Starting small

[bindo]

I'm just about to start building a gaming pc.
I've got £260 at the moment, with about £50 a week to spend on it.
I've already got a good mouse and dvd-writer.
What do you recon I should buy first?
I was thinking of DFI LanParty UT NF4 SLI-D and OCZ 1GB (2 x 512MB) PC3200 Dual Channel Platinum Series EL-DDR REVISION 2 CAS2.
Then maybe get a good case, then move onto an AMD cpu.
Do you recon it's better to save up and buy it all at once...would take a while.. or buy it bit by bit? Suggestions please

[Merlin4458]

buy it all at once m8y, i have the same option u do. But i wanna buy it all together, because by the time u got the last thing the old thing will be out of date

[menthel]

If you have so little money for it why not save up a little more so at least you can get a working computer. Also consider whether you need an sli set up and also such exspensive memory. Are you planning to overclock?

[0iD]

Also check out the Bargain forum regularly & when your post count is high enough, traul the For Sale forum. Bargains to be had second hand, & at least the traders here are less likely to rip you off

[Matt1eD]

As Merlin said, buy all at once.

Most likely thing you won't be able to get new will be your case, otherwise everything will have improved by the time you've finished it. If you have fallen in love with a case (I adore the tsunami dream) then get it now.

[Yohji]

Get it all at once.

I've been getting some parts separetly, but they aren't rebuilding my pc as such, hdd and ram etc.

[nvening]

yep, all at once, there will be better stuff and it will be cheaper then, how much you think you ant to spend?

[bindo]

Yeah I've fallen in love with 2 cases;
CoolerMaster Stacker STC-T01 with Side Window - Blue Trim(mnnn blue strips ) and the tsunami dream.
I was going to be spending about £1500 on it, yeah i'll be overclocking it.
I'll prob have about £1000 in 2 month's time, should I wait to see what the ATI's version of SLI's going to be like?
I think I'll buy the majority of it together, I need to have it all done by september, for uni .

[nvening]

the stacker is much better

[skuzgib]

the stacker is much better

In your opinion...

[skattrd]

Also check out the Bargain forum regularly & when your post count is high enough, traul the For Sale forum. Bargains to be had second hand, & at least the traders here are less likely to rip you off

I totally agree with this, 99% of stuff I buy is secondhand from forums and it saves me a bundle.

[malfunction]

If you can't get it all at once the things that I would buy now are the case, PSU and any after market cooling (CPU, chipset, VGA cooling) because these will stay more static in terms of price and features. I'd also buy RAM at the moment - normal RAM too - as if you're on a tight budget the better performing RAM just isn't worth the premium. Especially when normal stuff will overclock anyway. When you come to buy a CPU and a GFX card look at bang / buck and 'overclockability' - so really you want a venice or san diego core 939 chip... And when you do get it all by all means overclock it but don't go bonkers - basically what I'm saying is: if you're on a budget - can you afford to replace anything if you kill it?

[speedy_s]

For mem i recommend the OCZ Value series which has VX chips and can overclock a lot and are quite cheap here is the review:
http://anandtech.com/memory/showdoc.aspx?i=2392

[nvening]

In your opinion...

Unless you dont want the better case, if i like cr*p stuff then...

[Meiapaul]

Well, one could argue the Stacker is too big and heavy for taking to LANs and the like, so the Tsunami is the better of the two. The stacker is also bitchingly expensive, the £40 difference would buy a HDD or something. I'd say the Lian-li V1000 is better looking and better built than both of them, but its really really expensive, which might be out of range. Its like saying a ferrari is better than a ford...of course it is better, but its simply not practical sometimes. You shouldn't just force your opinion on everyone else and expect them to agree

[0iD]

If you're lan gaming and tower cases seem too big & cumbersome then maybe considder SFF? Make perfectly good gaming rigs.