OT: Where to buy a new PC?

[Wardy]

Ta. Will check them out, but don't think they are configurable?



Ta. Sounds like my kind of PC.



Ta. It may yet come to that! Would be interesting, but being retired I have so much other stuff to do.



Ta. They're the ones I was trying to think of! Yeah, I have decent peripherals, but SSD and memory will depend on price.

SSD are not really worth the money unless you want a PC that boots up very quickly. Unless you are using software that needs to read / write a lot from the hard drive then you will not notice the difference once it is booted.

 

[Fungus]

He did mention his budget.

 

[Fungus]

I built my current PC. Brought the bits from eBuyer for just under £600 including Windows 7. Like others have said building it is not hard and there are loads of guides out there that talk you through the process. Took me about an hour to put together. Takes longer to install the Operating system, drivers and updates then to actually build it. If you want to know what I brought give me a shout and I will let you know.

Edit to add link to a decent guide for building it http://www.buildeasypc.com/category/build-pc/build-your-own-pc-step-by-step-guide.htm

Just to add if you are not sure if the bits you are buying are compatible then try http://pcpartpicker.com/ great for checking.

SSD are not really worth the money unless you want a PC that boots up very quickly. Unless you are using software that needs to read / write a lot from the hard drive then you will not notice the difference once it is booted.

All good advice Wardy, plenty to digest, thanks. I have my doubts about SSDs, as I'm not fussed about boot times.

As regards operating systems, I can install Ubuntu in about 20 minutes, but will stick to Win 7 or 8 just for Lightroom, Sony Vegas and, er, oooh, the reasons are dwindling all the time. (Yes, I know Linux can run Windows programs under Wine, etc.)

Would be interested in the spec of your PC, if it's not aimed too much at gaming.

 

[Kosmonaut]

I was bored so I thought I would make a PC for you:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£226.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£65.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£54.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£104.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£49.32 @ Scan.co.uk)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 2GB Video Card
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case (£47.98 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£59.27 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£11.87 @ Aria PC)
Total: £621.39
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-07-19 20:25 BST+0100)

This does not include monitor, keybaord + mouse and operating system, which I will leave to your preference. This should be fairly decent for video editing!

 

[Fungus]

I was bored so I thought I would make a PC for you:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£226.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£65.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£54.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£104.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£49.32 @ Scan.co.uk)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 2GB Video Card
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case (£47.98 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£59.27 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£11.87 @ Aria PC)
Total: £621.39
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-07-19 20:25 BST+0100)

This does not include monitor, keybaord + mouse and operating system, which I will leave to your preference. This should be fairly decent for video editing!

Wow, stunningly close to what I want! May drop the SSD, and may use on-board graphics (fine for Lightroom, though video editing may offload to the GPU), otherwise spot on!

And way below my £800 budget. Can't do anything yet, as I'm moving house in a few weeks, but this is looking good!

Oh, and what about over-clocking? Isn't that one locked? Do I even need it? I'm not really looking for "bleeding-edge".

 

[Wardy]

All good advice Wardy, plenty to digest, thanks. I have my doubts about SSDs, as I'm not fussed about boot times.

As regards operating systems, I can install Ubuntu in about 20 minutes, but will stick to Win 7 or 8 just for Lightroom, Sony Vegas and, er, oooh, the reasons are dwindling all the time. (Yes, I know Linux can run Windows programs under Wine, etc.)

Would be interested in the spec of your PC, if it's not aimed too much at gaming.

I went with

Intel Core i5 3470 3.20GHz Socket 1155 6MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor £127.38
Kingston 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz HyperX Genesis Plug N Play Memory Kit CL9 1.5V £37.16
CIT 600W Power supply GOLD 12cm Fan 4x SATA £21.65
Gigabyte GTX 650 1GB GDDR5 VGA Dual DVI HDMI PCI-E Graphics Card £73.04
1Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium w/SP1 259863 £58.32
Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H Socket 1155 VGA DVI HDMI 7.1 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard £57.44
CiT Vantage Gaming Case Black HD Audio Black Interior 4 Fans Card Reader No PSU £26.63
WD 1TB 3.5" SATA-III Caviar Green Internal Hard Drive - 64MB Cache £41.65
Samsung SH-118AB 18x DVD ROM Drive - Black £9.50

Though that was for gaming. If you are not worried about that, you can drop the graphics card, and get an i3 processor which will save you about £100

 

[Fungus]

