Attempt to build my first PC with £1500-£2000 budget

[iranu]

First and foremost Welcome to Hexus!

You've done the right thing by starting to look at prices and educating yourself about hardware. Then you've done an even better thing and posted on Hexus . There are many knowledgeable people here who will get you good value for money.

On the 20th January Intel will launch their new core 2 duo cpus (the quad cores will launch in Feb/Mar) so it's not a bad time to think about buying. I think it's safe to assume that your main use for the PC will be gaming. Do you do anything else like media encoding, music, film or any other specific use?

You've already mentioned that a 19" or 21" screen is what you have been looking at. Do you intend to play movies or watch TV on this screen? There are lots of good monitors around but the choice and size of monitor will be determined by what you want to use it for. Will you need dual screens at all?

With regard to gaming the choice of graphics card is quite closely linked to the monitor and it's available resolutions. There is little point in spending lots of money on the latest graphics card(s), then using a monitor at a resolution that isn't going to benefit. An 8800GT/8800GTS 512MB graphics card will give similar results upto and including a resolution of 1680x1050 (20"/22" widescreen monitor) when compared with the more expensive 8800GTX. As you up the monitor resolution (which usually happens with screen size) past this then the 8800GTX starts to pull ahead in gaming.

I'm not aware of any machine that will run Crysis at full settings on 22" screen at a decent frame rate. It's a bit of an anomaly for a game.

Do you use headphones or a surround sound system for gaming and music?

With regard to RAM then DDR3 is not needed. It's extremely expensive and the current crop of processors will not see any noticeable benefit from it in the real world. Better to spend the cash on 4GB of quality DDR2. If you are not overclocking then PC6400 will be fine.

CPU choice is a bit more complicated and depends on what you use the machine for. People who often use programs that can utilise more than 2 cores tend to go with the quad C2D Q6600. It's very good value for money and overclocks well.

I'll leave it at that for the moment to let you digest the thread and the suggestions.

If you can give us as much information as possible with regard to what you are going to use the PC for and what type of performance you want then we'll have a better understanding and therefore give tailored advice.

I've always found that it's much better to gather all the information possible and make an informed choice when spending the moolah, so take your time and resist the urge to get your mitts on shiny new kit ASAP.

[306maxi]

The case is fantastic! Lol, mini rant. Whatever happens, don't get a P180 I had one, they're great but you will cry every time you end up going to a LAN.

Yes but you will build up your muscles and the ladies will love you long time!!!!

Just built a system for my girlfriend into a cheap Antec case 4480b or something. The case weighs 9kg with a power supply! My P180 weighs 14 without it's 2.5kg PSU, X1950XT with an Arctic Cooling Accelero X2, 3 hdd's and the ultra-120 extreme. I think it's going to give me a hernia one day.

Fantastic case when hooked up with some quiet case fans like the Nexus 120mm's I have in it.

[Jay]

in that case stay away from the Kandlaf.... I hurt my arm carrying it up the stairs.

[306maxi]

As for the OP.

If you're just up for gaming then wait for next Monday when the new 45nm Intel Core 2 Duo's come out. Buy yourself the following.

Motherboard of your choice. I'd reccomend an Asus X38 board if you're not bothered about money. P35 board would suffice though tbh
E8500 processor - Don't bother with a quad core. Nothing really uses it atm and you'll have to OC it to get near the level of performance the E8500 has.
4 gb of nice fast Corsair or whatever takes your fancy. Don't be tempted to go for 8gb as it will do nothing for you.
P182
Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme CPU cooler.
8800 Ultra (I'd go with an 8800 GT 512 myself but if you've got the money and the extra few FPS is worth that much then......)
Beefy PSU
Nice widescreen 22" or 24" monitor
Vista X64
A raptor 150 for your OS drive and some 500gb drives for data.

This system will absolutely cream CSS. I've got a less pokey system (see the my system thing) and it runs Team Fortress 2 quite well with minimum slowdowns.

Keep the rest of the money in the bank and wait for Nehalem later this year at which stage DDR3 will be cheaper and more worth the upgrade.

