How save money build your own Pc

[andy01424]

some people maybe frightened with prospect of doing this but its basically like lego

heres a youtube ,you can save a lot of money building your own


Now for the tips:
Case: make sure case is large enough to take the motherboard,they come in 2 sizes atx and micro atx,basic get an atx,BUT if your building a gaming pc or have a large graphic card make sure theres anough space for it

Hard Drive:
Well if you are starting afresh you will need Windows if you dont have it,or alternate use old Hard Drive,you will be able to use the existing Windows on it

Powersupply:
make sure you have enough Power, general guide 500watt and above,this way if you intend to add newer Graphic cards ,most require 450watt min,so buy a 650 watt,now also make sure they have correct plugs,some motherboards have an additional 8 or 6 pin plug[plugs near CPU] 15min on youtube shows this

Motherboard:
When ordering make sure its for the correct Processor pin rating,that you intend to buy
ie Amd Phenom or Amd 3 or Amd 3+ or old scale Amd 2
intel use lag 1155 etc
basic match socket connection of CPu to Motherboard
VGA-display basically on board or graphic card[you can add graphic cards to one with built in graphics via PCIE slots]
also you will note there are 2 different forms of graphics ATI or Nvidia,now you can use either on both types,but you cannot run 2 cards ie NVIDIA on a cross fire motherboard,same applies to Ati on a Nvidia Sli board,they have to be the same,they also have to be the same ratings to run 2 cards in Crossfire or Ati

Graphic cards:
If your a basic computer user on board is fine,adding a graphic card mainly is buisness use or for gaming or basic if you want to lol

Memory:
Latest memory is DDR3,as with the motherboard look that it has DDR3,some restrict amount of Ram you can use general is 8gb,also look at specs on motherboard mhz limit for ram chips,you prefable want 1600mhz,also if you intend adding ram at later date make sure the CL rating is the same as in PC or it will cause problems[this also applies to old DDR2 ram chips] basic they run at diffrent clock speed timings

[andy01424]

Processor:
as with Motherboard make sure it has the correct socket , price of processors have fallen a lot especially on ~AMD quad cores are relativley cheap,now if you lucky i bought my daughter a mother board cpu bundle with a dual core,now on her mother board it had a core unlocker,AMD had a problem with some quad cores so they basically shut down 2 cores,some worked fine others had a problem and other 2 cores would not work properly,so it s a hit an mis,fortunatley hers was a good one so cheap price she got a quad core instead of a dual

Basic on Cores on processors,the more you have the better a Pc will be able to run tasks,ie have antivirus scanning it will use one core and using youtube will use others,now some will ask this yes even though you have a mega graphic card the CPu type helps it a lot or you can end up with what they call a bottleneck............
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buying the parts:
well try and get them all at the same place,delivery from different places can rack up the cost ,so try to keep them in one or two places

if you just want a basic upgrade look on some of the links below for CPU/Motherboard bundles,some will inc Ram chips[memory] but be warned you may have to upgrade the power supply ,and most important make sure case can take mother board,
to find out what is in your old pc download this www.cpuid.com/softwares.html you want the CPU Z it will show you exactly what you have,go to mother board tab and then search your motherboard model name,you will then find out wether its micro atx or atx,if you think you PC is getting hot download the HW monitor one to,then you will have to goole or search engine the processor to find its temp range....there all free

[andy01424]

some of the sites i use,you can also just use search engine with model make number to find better deal:
www.scan.co.uk
www.eclipsecomputers.com
www.dabs.com
www.ebuyer.com
www.novatech.co.uk
www.microdirect.co.uk
www.aria.co.uk
www.cclonline.com
www.misco.co.uk

if you want to get upset compare prices in the USA to ours lol use guide of £1 = $1.50
www.tigerdirect.com
www.newegg.com

i think new eggs uk site is misco! or its tigers,oh and the USA sites wont send to UK i tried lol

[alvoram]

On board graphics Dont use that foul language around here #icon_rofl# #icon_rofl# #icon_rofl#

Seriously though, I like Microdirect and Novatech, they're the 2 I've used most, friend used Scan recently was quite happy with it I believe.

Oh and there is no ATI any more mate, its AMD these days, they took over a few years back, and have completely rebranded the old ATI into AMD now.... Pft, AMD Radeon will always be ATI Radeon to me Although I prefer Nvidia anyway, lol.

[lamdac0re]

On board graphics? what are they? Oh yeh...

My preferred supplier is Ebuyer followed by overclockers.

Have used microdirect before, misco is generally good too.

jltcopmonents are quite good, but they're trade only....

[martyg1950]

I would second Ebuyer as a good source for parts.

All good sound advice there andy. All I would add having built more than I care to remember over the years is don't skimp on the Power supply, particularly if you intend to instal a mid to high end graphics card.

