My new machine

[xdc the doc]

Just to make sure peeps know what they are talking about re price… Lammies set up looks OK – but eggs build is pre overclocked, has a bigger SSD, expensive after market cooler, a GFX card that is much better (twice as expensive at any rate) pre built and has a return to base warranty for the whole system (not just components).

I keep saying this – but the idea that you can build your own system for a lot cheaper than from one of these build companies is in general not true anymore – though people keep coming out with it as if it is true!

re GFX cards. In my mind ATI give better value for money, they are also a must if you want to mine bitcoins (though soon they will be superseded so not a hige factor) NVIDIA has CUDA though – basically if you want to do video stuff… NVIDIA is still the way to go.

If i had the extra money i would go for Eggs system rather than Lammies… bit more future proofed and less could go wrong.

[Gary Goat]

Its also worth noting that nvidia’s 700 series is coming out this month as well as intels next gen chips next month so might be worth waiting a bit before you upgrade.

The GTX 780 will be using the same chip as the titan with less cores active, the 770 will be using a new version of the chip in the current 680 and will perform better.

[bmstalker]

@Gary Goat wrote:

Its also worth noting that nvidia’s 700 series is coming out this month as well as intels next gen chips next month so might be worth waiting a bit before you upgrade.

The GTX 780 will be using the same chip as the titan with less cores active, the 770 will be using a new version of the chip in the current 680 and will perform better.

Nvidia have stated that they are pushing back any new releases until next year. I would have waited if that was not the case for the 700 series GPU.

Re. building your PC being cheaper, for the particular components, a lot of retailers will put together bundles or a system config thing but you will always be cheaper reviewing each individual component on it’s own and selecting it specifically on a bang for buck basis. To get my exact build made for me (with the closest fitting components) would have cost me an extra £2-300. I did actually look at this option as I couldn’t really be bothered to build it but it came down to my deep seeded tightness beating out my laziness in the end so I just built it.

[Lammie]

@xdc the doc wrote:

Just to make sure peeps know what they are talking about re price… Lammies set up looks OK – but eggs build is pre overclocked, has a bigger SSD, expensive after market cooler, a GFX card that is much better (twice as expensive at any rate) pre built and has a return to base warranty for the whole system (not just components).

Only if money is not an issue.The point being, WET was looking for a PC that would play latest titles that wouldn’t also break the bank. Mine was an alternative to what he selected as a pre build and showed where on a tight budget you could make savings. It not about comparing apples for apples per se.

If I set out with a budget of £1000 for agruments sake and compared what I could get from a pre builder versus what I could get for same money if I built it myself then hands down I would get more for the money – fact. I don’t have the overheads of a business, and I dont need to build in margins to make money. They do or they wouldn’t be in business very long.

@xdc the doc wrote:

I keep saying this – but the idea that you can build your own system for a lot cheaper than from one of these build companies is in general not true anymore – though people keep coming out with it as if it is true!

I disagree, I spent months looking at all the options and for the money I wanted to spend, there were too many compromises with pre builds versus buying components and building it yourself. Yes you get a return to base warranty for the first 12 months, but all they are essentially providing is the manufacturer warranty that you get with each component anyway so it’s a mute point.

@xdc the doc wrote:

re GFX cards. In my mind ATI give better value for money, they are also a must if you want to mine bitcoins (though soon they will be superseded so not a hige factor) NVIDIA has CUDA though – basically if you want to do video stuff… NVIDIA is still the way to go.

Agree, generally Nvidia have extra features that AMD(ATI) don’t have. However, there is a premium and depending on which card you go for doesn’t always equate to greater overall performance. Yes it may be future proof the system a bit longer but modern components from a reputable manufacturer generally are much more reliable than the used to be unless you want to overclock beyond the manufacturers core settings. Same applied to CPU’s car engine etc. They are set a core clock speed to maintain the longevity of the product. Bottom line, system builders take the hassle out of the process, but they also do it for a premium.

@xdc the doc wrote:

If i had the extra money i would go for Eggs system rather than Lammies… bit more future proofed and less could go wrong.

