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Thread: Self Build or Pre Built? £500

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    Self Build or Pre Built? £500

    Hello,

    I've been keeping my Laptop going for 6 years (had to replaced HDD and CD Drive), but I don't think it is going to hold out much longer.
    So I'm looking to get a new Desktop this time. I would be looking to spend roughly £500 including a monitor, but not OS.

    Use:
    I don't play any games
    Self employed so I would use it for home office (spreadsheet, light graphics editing)
    Run Ubuntu as main OS, but virtulise xp to put songs on iPod + Print!!!!!
    Store 250Gb music and 300Gb films, currently stored on two external hard drives.

    Requirements:
    Dual head graphic card. I have an old 15" LCD monitor I would like to use along with a new 19"+

    1 TB HDD, I would interested in Raid 1 maybe buying another 1TB later when funds allow.

    I would like to reduce fan noise as much as possible, not bothered about hard drive clicks and silent isn't really in my price range.

    I'd like a SSD to run OS off, as I would have ubuntu and /home on separate partitions anyway. BUT I'm guessing it's not worth spending 1/3 of my budget on.

    DVD Burner, only occasional use.

    Not to bothered about ugly cases.

    Oh and a wireless networking card.

    Could someone spec me a self build, or would it be better to buy a pre build one and add a couple of bits?

    Thanks

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    Re: Self Build or Pre Built? £500

    I expect CAT-THE-FIFTH will be along shortly and tell you whats best to go for component wise.

    I will say its better to self build than to go and buy one off the shelf. With many off the shelf system you won't get a system with a graphics card that will handle two displays as it will be using an on board card. You'll also not have to endure the endless amounts of bloatware that these system put on.

    To keep costs down an AMD rig will do the job for you I expect.

    If your using Linux as your primary OS you'll need to makesure that if your using Wifi then a compatible card is needed for your chosen Distro. Although things may have changed on that score recently.

    Seriously, building you own isn't as hard as it used to be, its very much like lego bricks these days

    The bloke down the road from me took the plunge the other week and built his own, normally he'd get me to do it for him but he said it was one of the easiest things he'd ever done

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    Moosing about! CAT-THE-FIFTH's Avatar
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    Re: Self Build or Pre Built? £500

    What I would look at getting:

    AMD Athlon II X4 620 ~ £75

    http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

    The Athlon II X4 is a quad core processor with virtualisation support.

    Asus M3N78-VM ~ £49

    http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...-RAID-uATX-VGA

    Has onboard Nvidia graphics and should support dual monitors.

    1TB Samsung F3 ~ £55

    http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

    4gb PC2-8500 DDR2 RAM ~ £53

    http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

    32GB Corsair Extreme Series X32 SSD ~ £98

    http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

    SATA DVD rewriter ~ £16

    http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

    Coolermaster Elite 330 case ~ £25

    http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

    Corsair HX450W ~ £52

    http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/450W-...-year-Warranty

    Acer V223WBbd ~ £108

    http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

    Edimax wireless card ~ £12

    http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Edima...eless-PCI-Card

    It will work fine under Ubuntu.

    The total comes to around £543 excluding postage.

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    Re: Self Build or Pre Built? £500

    I was impressed with the ASUS M3A78-EM that I recently used in a build for a friend.

    :¬}

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    Re: Self Build or Pre Built? £500

    +1 on the X4 620

    Can't say I agree with the inclusion of an SSD sucking up a fifth of the budget.

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    Re: Self Build or Pre Built? £500

    I think that even if you spent the £100 on a better cpu you wouldnt notice the speed difference
    that you would from just having the OS on an SSD.

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    Re: Self Build or Pre Built? £500

    Quote Originally Posted by Kumagoro View Post
    I think that even if you spent the £100 on a better cpu you wouldnt notice the speed difference
    that you would from just having the OS on an SSD.
    True but situational. If you do graphics work as the OP states I would still prefer a better CPU or even a cheap discrete GPU to take advantage of new features in things like Photoshop CS4 (not sure if integrated graphics can help you there). In any case, it sucks to pay over £3 per GB.