I've been converted to having a silent PC now. You don't realise just how noisy your PC is till you quiet it down.

Get yourself a 120mm CPU cooler, a quiet VGA cooler and quiet 120mm fans and you'll notice the difference. You don't notice it when you're gaming but when you're just checking your emails and forum stuff you'll thank me.

[TooNice]

First of all, I am going to agree with others that it is financially wiser to spread your £2000 for two builds ~18 months apart.

Still, you said that you wanted a box with £2000 worth of component, so I am going to suggest that I would build if I was given £2000 to build a PC that I can not upgrade for as long as possible and will have to forfeit any of the sum left unspent. My first desktop (~10 years ago) did indeed cost that much as I was thinking the same way you did.

CPU: QX9650: ~£700
Yes it's more than 4x the price of a Q6600. In a week's time, you'll be able to know if the Q9### will be out.. or if they have been delayed for another month or two. In any case, you are paying a premium for a processor that's not avail in other forms.

GFX Card: 2x 8800 GTS rev 2: ~£400
A single GTS can trade a few hits with the Ultra. Yet two of them cost just over a single Ultra.

Motherboard: ??? : £200 max.
I don't know much about SLi motherboard, but so I'll assume the worst case scenario of £200 leaving you with £700 to play with the rest.

RAM: You can get 8GB of 6400 DDR2 for just over £100. I think 4GB of 8500 Ballistix cost in the £130 region? Whatever you go for, I doubt you'll need more than £150.

Case: I am partial to the Antec P182 ~£80, but the 900 looks pretty neat too and you have lots of choice there.

PSU: £85 for a Corsair HX620 (in one of the review a GTS SLi system uses about 430W so a HX520 should be enough - but in case you want to fill it with HD).

CPU Cooler: ~£35 Thermalright Ultra Extreme 120; I am ignoring bang for buck here. You'll need a fan too so add £10 here.

Sound Card: ~£50 for a 'real' X-Fi. Lots of people are happy with onboard, but I think that a home/gaming desktop should have it. If you are very picky about your sound though, or need more inputs expect to pay more.

That leaves about £300-350 for storage (I am not taking into account OS).
- 150GB Raptor: £120
- Samsung F1 750GB x2: £215 or Samsung F1 1TB: 1x £190

Depends how much you value your bays. I prefer the former since you have the option of using one drive for backup. Some might prefer dropping the Raptor and get 2x 1TB drive, for instance - but I do not believe the Raptor is decisively beat outside sequential transfer rate yet. In fact, if you drop the QX CPU, there is also option of going SSD. The reason my first desktop costed so much was because I spent a lot on the storage (I went SCSI).

In some way, this is going to be the complete opposite of what I've been looking at these days (trying to judge what's best for bang for buck).

[staffsMike]

As lovely as that build would be it is a prime example of how that extra £1000+ spent over something like my suggestion gets you that little bit extra performance which is barely noticable. It still won't run crysis on full settings and that is the only game which won't run well on the £800 systems anyway.

Save the money and build another when there is something worth spending it on.

[TooNice]

I can't really fault your build much: most components are either what I would go for, or only slightly more expensive/better performing than what I would consider spot in the middle of bang for buck (in a way, we are getting predictable - we probably should have a sticky of 'balanced builds' people with £800-£1200 can refer to - the Gaming Rig sticky is a little - messy). Whereas diminishing returns would hit really hard on the build of my previous post, and it is unlikely that I would build my PC in that manner, unless in the aforementioned scenario (spend it or lose it).

My stance has changed a lot over the years, but looking back I valued reducing load time at almost 'any cost', and I tried to put myself in that mindset when I made my previous post. Back then, I did accomplish in part by going SCSI. Between the time I bought my P2/400 to the time people were running P3/600, I was almost always the first to get in the game. I am not sure how important it in the days of affordable RAM, but I imagine that HD still matters.

The QX processor is the first thing I'd drop off my previous post (couldn't even find one in stock anyway), but as good as the AAKS especially in a most builds, I'd probably look into adding a Samsung F1/Raptor/SSD at the originally stated budget.

