martinpaling
New member
I hear what you are saying, I really do. But as someone who has not owned a Windows machine for 20 years it's a big step. I might try and see if I can find a capable friend.
What Desktop
- Thread starter martinpaling
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I hear what you are saying, I really do. But as someone who has not owned a Windows machine for 20 years it's a big step. I might try and see if I can find a capable friend.
amigacooke
Well-known member
martinpaling
New member
Fair enough, good luck.
I need it... this PC buying business seems as simple as a tax form
amigacooke
Well-known member
I have built my own PCs in the past, and taken bits out and put new bits in. Trouble is, if it goes wrong you don't know what to blame, hardware, OS or other software (generalisation).
If you really are stuck on a PC,
, I'd buy a finished system from someone so if it does go wrong, you can always take it back and get them to fix it. Except that if you get one of the ROG (Republic Of Gamers) mobo's as with the ASUS one I linked to, they have a diagnostic LED on the mobo to alert you to any problems.
Also, if something goes wrong and you take a pre built PC into the shop and you get charged for the repair, you have no idea if there was really a problem or if you are being ripped off. When my old PC crashed 3 years ago a local PC shop told me the HDD was "fried" , replaced it and charged me £60. When I started building my own PC (and gained more knowledge) I blew the dust off the "fried" HDD and found....there was nothing wrong with it.
martinpaling
New member
Ok, so things have changed a little as my wife's car needs a new cpu... :n:
So i'm going to build a machine... buy parts slowly
I was looking at a post by RRSignal in another thread where he listed what he'd put together
Where would you guys start... obviously the case.. but what next?
Also does anyone have any suggested changes to that list?
Once again guys thanks for all your input!
So i'm going to build a machine... buy parts slowly
I was looking at a post by RRSignal in another thread where he listed what he'd put together
Where would you guys start... obviously the case.. but what next?
Also does anyone have any suggested changes to that list?
Once again guys thanks for all your input!
I had a look at the mobo and Scan.co.uk quote it at £78 which is very cheap as it has good reviews and specs.
128GB SSD? Absolutely! Put Windows and Trainz on the SSD and watch it rock.
I was curious why there was such a large PSU for a PC with not much hardware till I noticed the Nvidia GPU....sorry to sound like an ATI Radeon fanboy but Nvidia cards have a reputation for being power hungry and this chart http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/01/25/nvidia-geforce-gtx-560-ti-1gb-review/8 confirms it.
My hardware laden rig only has a 700 Watt Coolermaster modular PSU (modular is essential) but runs very smooth.
As for the case I dig the Coolermaster HAF series which are very customisable but if it is style you are after the NZXT Phantom case http://www.ebuyer.com/257230-nzxt-phantom-special-edition-case-white-with-red-stripe-phan003rd is probably the best looking case you can get.
128GB SSD? Absolutely! Put Windows and Trainz on the SSD and watch it rock.
I was curious why there was such a large PSU for a PC with not much hardware till I noticed the Nvidia GPU....sorry to sound like an ATI Radeon fanboy but Nvidia cards have a reputation for being power hungry and this chart http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/01/25/nvidia-geforce-gtx-560-ti-1gb-review/8 confirms it.
My hardware laden rig only has a 700 Watt Coolermaster modular PSU (modular is essential) but runs very smooth.
As for the case I dig the Coolermaster HAF series which are very customisable but if it is style you are after the NZXT Phantom case http://www.ebuyer.com/257230-nzxt-phantom-special-edition-case-white-with-red-stripe-phan003rd is probably the best looking case you can get.
BTW as Columbo would say "just one more thing!" No disrespect to our brothers on the other side of the pond but we pay 20% VAT over here so they get things a LOT cheaper over there, especially considering much of the technology is made there. The i5 2500 is quoted on Newegg.com at $209.99 which converts to £132. However I looked on Amazon and the same CPU is there with a cheapest price of £160 ! Bit of a difference? So , when a Trainzer from the USA suggests a "cheap" PC , remember that it may not be quite as cheap in Blighty. We have HS2 to pay for.
martinpaling
New member
Ah but don't worry once the second world war is over and rationing has ended i'm sure we'll see an end to Purchase Tax/VAT...
Oh wait...
Good point though!
That NZXT Phantom is funky... looks like a Storm Trooper!
I think you'll find that very little, if any, PC technology is american made anymore, it's all from China, Thailand, Taiwan and (South) Korea. Even intel's CPUs are designed in Israel, manufactured in Malaysia.
Almost all software/service-oriented these days, the hardware manufacturers are largely gone, except for the occasional 'corporate headquarters'. Apple doesn't really do any manufacturing at all, for example, it's all done by Foxconn. Heck, if you order an iPad it doesn't once touch apple, it'll be shipped to you direct from Foxconn's factory in china.
BTW I just found this fabulous new Thermaltake case at an unfeasibly low price http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem=&item=310373577836 :mop:
Here's a desktop deal from Dell.
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellst...=soho&cs=ussoho1&dgc=BA&cid=80659&lid=2047850
Not a bad system. The only change I made was to the video card from the built-in to a 512MB card. Personally I'd change this too to a 1 or 2GB later on if I got this system.
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellst...=soho&cs=ussoho1&dgc=BA&cid=80659&lid=2047850
Not a bad system. The only change I made was to the video card from the built-in to a 512MB card. Personally I'd change this too to a 1 or 2GB later on if I got this system.
William0d0
Active member
The limited selection of video cards probably means it comes with a puny power supply, so add that to the upgrade list. Does it even use a normal power supply or is it some proprietary thing?
I guess 4 gigs of ram would work great if you don't mind lots of swapping. So add memory to the list of upgrades.
Is that a 5400 or 7200 rpm hard drive, might need some adjustment there also.
You're probably right about the power supply, although the newer Dells do come with a decent power supply as I've found with the ones in the office., and it didn't look proprietary to me. Anyone could chat with the Dell rep before plunking down the cash on the machine anyway to see if it's worth it.
The memory can be added to the first machine posted when purchasing. This increased the cost by a few bucks. I left the defaults with this one. The D780s which we use at work, come with 4 or 8 GB and are not bad for office machines. They do have plenty of slots including a PCIE x 16, which is good for a video card. There's no capability for 2 cards, but who cares if the machine is used for Trainz. The built-in Intel Graphics chip sucks anyway for Trainz so it's not worth using that.
John
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No offense intended, but I wouldn't pay $300 for that let alone $700+. One would be much better off getting the lowest- or second-lowest-end barebones i5 kit out of Tigerdirect and having it built with a $30 GPU and OEM copy of Windows. They'd have a much better system for less.
I'm not even getting into the disadvantages of OEM systems in general either.
I have the empty case from my second PC and I am thinking about rebuilding it as a low cost high spec PC, and just found this insanely cheap 8GB RAM kit on Amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/G-Skill-Rip...G4ZO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1330891856&sr=8-4
At such a low price there'd hardly be any point in making do with 4GB?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/G-Skill-Rip...G4ZO/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1330891856&sr=8-4
At such a low price there'd hardly be any point in making do with 4GB?
I agree and have built my systems myself, but then there are people who don't want to be bothered with putting the kit together themself, or they are afraid their ability isn't there to do it even though the process isn't difficult at all.
Sometimes the bare-bones systems from the major suppliers aren't that bad. You just need to pick carefully.
Speaking of bare-bones. NewEgg has nice base kits to start with as well. I forgot about this, but I don't think they ship overseas.
John