UK Shops

[Tastyeggnog]

Thinking of buying the components and assembling the PC myself. Luckily the best prices I can find are local to me, but I don’t mind mail order if anyone knows of any better prices in the UK, I can't find cheaper.
If Liveleak is ok with retail links? This is the shop I tend to buy from.
http://www.eclipsecomputers.com/

[Duckmanlivesagain]

Always wanted to do that but it just really daunted me.

[gabbyuk]

I've always used www.novatech.co.uk

Great site. They even sell partially put together PC's

[Tastyeggnog]

Originally Posted by Duckmanlivesagain

Always wanted to do that but it just really daunted me.

I'm not too sure myself, I have changed enough bits on another PC to be confident in putting one together, it's setting the bios on the motherboard that worries me, they say new main boards have a easy to use set up menu, I do hope so, you can get a much better deal if you build it yourself plus you don't have to stump up the dosh in one go.

[noxomus]

Originally Posted by Tastyeggnog

Thinking of buying the components and assembling the PC myself. Luckily the best prices I can find are local to me, but I don’t mind mail order if anyone knows of any better prices in the UK, I can't find cheaper.
If Liveleak is ok with retail links? This is the shop I tend to buy from.
http://www.eclipsecomputers.com/

newegg.com and amazon.com works for me . . . best prices!

Is this the first time building?? i can give you tips and some direction if you need.

There's this AWESOME magazine called Maximum PC. Very very very informative for the casual and seasoned builder.

[Duckmanlivesagain]

Originally Posted by Tastyeggnog

I'm not too sure myself, I have changed enough bits on another PC to be confident in putting one together, it's setting the bios on the motherboard that worries me, they say new main boards have a easy to use set up menu, I do hope so, you can get a much better deal if you build it yourself plus you don't have to stump up the dosh in one go.

Yeah i've heard that it's much cheaper to do it yourself. I'd just be worried about shelling out for a part that turned out to be useless because i didn't know enough

[UKatheist]

Originally Posted by Tastyeggnog

I'm not too sure myself, I have changed enough bits on another PC to be confident in putting one together, it's setting the bios on the motherboard that worries me, they say new main boards have a easy to use set up menu, I do hope so, you can get a much better deal if you build it yourself plus you don't have to stump up the dosh in one go.

usually the motherboards factory set default BIOS will be compatible with hardware supported by that board, any changes after that should be easy enough through the menu, overclocking etc.

[Tastyeggnog]

Originally Posted by gabbyuk

I've always used www.novatech.co.uk

Great site. They even sell partially put together PC's

I like the look of the bare bones systems on that site, it would take a lot of the ball ache out of it just buying the main bits and getting more RAM and the graphic card at a later date.

Originally Posted by noxomus

newegg.com and amazon.com works for me . . . best prices!

Is this the first time building?? i can give you tips and some direction if you need.

There's this AWESOME magazine called Maximum PC. Very very very informative for the casual and seasoned builder.

From scratch yes. Not sure which CPU I should get I would like one of the 2011 sockets to go on the x79 motherboard, or there is the 1155 socket, which has a better price range but does not fit the X79 chip set motherboards, but it would be more than enough for what I need

Originally Posted by UKatheist

usually the motherboards factory set default BIOS will be compatible with hardware supported by that board, any changes after that should be easy enough through the menu, overclocking etc.

I would like one of the ASUS motherboards although, I am probably going to get a Asrock or Gigabyte, good to know they come with a factory bios setting, I thought I would have to set the power and speed levels for each component. I don't really care for overclocking, just burns kit out quicker.

[Banjaxed]

Originally Posted by Tastyeggnog

I don't really care for overclocking, just burns kit out quicker.

Not with appropriate cooling, Overclocking the what ''the man'' doesn't want you to do!

Oh ill buy this 4.2ghz processor for 300£ oh cool

Or i buy this 2.4ghz processor for 100£ and oc it too 4ghz and buy decent cooling!

[moefugger]

Try one of the several six core AMD CPUs with motherboard combos with overclock capability.
Inexpensive and in the future when it starts being a bit slow with the newer software you can crank it up a bit until you build another.
Liquid cooling is recommended even though you may not overclock till much later if you ever do.
More cores is much quicker especially if you play modern games or do video conversions.
8 Gig is the most Win7 for HOME will handle, I have not looked into what win 8 can do.
OEM Win7 is cheap and works just fine.
750 watt power supply will be just right unless you want several hard drives.
Too small and it will slowly damage the vid card and hard drive to death.
Way too large and it might not regulate correctly again causing a slow death.
SATA 6 HD, case with plenty of fans, choose a DVD/CD.
There are Blue Ray ones, double layer ones which do you need for now.
I recommend a SATA one of those also even though it will not speed it up in any way, it just does not have that big ass ribbon cable.
Most motherboards have a decent built in audio.
Many have a good built in vid card which can be good enough till you get a nicer vid card if you want to or when the price of the one you want drops.
Also if your vid card dies you can always remove it for the time being and drop back to the built in one till you get another.
A board that allows bridging of vid cards can be nice because when software has progressed to the point that your system is too slow you can add the duplicate of the first vid card and bridge them and overclock the CPU and get a couple more years out.
That second card will be way cheaper by then.

I have this from a couple years back.
AMD Overclocking 4.0GHz Phenom II X6 1055T Processor six cores
8GB (2GBx4) 1600MHz Dual Channel DDR3 Memory
Cooler Master HAF 922 Mid Tower Case
Ultra LSP750 750W Power Supply
CoolIT ECO-120 Liquid CPU Cooler Unit
M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 motherboard
R6850 Cyclone 1GD5 Power Edition/OC Video card
SATA 6 HD
USB 3.0 ports also about ten USB 2.0 ports
Fire wire (I don't use )
ESATA port