Building a Rig from scratch

[Horticulture]

I can't build my own system. I'm... I'm...

I'M TOO SCARED!

There, there. We're here for you. Think of it like playing with very expensive Legos.

 

[o_0coxy0_o]

Im thinking of upgrading my computer, simply to run The Sims 3 and all of its billions of expansion packs =D
But its taking me months to 'save' and I have already spend half of this months money that was ment to go towards it...
bah.
Well at least one good thing of EA pushing the release date forward is that I'll be able to build it before the game comes out.

...stupid EA

 

[Acaroid]

Go and buy a NVidia Tesla personal computer and you will not need anything new for a little while...

 

[Nivag the Owl]

By the way, I'm happy to help you build a PC in real life. This way you can take notes and be confident for the future

 

[Alyssa the gamer girl]

well, i dont know much about building a computer, but if i was going to buy a realy good one, i would get the new Gateway FX. 4 gigs of DDR3 baby! but it dosent come cheap....

 

[S.H.A.R.P.]

I built my own PC too last year for the first time. It's really quite exciting to do, especially the first time you start it up. I built mine with the help of a Dutch best buy guide. Every two months they release four carefully constructed builds (basic, multimedia, high-end gaming, and workstation). The gaming PC has a budget of 1500 EUR with keyboard mouse etc.

The site is in Dutch, but you can easily fish out the components and pricing. Click here [http://nl.babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Ftweakers.net%2Freviews%2F1173%2F4&lp=nl_en&btnTrUrl=Vertalen] for a terrible translation with babel fish, and here [http://tweakers.net/reviews/1173/4] for the regular Dutch site.

Good luck!

 

[Uncompetative]

I can't build my own system. I'm... I'm...

I'M TOO SCARED!

Spoiler: Well you could always consider getting one of these...

http://www.apple.com/uk/macmini/

 

[PizzaTheHutt]

After you put it together if you have any old startup disks from your pre made comps then using one of them will save a bit of trouble.

 

[Liverandbacon]

I can't build my own system. I'm... I'm...

I'M TOO SCARED!

It's really extraordinarily simple. As long as you read the instructions, you're fine. Everything just clicks in together. The most technical thing you'll need to do is use a screwdriver.

Just be sure to ground yourself occasionally to get rid of static, frying some expensive hardware would suck.

 

[new_age_reject]

On a selfish note (and also on behalf of the OP who is a fellow countryman), does anyone know of a decent British equivalent of this Newegg site that everyone goes on about?

I'm thinking it's time to abandon my current PC, salvage the new graphics card I just put in a few weeks ago [http://tinyurl.com/av2jco] and build a new machine from scratch. If I can find the money to do it out of my student loan.

Novatech do some fair priced stuff, I got my rig from there.

 

[new_age_reject]

Go and buy a NVidia Tesla personal computer and you will not need anything new for a little while...

Yay, 1000 simultaneous instances of Crisis!

 

[spuddyt]

After a few years of having a computer, buying already built computers I am now looking to go away and build my own. So i want the help of the Escapist memebrs to give me a ground on which to build. By this I mean what's the best hardware to get, I already know a bit, but would like to hear what others have to say.

you want help? You give budget

 

[spuddyt]

Go and buy a NVidia Tesla personal computer and you will not need anything new for a little while...

Yay, 1000 simultaneous instances of Crysis!

nah... it'll only handle one instance at 2x AA

 

[Uncompetative]

I can't build my own system. I'm... I'm...

I'M TOO SCARED!

Spoiler: Well you could always consider getting one of these...

http://www.apple.com/uk/macmini/

He probably wants it for gaming. That is hopelessly inadequate for that.

True, but surely you can't deny that there is some appeal to a quiet, reliable, all-in-one PC. He could get a 360 for gaming and have money left over - and not have to wait for ports. I'd only recommend a build-it-yourself Windows PC to someone keen on tournaments.

 

[Viper190]

After a few years of having a computer, buying already built computers I am now looking to go away and build my own. So i want the help of the Escapist memebrs to give me a ground on which to build. By this I mean what's the best hardware to get, I already know a bit, but would like to hear what others have to say.

you want help? You give budget

Read up, I gave a Budget further up the forum.

 

[Nivag the Owl]

The budget was £1500. My extremely high-end PC was £1300 including a lot of seperate P+P funds as I bought it over time. £1500 is easy.

 

[Viper190]

The budget was £1500. My extremely high-end PC was £1300 including a lot of seperate P+P funds as I bought it over time. £1500 is easy.

Well yeah, but you can still upgrade yours a lot could you not?
What's the specs of your system?

 

[starrman]

I recently decided I was sick of having an outdated PC six weeks after I bought one and so I invested a fair bit of money in this:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650 @3.0GHz 1333MHz
Dual 1Gb nVidia GeForce GTX 280 SLI
nForce 790i Ultra
Intergrated 5.1 sound
4Gb PC3-8500 DDR3 1067MHz RAM
Program Drive: WD Velociraptor 150GB 10000RPM
Storage Drive: Seagate 1TB 7200
2x iiyama 24" Prolite E2403WS LCD Monitors
Speedlink Medusa 5.1 Surround Headphones

I love it to pieces and only slightly regret not getting a 64bit version of windows so I could add more RAM to it.

 

[Viper190]

Yeah I want to build one from nothing, to be able to say, "It's mine!".
Rather than "oh I bought it from ...".

 

[Horticulture]

Yeah I want to build one from nothing, to be able to say, "It's mine!".
Rather than "oh I bought it from ...".

I checked out a few UK parts sites for prices; you could manage this for 1500:

CPU: Intel core i7 920 [http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/38998/Intel-CPU-Core-i7-920-2-66GHz-S021624-]
MB: Gigabyte X58 UD4P [http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/39729/Gigabyte-motherboard-EX58-UD4P]
RAM: 6 gigs Corsair DDR3 1600/8-8-8-24 [http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/39738/Corsair-6144MB--XMS3-1600Mhz--DDR3-8-8-8-24]
GPU: XFX GTX 295 [http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/39814/XFX-GeForce-GTX-295-1792MB-DDR3-Dual-DVI-S022436-]
PSU: Corsair 750W [http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/31043/Corsair-PSU-750W-CMPSU-750TX-ATX12V-v2-2--5-year]
HDD: WD Caviar Black 1TB [http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/37856]
Optical: LG BluRay/(HD)DVD [http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/28997/LG-GGC-H20L-Blu-Ray---HD-Combi-drive-Black-SATA]
Case: <a href=http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/16013/Antec-case-Nine-Hundred-Gaming-case-Black-full>Antec Nine Hundred

You could save some cash by salvaging your old hard drive and optical, and ditching the blu-ray. That PSU will easily power the system and leave room to overclock or add more drives, but if you want to toss in additional GPUs later, try something like this 900w OCZ [http://www.microdirect.co.uk/Home/Product/26412/OCZ-PSU-ModXStream-900W-Modular-Gaming] instead. It'll give you some breathing room on top of that GTX.

Lastly, if you want to really get into overclocking your CPU, see if you can track one of these [http://www.heatsinkfactory.com/thermalright-ultra-120-extreme-1366-rt.html] down from a UK seller, along with a tube of Arctic Silver thermal compound to mount it.