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Building my own PC...

saintscottofthenortham

By saintscottofthenortham,
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saintscottofthenortham

saintscottofthenortham

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Have been looking into buying a new Computer for a while now, but have come to the conclusion they are a rip off and have decided that I want to take the plunge and pop my cherry... I'm going to build myself one.

 

I know we have a few tech savvy guys & girls on here, so was wondering if anyone who has done this before has any advice or know of any common stumbling blocks for a first timer such as myself?

 

I'm not completely useless when it comes to Computers, but i'm more able when it comes to the software and troubleshooting side, rather than the hardware aspect of the things. But I have what I think is the general jist of things and understand that everything needs to be compatible etc. My prospective build comes in at around £550 (give or take a few pennies) but that is purely for the tower, no monitor, printer etc etc. But for that money, I personally feel the system I will have come the end of it would be more than twice that of what I would get if I purchased one off of Dell or PC World.

 

To give you tech folk an idea of what i'm looking at;

- AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 3.2 GHz Processor

- CORSAIR 4GB 1333MHz CL9 DDR3 Memory Kit (RAM - May double up on this but depends on funds)

- Samsung F3 HD103SJ 1TB internal Hard Drive SATAII 32MB Cache 7200RPM

- Will be running on Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium, 64 bit.

 

Obviously there is alot more to it, a decent but inexpensive Graphics Card, Silent fans and CPU Cooler... I'll leave it at that for now.

 

Any tips/advice...? Hit me.

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saintscottofthenortham

saintscottofthenortham

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any reason why AMD Processor? not i5 or i7?

 

That HDD is £40 on ebuyer at the moment....

 

Always had AMD's and have never had a problem with them. Read a shed load of reviews on it, and had a look up of the i5 aswell (i7 too pricey at the moment), and was happy to go for the Phenom. I have no need for it yet but it can be overclocked to run at 4.2GHz comfortably with a water cooler.

 

I got the HDD off of Amazon for £48, happy to pay that little bit more and know that i have someone to go to should I have any probs. Fed up with ebay tbh. But cheers for pointing it out anyhows.

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hutch

hutch

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I've built 4.

 

Best source of information for me is the forum at abxzone.com You'll find most of the hardware options covered on there.

 

And, in my experience, stay away from ATI graphics cards. Never had a good experience with one, and never had a bad experience with an Nvidia card.

 

Make sure your PSU is big enough.

 

If your data is important, consider fitting more than 1 HDD

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pedg

pedg

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I would consider getting an SSD (say 60gb) for the main systems disk and then making sure all application are installed on the normal disk. Done this for one of my PC's and definitely gives it an extra zip and starting up is V quick.

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saintscottofthenortham

saintscottofthenortham

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I would consider getting an SSD (say 60gb) for the main systems disk and then making sure all application are installed on the normal disk. Done this for one of my PC's and definitely gives it an extra zip and starting up is V quick.

 

That sounds like a plan batman.

 

Some good advise already chaps! I think if everyone gives me there bad experiences, I should be alright! Lol. I have a 1TB external which all my programs and music are on at the moment and a 500gb purely for the family pics.

 

Hutch... How do I go about working out what size PSU I need? I got my eye on a 500w, I'd have thought that would be plenty but want to make sure...?

 

I shall check out the forums when I'm home. My Samsung 23" widescreen HD monitor turned up today, think we might be spending some time in the bathroom together tonight! Mmmmm!

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badgerx16

badgerx16

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How do I go about working out what size PSU I need?

Try an on-line PSU calculator, ( via GOOGLE ). Allow about 15% over the top for power surges, such as at system power up, and also a small amount for the fact that as components age they tend to draw a bit more power. If you look at a PSU's specification, remember that the total power output is split into several different levels, ( sometimes referred to as 'rails' ), for different parts of your system - pay particular attention to the +12V figures, as that is where most of the key components will draw their power.

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hutch

hutch

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How do I go about working out what size PSU I need? I got my eye on a 500w, I'd have thought that would be plenty but want to make sure...?

That will be the last thing you do. It will depend on the hardware installed (number of HDDs, optical drives, etc) and some graphics cards have quite high power demands, needing 2 power connections on the card. IMO 500W isn't plenty, it's close to the absolute minimum, if not below, for a decent modern computer.

