Need a PC fast. £1000 budget.

[IBM]

I've been itching to build myself a new computer, but couldn't find the time or the money. Now my desktop has died and I'm going to have to buy one 'cause I don't have the time to do it myself.

Budget's a grand.

Anyone know what great deals are out there for that price? Best places to buy it from?

Only a few requirements.
1) TFT capable of at least 1600x1200. That's 1600x1200....none of the this pansy widescreen 1050 rubbish.
2) Primary and Secondary hard drive. Can't be having with just one hard drive....not after my current situation. Would love a Raptor for OS, but can't see many suppliers using them, and not at my budget.
3) Plenty of RAM
Any suggestions?

[Flewis]

This looks like a good monitor at an excellent price:

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/91494

Seems like a good deal at £255 incl. google checkout. Only 3 of 45 reviews on ebuyer arent 5 stars.

Would leave you ~£750 for the base unit. Dell maybe if ur not building yourself.

[IBM]

Nope. No Dells. My self worth is taking a beating having to buy my computer rather than building it myself. I draw the line at the horrific legacy systems that Dell produce...unless something changed with Dell systems in the last couple of years I didn't hear about.

And my criteria has changed. Having looked around at pre-built, I see that to get a decent system I'm going to have to keep my ageing desk behemouth...CRT 21"...and put the rest of the cash towards just the base unit.....

[MSIC]

2) Primary and Secondary hard drive. Can't be having with just one hard drive....not after my current situation. Would love a Raptor for OS, but can't see many suppliers using them, and not at my budget.

Looking for 2 hard drives for what reason? Speed? Backup? Fun?
If it's for backup reasons, you may be better with 1 external hard drive that you can turn off when not in use, so as to dramatically extend the life.

As for a base unit, check out this Trusted Reviews review:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/pcs/re...way-GT5074b/p1

Then you have some money spare to buy an external hard drive of ridiculous size, and get some proper speakers, keyboard and mouse that'll put a real smile on your face.

[IBM]

I want to be very suspicious of a unit from Tesco. But that looks okay. GPUs a little sad, but everything else seems pretty decent.

However, I've got speakers, mouse, keyboard, and plenty of external disk drives, so I'm looking to spend my thousand squid in style...by blowing the lot...

Any more takers?

[acrobat]

Noooooo I just typed a huge reply and then I clicked one of my favourites by mistake and lost it all Balls.

Anyway, we could really do with knowing what you want to do with the PC, because that would determine a lot of things (like how much RAM you should really have etc).

Also, (argh this is a bit shorter and snappier because I've just typed all this once )

0) Do you REALLY need to go with a pre-built PC? They are easy to build yourself. You can do it in an evening. You can get all the stuff you need delivered to your front door and then you are all set. You will save a fair chunk of cash which can go towards getting better gear. You get better gear to begin with, because everything is hand picked, and theres no mickey mouse bits added in there to cut costs.

1) What have you got against widescreens? Get what you want obviously but its just that you would really be crazy to not buy a widescreen monitor nowdays, unless you have some unusual specific reason why you can't have one. Do you use some strange piece of software that doesn't like widescreen resolutions? If not, it is definitely the way to go, and you will be so thankful that you bought one once you get it infront of you. Do you play games? Do you ever watch films on your PC? If yes to either of those, then don't even think twice about it. Widescreen is 10 times better. It just fills much more of your peripheral vision and you get much more immersed in games. Watching films on your PC is no longer a crap experience where you curse yourself for not being arsed just burning it to a DVD to watch on your big telly instead. Because on a decent widescreen monitor, its just as nice as watching on a proper telly really. Also, it can be very useful for certain businessy type applications. Photoshop and whatnot. You can have two A4 pages side by side on screen at the same time. For me though, I got it because people told me gaming was a joy in widescreen. They where right. Very right.

2) I wouldn't bother with Raptors if I was you. Unless you do something that specifically needs hard disk speed (like lots of video encoding or data compiling or something), then its not worth it in my opinion. If you tear your hair out watching something take 5 seconds to load, then it might be worth it because instead it might take about 3 seconds For me though, that wasn't worth it. My windows boots quicker than my mates PC - and he has Raptors, I dont. My saved games load faster than him too. A lean version of windows, and a disk thats defragged when it needs to be, is twice as good as a raptor that isn't really looked after. But its true they are faster if you are comparing them properly. Its just that the bit of extra speed is not worth it in my opinion. Whether its worth it to you, only you can decide - based on what you want to do. Personally, I would suggest getting something like two 400 gig SATA-II disks instead. It will work out about the same or less than a single raptor, you'll have tons more space, and you can backup any important stuff onto the second disk. And decent modern sata-II disks aren't slow. (Especially if you look after it, like I said --- defrag when it needs to, and don't install all kinds of crap in windows like internet explorer toolbars all over the place, star wars desktop themes, and jessica simpson dancing cursors and whatnot).
p.s. Most brands are good nowdays in my opinion. But the best and most popular few are "Western Digital", "Seagate", and "Samsung". They all have their pros and cons really. People say the Samsung is quiet, and the Seagate is fast and runs cool, etc.


