I need to know if I can get a computer that will run trains for £500

I would like to try to assemble a computer my self its just the thought of doing something wrong when assembling it. When assembled not knowing how to set it up right How would this setup sound Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 Skt AM3+
- AMD 760G + SB710 Chipset AMD FX 4100 Quad Core Processor (Skt AM3+)
- 4 cores @ 3.60GHz 500 watt psu Liteon Ihas124-19 sata cd/dvd writer
8 gb Corsair Vengance Memory Wd 500 sata Hard drive
Radeon Hd 6770 Graphics card Total From Novatech £425
I would be grateful for any opinions Les

Have a read of tomshardware on power supplies. Some were unable to deliver their quoted wattage. I'd prefer a solid brand name on the power supply.

I'd go Intel on the cpu, the new ones tend to be more power efficient which affects the size of the power supply and price performance is good again see Toms comparison.

If you really want to do something now I'd think it terms of a second hand Hard Disk, I've got three old sata hard drives lying around in boxes I think two are new replaced under warranty ones you could have for free but the postage from Canada in a suitable box would be to expensive. I'm sure there are people in the UK in a similar position.

Cheerio John
 
Have a read of tomshardware on power supplies. Some were unable to deliver their quoted wattage. I'd prefer a solid brand name on the power supply.

I'd go Intel on the cpu, the new ones tend to be more power efficient which affects the size of the power supply and price performance is good again see Toms comparison.

If you really want to do something now I'd think it terms of a second hand Hard Disk, I've got three old sata hard drives lying around in boxes I think two are new replaced under warranty ones you could have for free but the postage from Canada in a suitable box would be to expensive. I'm sure there are people in the UK in a similar position.

Cheerio John

Good point about hard drives, over here we get quite a few PC markets in various places, best deal I ever had was 8 X 80GB IDE drives, from dead server for £5 untested. The guy selling them reckoned they would only work in a raid configuration. Six worked perfectly after resetting the drives using the manufactures software and reformatting, two had bad sectors so just removed the circuit boards for spares. Still using four of them in one of my Linux boxes, been running for years now.

I've just given my last decent spare Sata drive away to tide someone over until the drive prices come down.

Anyway you often get traders selling second user stuff with a warranty at these markets, mostly system pulls from upgrades.

Power supplies I agree about, I had a couple of 500 watt ones, supplied with cases, that couldn't cope with a GTS450, not enough amperage available on the 12 volt rail, wasn't really expecting them to be much use given the total cost of both case was lower than the cost of a cheap power supply, good cases though, surplus from a local bankrupt system builder.
 
I would like to try to assemble a computer my self its just the thought of doing something wrong when assembling it. When assembled not knowing how to set it up right How would this setup sound Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 Skt AM3+
- AMD 760G + SB710 Chipset AMD FX 4100 Quad Core Processor (Skt AM3+)
- 4 cores @ 3.60GHz 500 watt psu Liteon Ihas124-19 sata cd/dvd writer
8 gb Corsair Vengance Memory Wd 500 sata Hard drive
Radeon Hd 6770 Graphics card Total From Novatech £425
I would be grateful for any opinions Les

If you read the computer magazines PC Format and Custom PC they both have regular features which tell you how to build various types of PC from Basic to Elite. If you follow their articles you can hardly go wrong.
 
I Just wrote a list of parts that |I thought would be adequate for my budget went to local computer shop with the list and the prices quoted by dabs novatech ect asked if they could get me the parts listed and how much for assembly. They came back to me and said it would not be worth there while to get the parts as they would not be able to beat the price. But they would assemble the computer and burn it in and run assembly checks for £70 plus VAT Total £84. I thought if I have to buy the bits myself is it really necessary to take it to them for assembly and can any one explain to me what they mean by Burning it in and what would the checks be. I know That I seem to be dripping on for ever about this Damned computer But I want to get it right. Les
 
By "Burning it in" they probably mean the thermal compound on the CPU needs to be "burned in".
£70 for assembly doesn't sound too bad as long as they give you a guarantee?
Would they take £70 total cash?
 
I suppose thinking about it its not too bad. Nice thought about the VAT but noway they were adamant. The only thing they would garrentee would be the assembly they said as I would be buying the parts It would be down to me. Les
 
By "Burning it in" they probably mean the thermal compound on the CPU needs to be "burned in".

They probably just mean a standard 'burn-in', which is where you leave it running something intensive for a few hours (usually up to 24), so that it can highlight any faults in the motherboard, cpu or ram. It doesn't *need* to be done, it just makes it easier to find defective-on-arrival hardware that might not otherwise show up until after a few weeks.

In the UK this isn't as much an issue as it is in the US, where warranty can be 14-28 days. With a 1 year minimum legal warranty, you can replace that component later anyway, although a burn-in will mean you are reasonably sure that the PC you have is 'working'.

Also, it means that any fault that occurs, will occur in front of people that have the experience to know what is the most likely cause, and will have *some* spares to verify the cause - if your PC goes off and stays off at home, you're left with no real idea as to whether it's cpu, motherboard, ram, video card, or whatever, a PC shop will have parts to replace until they assertain which component failed, and then you can order a replacement part with a fair certainty that you're not trying to replace something that works, or something that is a symptom rather than the cause.
 
Just a comment, technically I am more than capable of putting a machine together and I have done so in the past.

However I had my last machine built, I think they wanted $50 to put it together which wasn't a major sum in relation to the components compared to the hassle of returning something if a component didn't work. Buying over the Internet is fine but if you need to return a hard drive by post it can be a pain to find a suitable box.

In your case 70 quid is a much larger % of the price. I think it depends on your skill set. I've seen an electrical engineer take two years to assemble a kit of parts that would have taken me less than half a day.

There should be a few videos on You-Tube by now to take you through the process.

Basically its screw the motherboard to the case, drop in the video card, and CPU. Screw the hard drive into the case, then connect the wires. I have had the motherboard supplied with a CPU installed before now when purchased together at no extra cost.

The hard drive will need two cables, one power and one SATA as will the DVD drive. The motherboard takes one power connector that is unmistakable, the video card will need a power connector.

Use an antistatic strap when working on the system.

Will you save much money? Dunno but what you will get is higher quality components that more closely match what Trainz requires.

Cheerio John
 
most of this you could get off ebay
i bought a AOC F22+ 21 1/2 inch monitor + 95 p+p

x4 955 phenom 2 3.2GHZ £90
4gb ram £40
500gb HDD £50
gts 450 1GB £85
dvd writer £20
psu 500 or 700 watt (ebay ) £20

400 all in all from my local pc shop and i was ripped off.

i found i could get everything for about 300

but i built it my self
and had a copy of windows
 
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