New PC Help! (£900 Budget)

DANGDanGall

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Hey guys,

Sorry if this is in the wrong area but i'm new here :) Just had a look in the old threads but they're too old to be relevant to my needs.

I want to make a new computer for about £900 but i'm not an expert on what parts to buy! Could you guys recommend anything on that budget?

Cheers,
Dan
 
With £900 it wont have to be budget but the first thing you should choose is the graphics card for your intended purpose then add up everything else around it.

I will also say this DO NOT SKIMP ON THE PSU, if you get a cheap one and it blows it WILL take your whole system with it.
 
Hey and welcome to the forums :)

I assume you are planning on gaming as you posted in this forum?

If so have a look at Nvidia GTX 400 and 500 series.

Oh and what resolution are you going to be gaming at?
And does the budget include a monitor or do you already have one?
 
With £900 it wont have to be budget but the first thing you should choose is the graphics card for your intended purpose then add up everything else around it.

I will also say this DO NOT SKIMP ON THE PSU, if you get a cheap one and it blows it WILL take your whole system with it.

what alpha says, hear of so many people saying i'll save a good wad of cash and just get this £20 psu, almost always ends in tears,
 
If a power supply cost less than £40.00 I wouldn't even consider it!
 
adding onto what deadringers said, does the budget also need to include an OS?
 
Idd, for a bit more clarification could you answer the following.

Will it be used for gaming, also what intensity of gaming.
Do you need to buy a monitor.
Do you need to buy an Operating System.
 
Cheers for the replies guys,

1) Yes it will be used for Gaming, mainly RTS (Shogun 2) but after a while i'll probably get back into PC 1st person shooters.

2) We do have monitors noking around but I could do with a better one which doesn't necessarily have to be in the £900 budget.

3) Yes I do need to buy the operating system.

I've got a fair bit of money at the moment so if it was slightly over the budget for the right parts then that doesn't bother me but no more than £100.
 
Into overclocking?
 
Have no idea mate, i've heard of it but don't know how to do it or what it involves. I'm basically making my own computer because i've got a hardware unit on my degree and I need to learn all this sharpish.
 
DANGDanGall said:
Have no idea mate, i've heard of it but don't know how to do it or what it involves. I'm basically making my own computer because i've got a hardware unit on my degree and I need to learn all this sharpish.

Its a very simple process with todays tech...even with 3 year old tech is is pretty simple! But lets worry about that after we got a system for you.

I'll post tomorrow with some builds when i am in front of a pc and not on HTC.
 
Its a very simple process with todays tech...even with 3 year old tech is is pretty simple! But lets worry about that after we got a system for you.

I'll post tomorrow with some builds when i am in front of a pc and not on HTC.

Cheers mate i'd really appreciate the help.
 
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit SP1, Operating System, Single, - OEM £59.07 £70.88
LN32263

Gelid Tranquillo 4 Heatpipe + PWM, Silent 120 Fan S775/1366/1156/1155 & AMD 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3 £19.19 £23.03
LN36726

Intel Core i5 2500K Unlocked, 1155, Sdy Bridge, QuadCore, 3.3GHz, GPU 850Mhz, 95W, Retail +Free Game £129.15 £154.98
LN34934

Coolermaster CM 690 II Lite, Black, Mid Tower Case w/o PSU £44.98 £53.98
LN33442

1280MB Zotac GTX 470, 40nm, 3348MHz GDDR5, GPU 607MHz, Shader 1215MHz, 448 Cores, 2x DVI, mini HDMI £143.47 £172.16
LN36958

1TB Western Digital WD10EALX 7200RPM 32MB SATA 6Gb/s CAV BL 3.5 £37.58 £45.10
LN39332

Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3, Intel Z68 Express, S 1155, DDR3 2133, SATA 6Gb/s, RAID, mATX, HDMI £91.68 £110.02
LN37704

650W Corsair Enthusiast 650TXV2UK TX V2 Series, 85% Eff', SLi, EPS 12V, 80 Plus Bronze, 140mm Fan £57.32 £68.78
LN37493

4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 Classic DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, 1.5V £33.12 £39.74
LN37275

21.5" Dell ST2220L LED LCD, Black, Full HD 1920x1080, VGA/DVI/HDMI, 8000000:1, 250cd/m2, 5ms £109.21 £131.05


VAT
£724.77

£20.97

£149.14
Total £894.88 inc VAt and delivery. no KB, mouse, speakers though but does include your monitor. Take the monitor away and you've got £140 nearly for Speakers, mouse and KB or if you already have these for a SSD.
 