3) What and how much ram, again, depends on what you want to do really. But 2gig is probably the best bet nowdays. Not really worth getting less than that. And if you have any money left over, you can always get 4gig. How fast the ram needs to be, depends really on whether you want to overclock ever, etc.



As for places to buy, theres only several places worth considering really. Just off the top of my head, these are them, and they all have good reputations and whatnot:

ebuyer.com
scan.co.uk
kustompcs.co.uk
chilledpc.co.uk
overclockers.co.uk

and probably a few more. Thats just for components though, I don't think any of those do pre-built. If you absolutely have to go the pre-built route, hopefully someone else can give you some recommendations. Like I said though, I'd definitely suggest thinking twice about it. Making it yourself isn't hard nowdays, and shouldn't take long. (Can do it in an evening). And theres plenty of knowedgeable people here to help talk you through it etc.

[poindextermatic]

Why the hell don't you just build one It only takes a few hours?!?!?

[IBM]

Acrobat .... thanks for that mate...if that was the cut short version then I'd have loved to see the original.

I'd love to build it myself. I would. But I don't have the time. And when I say I don't have the time, I mean there's about 500 other things I should be doing right now instead of writing this post, never mind sourcing and ordering a new PC. And if something goes wrong and I get a dud through the post, I haven't got time to RMA it, nor even test it properly in the first place.

You know that when everything goes right, building a PC can be a piece of cake, but when it goes wrong, it can take days.

And on to your points

1) My main problem with widescreens is that horrible 1050 verticle res. I've been working and coding on 1200 for years now and having used a mates WS monitor for a while found it cramped. Why would I want to drop from 1600x1200 to 1600x1050 when there are monitors out there which do the res I've got at the moment. And when you're writing code, those extra 150 pixels make a difference.

2) I like my raptors. I keep them clean, and they're quick. I hate waiting for stuff, and if I can pay a little extra cash for a little less waiting then I will....as you may have noticed, time is something I don't seem to have a lot of so if I can save a little (time and sanity) with a faster drive, I'd like the option. That's why my currently deceased system was two raptors in RAID 0...taking the drop to one 7200rpm will be very noticable I imagine. relatively speaking of course

3) 2Gb RAM is my minimum, I'd like 4 if possible. What do I use it for? Video Encoding, 3D animation, large spreadsheets, graphics, and gaming.

I appreciate the time you took to put that post together, but unless someone wants to spec me a £1000 system from the case up, I'm just not going to be able to find the time to do it myself.

[IBM]

Why the hell don't you just build one It only takes a few hours?!?!?

There's always one, isn't there?

[ExceededGoku]

he has a point though...

[acrobat]

Acrobat .... thanks for that mate...if that was the cut short version then I'd have loved to see the original.

hehehe Youre welcome. I just made one at Christmas too. Its expensive stuff So if we can help at all, thats good. And hopefully if you end up with something you love, and is dead fast, it offsets the fact that it cost a fortune. A bit atleast

I'd love to build it myself. I would. But I don't have the time. And when I say I don't have the time, I mean there's about 500 other things I should be doing right now instead of writing this post, never mind sourcing and ordering a new PC. And if something goes wrong and I get a dud through the post, I haven't got time to RMA it, nor even test it properly in the first place.

Aye fair enough. Thats true of quite a lot of people, and the lucky thing is, there are some good places who make good pre-built computers specifically for people who can do without the hassle and time. I used to have a list of about 3 or 4 of the best places, but I lost it Hopefully some people here will give you some good recommendations though. If I remember rightly, I priced up my PC from one of the places... They had a huge selection, so you can get almost anything you want. And when I priced it up, it came out about £50 more than what I paid and I built it myself. So basically.... it seems like they buy it all at good prices, and then build it and test it, and charge £50 quid. Which is well worth it I think. £50 is worth them making it and testing it anyway, but the fact that they seemed to have got all the components at great prices too just made them seem ideal. If someone ever posts their link, I'll speak up if I recognise the name. Theres a few other good places like that though anyway.