A cheap power supply is a FALSE economy

[alvoram]

And cooling, don't under estimate cooling, it's no good having modern components if they dont stay cool (and clean) as they just wont perform, and may die quickly. The more cooling the better, but plan it properly, too much intake and you will increase the amount of dust that gets into the system, not good, too much out and your cooling wont be as efficient. Also some cheaper fans do offer good cooling for their cost, but they tend to be the noisier ones too, if that's not a problem to you, then fair enough, but if noise is a problem, then spend a little more on the quieter types.And don't just read the names, many fans with "quiet" or "silent" in their name or description are anything but quiet. Look at the specifications and there should be a noise measurement in them.

[lamdac0re]

Nov 13, 2012 4:57:08 GMT alvoram said:

And cooling, don't under estimate cooling, it's no good having modern components if they dont stay cool (and clean) as they just wont perform, and may die quickly. The more cooling the better, but plan it properly, too much intake and you will increase the amount of dust that gets into the system, not good, too much out and your cooling wont be as efficient. Also some cheaper fans do offer good cooling for their cost, but they tend to be the noisier ones too, if that's not a problem to you, then fair enough, but if noise is a problem, then spend a little more on the quieter types.And don't just read the names, many fans with "quiet" or "silent" in their name or description are anything but quiet. Look at the specifications and there should be a noise measurement in them.

+1

If you're after a cheap good aftermarket air cooling system, the best performance / price system is the Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro 7. Generally comes out trumpes with all tests.

If you're more experienced and require moderate to higher cooling, then a water cooling kit (all in one), the likes of the Corsair HXX range would be best in terms of price / performance.

If your cooling requirements are greater than this, then you might be better off building your own cooling system with seperate pumps, waterblocks, radiators etc, but if you're at that stage, then you're probably already aware of what else is available...

[Ewol]

You don't need a 650w Power Supply. Even a GOOD 450w (Corsair, Seasonic) will handle most modern cards. Unless you're buying a high end graphics card then you might want a 620w Seasonic. In a lot of cases a good 450w will outperform a cheap 650w.

[alvoram]

I'm staying out of the PSU debate, because I've always just bought the cheapest, highest wattage, PSU I could find, and never had a problem, so I'm not really sure what the big deal is, but maybe I've missed something.

[lamdac0re]

In relation to PSUs, its generally what you're using the PC for. To an extent, I agree that a lower wattage psu will do the job, but I would always advise never to skip on a good brand such as Corsair, OCZ, Coolermaster or Antec.... but again, depends on what the machine is doing.

Generally, I would always allow about 70-100w per component (CPU, HDD, Optical Drive) and then add on the minimum power requirements of the GPU that you're using.

A handy guide:

www.thermaltake.outervision.com/

this will give you a good idea as to what would be recommended.

[Ewol]

Nov 13, 2012 16:57:21 GMT alvoram said:

I'm staying out of the PSU debate, because I've always just bought the cheapest, highest wattage, PSU I could find, and never had a problem, so I'm not really sure what the big deal is, but maybe I've missed something.

#1 reason is cheap psus are usually rated at a power they can't even sustain, lower temperature (good ones are rated at 50C, or in the case of the cheapest chinese psus - lack some safety approvals for a reason beyond that there are still some diifferences, but not necessarily worth the price for the improvement.

Good PSUs rated for higher temperatures usually use longer lasting parts - the parts most likely to die are the capacitors and the fan. I would only use a PSU that has 105C rated capacitors, most the cheap ones use 80C ones that age faster

[Deleted]

It's not even worth bothering these days unless your after a top dollar gaming machine .. I just recently bought my bare bones pc 3.5ghz cpu 8 gb ram and 500gig hd for £180

My building days are over at that price

[meeee]

Nov 13, 2012 22:35:20 GMT @storm said:

It's not even worth bothering these days unless your after a top dollar gaming machine .. I just recently bought my bare bones pc 3.5ghz cpu 8 gb ram and 500gig hd for £180

My building days are over at that price

I agree, not worth the hassle

[alvoram]

Nov 13, 2012 22:05:42 GMT Ewol said:

Nov 13, 2012 16:57:21 GMT alvoram said:

I'm staying out of the PSU debate, because I've always just bought the cheapest, highest wattage, PSU I could find, and never had a problem, so I'm not really sure what the big deal is, but maybe I've missed something.

#1 reason is cheap psus are usually rated at a power they can't even sustain, lower temperature (good ones are rated at 50C, or in the case of the cheapest chinese psus - lack some safety approvals for a reason beyond that there are still some diifferences, but not necessarily worth the price for the improvement.

Good PSUs rated for higher temperatures usually use longer lasting parts - the parts most likely to die are the capacitors and the fan. I would only use a PSU that has 105C rated capacitors, most the cheap ones use 80C ones that age faster

Experience tells me otherwise, I have only ever bought the cheap higher wattage ones, and in 12 years, I've never had any problems. Maybe that's just a testament to the vendors listed above. I've had to replace a few for other people, in machines bought from large retailers (Time spring to mind, remember them lol) but I could usually attribute that to increased heat around the PSU due to dust build up and lack of maintenance.