[staffsMike]

If you honestly had to spend it.. which would make me sick tbh () I wouldn't bother with a raptor... 64gb SSD all the way

There's plenty of ways to spend that amount though

-water cooling
-SLi
-blue ray/ HD
-SSD's

..I just couldn't do it.

[masscrazy]

So i havent bothered to read all the responses but if i were you i wouldn't go through the hassle of building your own pc.

Instead ill be looking at places like Dell and Mesh. For under £2000 you can get a monster rig including monitor with the added bonus of having a proper full system warranty, i.e everything less hassle. No RMA, no spending days 'figuring' out WTF just happened "it was working a moment ago". And most of companies will give you a chance to customise, so if you dont need a monitor spend it on an extended warranty or extra RAM or HDD.

Though there is a certain charm to building your own pc, but if you havent ever dabbled with PC's let alone know not much about them then just buy it from a computer retailer. Having said that theres no time like the present to starting learning this stuff and building your first PC.

UP 2 U!

[staffsMike]

Computer retailer.. Thats crazy talk!

In all seriousness though, yes you get the warranty but you pay a lot more for something that you can build yourself and with quality components as well as care going into putting them it together shouldn't go wrong for a long time.

[Dreaming]

And of course you've got us to help out when it all goes pear shaped

[TooNice]

@staffsMike: I just found the 64GB Mtron at £1175 for pre-order (not as bad as I expected actually, considering that the 32GB version is said to cost $1500 - and we all know about UK mark-up). That leaves £825 for everything else.

CPU: £160 (Q6600)
Cooler: £23 (Scythe Min&#233
GFX Card: £200 (8800 GTS)
PSU: £65 (HX520)
Case: £70 (Antec 900)
RAM: £ 70 (4GB Geil Black Dragon - I ripped that from you, but probably would've gone the Aria Special on OCZ if it was in Stock - even though the timing is a bit worse - almost £20 of saving to be had)
Sound card (I insist): £50 ('real' X-Fi OEM)
Motherboard: £110 (Abit IP-35 Pro) I know that the IP-35 is much better value, but I'd pay for µGuru™, eSATA.

That leaves £77 for a 500GB storage drive and a DVDRW (forgot last time).
A Samsung T166 (£60) and a Samsung 203d (£17)

Just managed. I actually had to cut corners by going Miné. I originally intended to go Ninja, or Thermalright Ultima 90i + Scythe Flex, but that wouldn't leave enough for the DVDRW (it would be easy if you step down on the motherboard or drop the sound card, but I didn't want to do either). The only thing I neglected is the delivery cost of the Mtron. But if the motherboard can drop towards £100 on a Today Only deal, that should just about cover it

[smellybumlove]

hello everyone, i dont know much at all about PC hardware. i have done some research... been on overclockers.co.uk, bought custompc mag, tried learning about motherboards, graphic cards and cpu's, cases. now i feel the more i learn the more confused i get (

my budget basically means money isnt much of an issue, but obviously i dont want to spend £600 on something that will do the same job for £200. also id like to reasonably future proof my pc meaning ddr3, 45nmm, sli ready. ( apparently crossfire isnt as good?)

so far ive come up with this

Q6600 GO
EVGA GeForce 8800 Ultra SuperClocked SILENT 768MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

the motherboards confuse me, i cant find one that is sli ready and ddr3. seems like there arent any SLI ready mobo's that take DDR3, most if not all DDR3 mobo's support CROSSFIRE

i think ive waffled on to long, and im sure ive contradicted myslef somewhere, anyway is my choice of cpu and Graphic card good? which mobo would go with them? Is having DDR3 that important?

oh yeah and if you have any links that can explain mobo's grap cards cpu's cases and all that crap, would be great

im a bit late but....

now is not the best time to spend that much money as all the good stuff isnt out yet and at present you only need to spend £800 to get a stupid fast machine.

we are all waiting on a new batch of 45nm CPU'S from intel, in the mean time a q6600 go or a E3850 are bloody fast anyway.

ram is pretty straight forward, you cant go wrong with 2gb or 4gb of corsair and its cheap, ddr3 is a waste of time.

graphics cards wise its a 8800gt/gts they give migh on GTX performance for peanuts and theres nothing else worth getting at present unless you are on a budget (which you are not).

so unless you want to wait a little longer, just save your money and get whats mentioned above for half the money

[McPhee]

If you really want to spend £2K then buy a reasonably priced PC and spend to rest on a top of the range monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers.