You know that when everything goes right, building a PC can be a piece of cake, but when it goes wrong, it can take days.

Very true

I've been working and coding

Say no more I know some programmers and they swear by none-widescreen. Luckily, there are tons of good none widescreen monitors available. And if you are mainly using the PC for work, you'll never miss widescreen. Best bet would probably be to just look at a list like this one. That could help you pick a shortlist based on your budget. Then you can research them or ask about them here. Theres a few widescreens in that list but you can just ignore them. It shouldn't be hard to narrow down because theres some for about 2p and some for about 9billion pounds. So I'm guessing you'll want something in the middle (You can click sort-by-price and then press the search button).

2) I like my raptors. I keep them clean, and they're quick. I hate waiting for stuff, and if I can pay a little extra cash for a little less waiting then I will....as you may have noticed, time is something I don't seem to have a lot of so if I can save a little (time and sanity) with a faster drive, I'd like the option. That's why my currently deceased system was two raptors in RAID 0...taking the drop to one 7200rpm will be very noticable I imagine. relatively speaking of course

The drop to a 7200rpm isn't THAT noticeable, but based on what you've said, then Raptors are probably WELL worth it for you. Not only would the speed be worthwhile for you, but for work stuff, people don't tend to need as much space - compared to people's home PC's which are full of mp3's and porn and whatnot And if you look after it well, I bet its a joy using raptors for coding and stuff. So it would be worth getting one of those. You could even pick between the cheaper 75gig and the 150gig ones. Although I read the 150gig ones are better because they are more modern and less likely to die... And then for a backup disk, just get a normal SATA disk. If you need the space, the 400gig seems to be about the best price-per-gigabyte at the moment I think. But if you only need to backup stuff from the raptor, then you could get a 150 or 250 gig one because thats all you need. Just check your options wherever you buy, because its silly to get a 250gig disk for say £24 when a 350gig disk is £26

3) 2Gb RAM is my minimum, I'd like 4 if possible. What do I use it for? Video Encoding, 3D animation, large spreadsheets, graphics, and gaming.

Definitely go with 4 for sure You're basically made for 4gig Its a good price at the moment too. So yeah, go 4gig for sure.

I appreciate the time you took to put that post together, but unless someone wants to spec me a £1000 system from the case up, I'm just not going to be able to find the time to do it myself.

No probs. I could price up something for you. But I would be best doing it from somewhere that offers pre-built PC's really. So I'll wait until someone hopefully posts a link. And if nobody else has done it, I'll price one up and you can have a quick look.

[Flewis]

If you buy a widescreen that has height adjustment and a rotating screen you can run a widescreen vertically and have an extremely large amount on one screen at a time. I know some of the dells can rotate, maybe some of the samsungs.

[dave87]

This is the spec of a rig I made up for a mate. Swap out the e4300 for a e6600 and remove the 8800 change the DDR2-800 for some 533 stuff (4gb of it), and its probably a good machine for you...

[frosty15]

OK ibm,

Here's my suggestion.
Buy in 5 seperate orders to save £50 thgrough Google Checkout, then you'll only be £7.62 over.

case - antec nine hundred
psu - ocz modular 720W
mobo - asus P5N-E SLI
cpu - E6420
ram - ocz spec ops. pc2-700
hdd - 2x WD 320GB SATA2 16MB
gpu - EVGA 8800GTS Superclocked 320MB
opt - NEC SATA DVD/RW x18

[acrobat]

This is

hehe thats very similar to my PC. Unfortunately I dont think scan.co.uk can build PC's I think they are just a supplier of the components. I recommend that power supply and the case is decent. Might get away with a cheaper motherboard if you don't need to overclock.

What dave suggested though is kind of what I'd be suggesting too

cpu - E6600
psu - Corsair HX 620W (maybe the 500 odd watt version)
case - Decent case (quite like my akasa eclipse but it should have been better for the cost of the bugger)
ram - 4gig of any decent 533 ddr2 ram.
disk1 - 150gig raptor
disk2- 400gig sata2. Or even less if theres much of a saving.
graphics - 256MB 8600GT. But could maybe stretch to a 320MB 8800GTS, seeing as he (or she?) plays the odd game.
motherboard - cheap as possible motherboard (yet reliable).

And if it somehow still ended up being lower than the £1k budget (maybe not likely but depends on the monitor), it would be nice to get an even better CPU. But not necessary.

Thats the kind of thing I'd make anyway. Processor and ram are king for a coder/encoder/compiler/etc.

[staffsMike]

Scan do build pc's .. they're called 3XS systems..its on the website. They're not cheap though.