I am building an i5 based on a Z68 board in a Corsair 650D case, but based on reviews in CustomPC, I am looking at the Be Quiet Dark Advanced Heatsink (or the Thermaltake Frio) both are £40 though.

Also take a look at TFTs from LG or Samsung, £130ish can get you a 23" 1920x1080 - although not LED.

Also add another £15 or so to Miss Chief's build for a DVD drive.
 
Right this is what I came up with...pretty similar to Miss Chief's!

RAM:
Scan.co.uk: Corsair Memory XMS3 4GB DDR3 1600 MHz CAS 9 XMP Dual Channel Desktop - CMX4GX3M2A1600C9

Got the cheapest stuff as generally there is little point trying to OC ram (I cannot on my stuff which cost £150) and most ram is so quick these days you cannot see a difference between different types in "real world" applications.
Plus it is Corsair Brand which is very good.

Power Supply:
Scan.co.uk: Corsair CMPSU-650HXUK HX 650W Modular Power Supply (PSU)
Again Corsair very good make and modular so you can take leads off it and not clutter your case.

Case:
Scan.co.uk: Coolermaster CM 690 II Lite Black Mid Tower Computer Case - RC-692-KKN3-GP
Not the biggest case but it has plenty of fan space and a good make.

CPU:
Scan.co.uk: Intel CPU Core i5 2500K Unlocked Sandy Bridge Quad Core Processor - BX80623I52500K
Latest offering from Intel - no more needs to be said :)

CPU Cooler:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/tita...pwm-fan-hdt-cpu-cooler-(1156-1366-775-am2-am3)
I had the predecessor to this and it was a brilliant cooler.

GPU:
Scan.co.uk: Zotac NVIDIA GTX 470 Graphics Card - ZT-40201-10P
There is little point going for a 570 over the 470 currently with the price of this one :)
Plus you can overclock these very easily.

Mother board:
Scan.co.uk: Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3 Intel Z68 Express Socket 1155 Motherboard
this is one of the latest z68x MoBos out there. Plus this one can do SLI and Crossfire which means if you want to add another graphics card at a later date it can take it no problems.
Plus the usual things, SATA 6Gb/s and USB 3.0

HDD:
Scan.co.uk: Hitachi 0F12115 2TB Hard Drive - HDD
massive 2TB drive, SATA6Gb/s and 64mb cache.
Should be quick enough until you want an SSD :)


Oh and if you want Bluray...add on 70-80 odd quid
And if you want DVD...Add on about 20 quid.

Let us know what you think.
 
Oops almost forgot to add the subtotal in!

ss20110513095329.png


£767.03
So you have a bit left over to either beef up the GPU or get an SSD.

OR you can include a monitor in there and have £130 to spend on one.
 
That sounds like what I want DR.

On another note, how would the resolution work playing through a 32" Panasonic TV? If' it's well i'd rather spend more on getting the computer higher specs and just use my TV before eventually buying a monitor when more money is available.
 
That sounds like what I want DR.

On another note, how would the resolution work playing through a 32" Panasonic TV? If' it's well i'd rather spend more on getting the computer higher specs and just use my TV before eventually buying a monitor when more money is available.

Depends what resolution your TV can handle?

is it a 1080p TV? If so that idea of yours sounds fine to me.
Just be aware that any work or a lot of reading would be hard on a monitor like that. I tried on my TV, great for game but not for work/reading!
 
Depends what resolution your TV can handle?

is it a 1080p TV? If so that idea of yours sounds fine to me.
Just be aware that any work or a lot of reading would be hard on a monitor like that. I tried on my TV, great for game but not for work/reading!

Yeah it's 1080p and it'll only be for games, i'll end up buying a monitor in a few more months anyway.
 
If you are not planning on overclocking, dont worry about the CPU cooler, just use the stock Intel one, it works fine and can even handle some basic level overclocking if your case is well designed. You can always buy a cooler at a later date when more money is available and you feel like giving the overclocking a try. If you havn't done it before, I'd recommend getting some fun out of your PC before you risk it. Whilst it is not generally difficult to do, you can still damage things if you get it wrong, so while the 2500k runs most games without too much issue at its stock speeds, I wouldnt worry about it.

Better to put the money in to a higher power GPU....I have a 570 MSI which I got for £240 and a 2500k and it runs things very nicely without any tweaking.....I will eventually tweak it as I've done that before on previous builds, but I do like to give a PC a chance to show me what it can do out of the box...heh
 

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