISK @ 7200rpm 8mb cache

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

Graphics Card
256MB RADEON X700 PCI Express

Sound
SoundBlaster Audigy SE 7.1 24-bit

Network Facilities
10/100/1000 NETWORK CARD FOR BROADBAND

Floppy Disk Drive
INTERNAL 7 IN 1 CARD READER WITH 1.44MB FLOPPY DISK DRIVE

Case
Silver Neon Bubble case + Neon Extreme Kit!

Power Supply & Cooling
Silent 400W PSU + 80mm internal Fan (My PC is in no way quiet, that's one of my main problems, can't stand the noise of it)

Firewire
3 PORT FIREWIRE CARD.

Keyboard
Logitech® Cordless Internet Pro Desktop Keyboard + Mouse
 
away at uni with all that gear!! - man where did i go wrong at uni??:eek: :eek:

nothing really of use in your current machine - could save a few quid on the hard drives and use you existing one plus say another 250gb drive.

could also use the sound card as it will still be fine for music etc.

like i say - you'll always make a better pc for the money by building yourself so for instance you should be able to save about £250 on a £1500 build.

Also you get to choose which case you want from the hundreds out there, which motherboard, what make of ram etc by picking the compnents yourself.

If spending that much on a pc i would prefer to hand pick the components myself rather than have someone put them into a pc for me and use average ones/unknown etc.
 
I did a similar thing recently and bought all the parts myself. My local PC shop put it all together for me for £62.50. I just wanted the piece of mind that I didn't short out any components myself and it put the responsibilty on them to make sure it was all put together properly. Just an idea if your worried about doing it yourself. Good luck:thumbsup:
 

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