24" Dell 2407 Monitor - £420 (heck, you could even get a 30" cinema display)
Logitech Dinovo Edge Keyboard - £100
Logitech MX Revolution Mouse - £60
Logitech Z5500 5.1 Speaker System - £220

Good peripherals make a noticeable difference, an Intel Extreme over a Core 2 does not. Same goes for DDR3, SLi, SSD and countless other overpriced technologies.

[smellybumlove]

If you really want to spend £2K then buy a reasonably priced PC and spend to rest on a top of the range monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers.

24" Dell 2407 Monitor - £420 (heck, you could even get a 30" cinema display)
Logitech Dinovo Edge Keyboard - £100
Logitech MX Revolution Mouse - £60
Logitech Z5500 5.1 Speaker System - £220

Good peripherals make a noticeable difference, an Intel Extreme over a Core 2 does not. Same goes for DDR3, SLi, SSD and countless other overpriced technologies.

24'' was the best thing i bought for my p.c so far, i beg to differ on speaker choice though.
I reccomend a proper surround amp for £200ish and a decent set of speakers all running through a high end audio card via coaxial or optical out!

[[R4A]Bigman]

You could build an almost identical system to mine!

Start with the case, Lian Li PC-A05B is tiny for a full sized ATX case, and is really good at cooling the cpu / memory and that (20*C idle ). Although can get hotspots at the top with hot running graphics cards. You can either mod in a fan (what I intend to do) or if you go on performance pc's they sell a replacement side panel for $29.99 that has holes in it for you.

The case is fantastic! Lol, mini rant. Whatever happens, don't get a P180 I had one, they're great but you will cry every time you end up going to a LAN.

For your budget I might push the boat out and get a 24" monitor, you may well be able to afford a nice one - my 22" samsung 226bw does everything I want and it's now just shy of £200.

The rest of my specs are in my sig. But it serves me very well for LANs and storing bits

Word, Dreaming. Didn't realise you were such an avid poster on here

Anyways, to the OP - I'd go with a nice mix of what everyone has said. To clarify:

You can make an absolute steaming gaming machine for <£1000 with change. And something which I don't think everyone else has made absolutely clear is you cannot future-proof gaming machines. It is, almost by definition, a complete fantasy. I don't blame you at all, I was once in your shoes and thought about things your way, but it is far better to spend say 1/3 of your budget now, then 6-12 months down the line, sell it (it will still be worth something) and make the next upgrade.

If you try to build a machine that will last you will be sorely disappointed when 12-18 months down the line your £600 graphics card doesn't have hardware support for ShaderModel 12 and DirectX 15 and it is basically worth more to you as a cup holder than on ebay. I know, I've been there, I've learnt the hard way (several times over).

So, as everyone else has said, I'd recommend hanging on for the new Intel chips.
After that, hit yourself up with something like what Dreaming suggested (though with the better processor). And I'd recommend either getting a high-memory version of the 8800GTS, or the 8800GT. Then buy yourself a 24" monitor (Dell perhaps?) and a GOOD power supply (Corsair are my personal favourites at the moment).

Final thing to note really, I'd definitely get yourself a good case that will last and is not too heavy. For me, that only means one thing - Lian Li. I cannot praise them highly enough, and you will end up keeping it for years and years. My PC-07 has now had 3 completely different systems in it and has lasted me around 4 years - and I cannot possibly even consider getting it replaced because it is still serving me so excellently.

I'd imagine that lot (including monitor) should set you back around £1200, or £800 excluding monitor. Keeping the monitor, psu, case, optical and hard disks when you upgrade, your next rig will still kick arse and probably only set you back around £500 in 12 months time, and I'd imagine your old kit will still be worth maybe £100-200.

Good luck with it