I went with

Intel Core i5 3470 3.20GHz Socket 1155 6MB L3 Cache Retail Boxed Processor £127.38
Kingston 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz HyperX Genesis Plug N Play Memory Kit CL9 1.5V £37.16
CIT 600W Power supply GOLD 12cm Fan 4x SATA £21.65
Gigabyte GTX 650 1GB GDDR5 VGA Dual DVI HDMI PCI-E Graphics Card £73.04
1Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium w/SP1 259863 £58.32
Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H Socket 1155 VGA DVI HDMI 7.1 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard £57.44
CiT Vantage Gaming Case Black HD Audio Black Interior 4 Fans Card Reader No PSU £26.63
WD 1TB 3.5" SATA-III Caviar Green Internal Hard Drive - 64MB Cache £41.65
Samsung SH-118AB 18x DVD ROM Drive - Black £9.50

Though that was for gaming. If you are not worried about that, you can drop the graphics card, and get an i3 processor which will save you about £100

Thanks, that's pretty close too. Think I'd upgrade to an i7, though, as the CPU would get some heavy usage - I have some RAW scans in Lightroom that are over 100mb! And a Caviar Black might speed things up?

 

[Kosmonaut]

Wow, stunningly close to what I want! May drop the SSD, and may use on-board graphics (fine for Lightroom, though video editing may offload to the GPU), otherwise spot on!

And way below my £800 budget. Can't do anything yet, as I'm moving house in a few weeks, but this is looking good!

Oh, and what about over-clocking? Isn't that one locked? Do I even need it? I'm not really looking for "bleeding-edge".

You do not need to overclock if you are not planning on gaming in my opinion, so I went for cheaper "locked" components, though a small amount of overclocking should be possible. I put the GPU in because I heard Sony Vegas makes use of OpenCL and that amd 7000 series work well with that without being ludicrously expensive.

 

[Fungus]

You do not need to overclock if you are not planning on gaming in my opinion, so I went for cheaper "locked" components, though a small amount of overclocking should be possible. I put the GPU in because I heard Sony Vegas makes use of OpenCL and that amd 7000 series work well with that without being ludicrously expensive.

Yep, that makes sense.

So much information in such a short time! NSC redeems itself

 

[jgmcdee]

Get an SSD. Really. And if you're using one of the specs above get 16GB rather than 8GB. Difference in general performance of your system will be night and day.

 

[MissGull]

Bought my first ever PC - Windows 95 from Evesham. Had dial up Internet that cost 60p per hour. Didn't know they went bust.

 

[brightn'ove]

£800 will build you a very very powerful PC, but I can't help you as I'm a mac guy now

 

[prawnsarnies]

Look at the Novotech website, got a good reputation. http://www.novatech.co.uk/

 

[Fungus]

Bought my first ever PC - Windows 95 from Evesham. Had dial up Internet that cost 60p per hour. Didn't know they went bust.

Evesham gambled everything on the Government's "Home Computer Initiative" - a scheme for employees to buy PCs tax-free from their employers. Then the Government cancelled the whole scheme at short notice. A real shame.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evesham_Technology

 

[Fungus]

Get an SSD. Really. And if you're using one of the specs above get 16GB rather than 8GB. Difference in general performance of your system will be night and day.

Surely it depends on what you're doing with the PC? 16gb will probably help with the video editing, but how will the SSD help?

 

[Fungus]

Look at the Novotech website, got a good reputation. http://www.novatech.co.uk/

Thanks. Looking a bit pricey for high-spec, though.

 

[jgmcdee]

Surely it depends on what you're doing with the PC? 16gb will probably help with the video editing, but how will the SSD help?

Every disk access will be 10-12ms faster. Might not sound like much but you will often have hundreds or even thousands of accesses to load a large file or a program.

You also avoid some of the "slows down over time" problem which Windows is famous for. Although in general you're better off having a totally separate operating system partition so that you can carry out a complete reinstall every 6-12 months.

 

[Wardy]

Every disk access will be 10-12ms faster. Might not sound like much but you will often have hundreds or even thousands of accesses to load a large file or a program.

You also avoid some of the "slows down over time" problem which Windows is famous for. Although in general you're better off having a totally separate operating system partition so that you can carry out a complete reinstall every 6-12 months.

Agreed when you are loading the program, but once loaded the difference is minimal

 

[jgmcdee]

Agreed when you are loading the program, but once loaded the difference is minimal

Well yes when you aren't accessing storage the speed of your storage isn't particularly relevant. However, if you're doing things like video editing you're going to be accessing storage a lot whilst working.

 

[perseus]

I am in the same position as the original poster. I want separates in case a component goes wrong and my poor eyesight suits a desktop better. But I want a small box with the components so I can carry around at a pinch, for clients, exhibitions, talks etc. Just in case the laptops misbehave.

i5 minimum specs, or equivalent.

And I would want my main HD to be solid state if they are reliable.