 

As Badger hinted, the "quoted" output can be misleading. Best to stay away from unbranded units and go for a name. Personally I prefer Antec. I recently had to swap out my sons PSU for a 550W unit, and his is a fairly basic desktop with single HDD and optical drive with an Nvidia 6800 card.

 

My advice is in order to "futureproof" your new computer, don't skimp on the components. Spend a few quid more on each component and it will last longer. I built my desktop in 2004, and it's still going strong, although I intend to replace it within the next 12 months. I got a new laptop recently running WIN7 64bit and I'm very impressed.

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Guest Dark Sotonic Mills

Guest Dark Sotonic Mills

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Go for a quality PSU, something like an OCZ 700w rather than a cheap one. As for memory, I have the same processor as you are planning to use and find this memory goes very well with it as it runs a bit faster than the usual ones which is useful if you plan to overclock.

 

G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-16000C9 2000MHz Dual Channel Kit

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saintscottofthenortham

saintscottofthenortham

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That will be the last thing you do. It will depend on the hardware installed (number of HDDs, optical drives, etc) and some graphics cards have quite high power demands, needing 2 power connections on the card. IMO 500W isn't plenty, it's close to the absolute minimum, if not below, for a decent modern computer.

 

As Badger hinted, the "quoted" output can be misleading. Best to stay away from unbranded units and go for a name. Personally I prefer Antec. I recently had to swap out my sons PSU for a 550W unit, and his is a fairly basic desktop with single HDD and optical drive with an Nvidia 6800 card.

 

My advice is in order to "futureproof" your new computer, don't skimp on the components. Spend a few quid more on each component and it will last longer. I built my desktop in 2004, and it's still going strong, although I intend to replace it within the next 12 months. I got a new laptop recently running WIN7 64bit and I'm very impressed.

 

Cheers Hutch. I ordered all my components yesterday, then done a few PSU calc's and they all come out at 370w-400w which when you allow for a bit more and any future additions, I may be cutting it a bit fine. I think I underestimated the PSU. I thought it was a relatively unimportant piece of hardware, didn't really care about a brand (all other components I have gone for quality) so went for a bog standard "silent" 500w PSU, I dread to think how efficient it is. I do however, have my eye on this; http://www.amazon.co.uk/261813-Professional-Performance-Supply-CMPSU-750AXUK/dp/B00433DXOA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1286961997&sr=1-1 so I think I might have to stick with my Paul Wotton PSU until I have saved up a bit.

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saint_stevo

saint_stevo

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Cheers Hutch. I ordered all my components yesterday, then done a few PSU calc's and they all come out at 370w-400w which when you allow for a bit more and any future additions, I may be cutting it a bit fine. I think I underestimated the PSU. I thought it was a relatively unimportant piece of hardware, didn't really care about a brand (all other components I have gone for quality) so went for a bog standard "silent" 500w PSU, I dread to think how efficient it is. I do however, have my eye on this; http://www.amazon.co.uk/261813-Professional-Performance-Supply-CMPSU-750AXUK/dp/B00433DXOA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1286961997&sr=1-1 so I think I might have to stick with my Paul Wotton PSU until I have saved up a bit.

 

650w? http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/650W-Corsair-CMPSU-650TXUK-SLi-XfireSingle-12V-Rail-80plus-Efficient-120mm-Quiet-Fan-ATX12V-v22

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saintscottofthenortham

saintscottofthenortham

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Hmmmmmm.... Thats the older model. Plus I think I would rather just overkill if im going to be looking at spending a bit more. The new model 750w is near on completely silent by all accounts aswell.

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saintscottofthenortham

saintscottofthenortham

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She is up and running! Like a dream too. Nice and quiet, been running for a few hours now and is running nice and cool. Bloody lighting! lol. Now all I need is FM11! Cheers for the advise chaps. There are some bits I will be doing in due course. Don't know if it's common knowledge but I found this program called 'Open Office'... It's created by a group called Open Source which is basically made up of thousands of software developers, programmers etc etc etc who all put there bit into making the programs then it is distributed for free. The Word Processor can save and open Microsoft Word documents which is well handy because this has been a problem for me in the past when using sheety word programs. Check it out if your interested;

 

http://download.openoffice.org

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