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    Re: Self Build or Pre Built? £500

    Useful thread - I turned on my system this morning and nothing happened - it's been going well since March 2006 - so I'm quite pleased really. I suspect the CPU has just died - it had been running 700mhz beyond spec for 3.5 years.
    I'm quite behind the times with doing self-builds, so Cat-The-Fifth's list seemed quite useful. I just want to know - do all AM2+ motherboards support AM3 cpus?
    Excuse my ignorance
    Wise old man won't you help me please? My house is a squash and a squeeze.

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    Re: Self Build or Pre Built? £500

    "- AM3 processors work on AM2+ motherboards due to the presence of both the DDR2 and DDR3 memory controller
    - AM2+ processors do not work on AM3 motherboards due to the lack of the DDR3 memory controller"

    from Wikipedia. In some cases you may need a BIOS update but otherwise they should work together.

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    Re: Self Build or Pre Built? £500

    The only good thing about buying a system from a retailer is bundled software you can get. Some packages offer alot of software that can cost hundreds of pounds. Other than this, its always best to build your own rig, even if your a notice as PC building is nothing more than a simple puzzle.

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    Re: Self Build or Pre Built? £500

    It's like cooking your own food, there's a certain satisfaction knowing what's inside and that it's your own work

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    Re: Self Build or Pre Built? £500

    Thanks for the spec and the comments.
    It all looks good, I will just double check Ubuntu won't cause any problems with the spec.

    Nice to see SSD is doable and worthwhile.

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    Re: Self Build or Pre Built? £500

    Hello.

    Sorry to be a pain, but I never got round to getting myself a new PC, I've kept my old one going for another year, but I don't think I will last much longer!

    I'd defiantly like to self build, so I was wondering if someone could spec me up with a 2010 model to fit the same requirements as before.

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    Re: Self Build or Pre Built? £500

    This is what I would get:

    AMD Athlon II X4 640 ~ £76

    http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

    OR

    AMD Athlon X3 445 ~ £58

    http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

    MSI 870-C45 ~ £47

    http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/MSI-8...-SATA-RAID-ATX

    4GB 1600MHZ DDR3 ~ £61

    http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

    Run this at 1333MHZ using lower latencies.

    Palit G210 graphics card ~ £28

    http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

    Silverstone PS-01B-W ~ £31

    http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

    380W Antec EarthWatts EA380D Green ~ £34

    http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

    There is also the Corsair CX430W but this actually looks inferior to the Corsair CX400W.

    60GB Corsair Force F100 ~ £92

    http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

    1TB Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3 ~ £41

    http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

    Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE ~ £13

    http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Samsu...SATA-Black-OEM

    22" Iiyama PLE2208HDD ~ £109

    http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/22-Ii...80-100001-HDCP

    Edimax EW-7711In 150Mbps wireless 802.11b/g/n 32 bit PCI adapter ~ £13

    http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Edima...it-PCI-adapter

    The total comes to around £527 to £545 excluding postage.

    With a few more posts you can get free postage from Scan:

    http://forums.hexus.net/scan-care-he...-delivery.html
    Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 17-10-2010 at 11:42 PM.

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    Re: Self Build or Pre Built? £500

    There is also the Corsair CX430W but this actually looks inferior to the Corsair CX400W.
    Quite correct CAT these ones are made by CWT and no longer have all japanese caps, lost the 80+ rateing and the warranty is down to 2 years.

    I'd stick with the rest of Cat's basic build
    Maybe swap the motherboard to a:
    Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Gigab...SATA-RAID-mATX
    £20 more but the onbaord should be fine for two monitors so you can drop a seperate graphics card

    Then move down to an mATX case
    Coolermaster Elite 340 On "today only" £27

    Add in a Two fans
    Silverstone FN122 £4.77 each http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/120mm...bearing-design (900rpm and near slient)
    Or Akasa Smokey Grey AK-191-SM £4.21each http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/120mm...value-case-fan (1200rpm very quiet)

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    Re: Self Build or Pre Built? £500

    Thanks for all the info. I will get ordering.

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