Viewing Thread:
"Buying A PC"

Hi all, just wondering if you could lend me a hand or two. Seeing as my current pc is beginning to splutter and suck at everything it does I have decided its time to get a new one, problem is I dont really know where to start.

I have up to £1500 to spend and Id rather buy one pre-build although I could probably build one myself if need be. So just looking for recommendations of where to go what to buy ect ect.

I want it for gaming mostly along with some coursework for college and other general tasks. I was considering waiting for SR to bring back its MAXX pcs but its been a while since they were last here and I don;t know if they are still planning on re-introducing them.

Thanks, any help is much appreciated.

Hi all, just wondering if you could lend me a hand or two. Seeing as my current pc is beginning to splutter and suck at everything it does I have decided its time to get a new one, problem is I dont really know where to start.

I have up to £1500 to spend and Id rather buy one pre-build although I could probably build one myself if need be. So just looking for recommendations of where to go what to buy ect ect.

I want it for gaming mostly along with some coursework for college and other general tasks. I was considering waiting for SR to bring back its MAXX pcs but its been a while since they were last here and I don;t know if they are still planning on re-introducing them.

Thanks, any help is much appreciated.

Well, personally, I've lost track of what's going on in the pre-built Pc department of things because I haven't bought one of them since 2000. So I can only really reccommend building one yourself.

If you've never done this before, you will expect this to be hard. I was like that, and I wasn't sure of what to do, what to buy etc. and you wil be the same.

But, the moment you install your motherboard and then start connecting everything to it, you will realise just how surprisingly easy it is to build your own. I can pretty much guarantee that you will be very surprised. Once you've done that, you'll never want to buy a pre-built one again, because it's also considerably cheaper if you buy the right parts from the right places.

Sorry if this wasn't much help, but what I'm saying is that your almost always better off to try building one yourself, if you feel up to it. Even if you don't feel up to it, you only really need to get started, and then the rest will seem to be stupidly easy.

So, in all, I reccommend trying to build one yourself, but obviously it's down to your preference. Hope this helps.

For that price you should be looking at the minimum of:

- AMD 64bit 3500+ Processor
- PCI Express motherboard (One in the £100 range)
- 2Gb Ram (Corsair CAS 2)
- Radeon x850xt 256mb (PCI Express)
- 200Gb 7200pm or 75Gb 10000rpm hard drive
- Creative Audigy 2 Sound Card (although onboard will do if you're not planning to have surround sound)
- Power supply (DO NOT buy a cheap case/psu combo) Something like an Antec Truepower 400+ watts
- A decent case. Believe me, a decent case makes building a pc so much easier

On top of that you will need DVD drivers/writers, mouse/keyboard, speakers and monitor etc

I think that's about it but I usually miss something important.

P.S Search the forum a bit and you will find loads of detailed specs around.

Why not lash out and get a Mac? The G5 Processor is good one at the moment for £1350. If you're really interested in games, just get a copy of Virtual PC 7.

Coatsy wrote:
> Why not lash out and get a Mac? The G5 Processor is good one at the
> moment for £1350. If you're really interested in games, just
> get a copy of Virtual PC 7.

If you really want to play games I'd recommend against this.

Damarus wrote:
> For that price you should be looking at the minimum of:
>
> - Radeon x850xt 256mb (PCI Express)

Don't even consider an X850. You're far better off with a Geforce 7800GT for the same price.

Coatsy wrote:
> If you're really interested in games, just
> get a copy of Virtual PC 7.

hahaajahahahahahagagaahaha

Memorandum! wrote:
> Don't even consider an X850. You're far better off with a Geforce
> 7800GT for the same price.

My god, the prices have suddenly dropped.

I bought my x850xt for £320 not so long ago and now they're about £250 =(

Is the X850 XT PE the best AGP graphics card you can buy?

Damarus wrote:
> I bought my x850xt for £320 not so long ago and now they're
> about £250 =(

Just under 400 for my 6800gt last year. They're roughly 175 - 200 now.