Goes without saying, if you have the extra money then you can get what you like. If your on a budget, you have have to choose your hardware carefully and make sure they are all compatible with each other.

I’m more than happy with my choices and they meet my needs and the budget I had available at the time.

[xdc the doc]

I was just worried that folk were saying – oooh that looks expensive… and then comparing it with your system that was a different kettle of fish – thats all.

I suppose it is hard to prove these things definitively. All I know is – for my last comp I looked at pre builds… and i looked at buying the components … and at the end of the day found that I couldnt save any (significant) money doing it myself.

In the old days i would easily save myself 2 or 3 hundred quid on a self build – I just wasn’t seeing that now, but maybe you found better shops than me – I dunno!

You also have to take into account intangibles like warranties and your own precious time. I have better things to do than play computer meccano if I can help it, and a return to base warranty isnt to be sniffed at. Sure… if one component goes down you can replace it – but it aint always that easy to troubleshoot PC problems… and when you start overclocking things there are a lot of factors at play that would make it quite nice just to send the whole system away to be sorted out.

I aint a good example though… I bought a pre build.. then the watercooling block leaked and fried 2 different components and a PSU a year after the warranty ran out 🙂

Pros and cons to either way.

[Alzir]

I thought you were trolling until that post 🙂

You’re right in the sense that it’s a time vs money thing. Luckily I have time to spare, and enough experience to put these things together fairly quickly. I don’t think WET has the same experience, although it’s much easier these days, to the extent it’s almost plug and play easy, but I would never recommend a self build to anyone not confident in it or with little time to spare. I would actually volunteer to put together a build for anyone in xdc except for the cost and logistics of shipping. Guarantee’s apply to components as much as full builds, and fuck knows how that’s a selling point where you live, with logistics in mind.

If I didn’t have the time to research, thenput together my own machine, i’d happily hand over tue cash for the service.

[xdc the doc]

Hey lets put this baby to bed – if any1 can be arsed… go through WETs build.

Prove to me you can get a machine EXACTLY LIKE THIS for at least 200 quid cheaper than PC specialist are selling it for and post links to the components you have sourced.

It needs to be pre overclocked – but plenty of component sellers will sell you overclocked chips.

I would argue that setting up all the system and troubleshooting it is worth a fair bit too – but lets just take that out of the equation.

Genuinely wanting to see an answer to this.

[Gary Goat]

@xdc the doc wrote:

Hey lets put this baby to bed – if any1 can be arsed… go through WETs build.

Prove to me you can get a machine EXACTLY LIKE THIS for at least 200 quid cheaper than PC specialist are selling it for and post links to the components you have sourced.

It needs to be pre overclocked – but plenty of component sellers will sell you overclocked chips.

I would argue that setting up all the system and troubleshooting it is worth a fair bit too – but lets just take that out of the equation.

Genuinely wanting to see an answer to this.

I don’t think you can buy pre overclocked chips on there own as its the motherboard that does all of the overclocking. At the very least you’d be looking at a pre overclocked barebones system but i’ll have a look when i’ve got time and see what i can come up with 🙂

@bmstalker wrote:

Nvidia have stated that they are pushing back any new releases until next year. I would have waited if that was not the case for the 700 series GPU.

http://www.techpowerup.com/183096/nvidia-geforce-gtx-700-series-coming-this-may.html

Should have included that in my first post

[xdc the doc]

@Gary Goat wrote:

I don’t think you can buy pre overclocked chips on there own as its the motherboard that does all of the overclocking. At the very least you’d be looking at a pre overclocked barebones system but i’ll have a look when i’ve got time and see what i can come up with 🙂

Lol – well that goes without saying – you knew fine what i was talking about 😈 – there are a few places around sell you either a barebones rig or just the chip +memory on the MB with cooler I think.

[XDC wild egg tamer]

interesting points being made which is why i posted up regards a new pc. I’m confident enough to build my own rig having done so in the past though may need to read up a little on PCI-E and SATA as my previous build didn’t have any of those lol. My main thing is if i can be bothered to!

Ideally i don’t want to spend any more than £1000 and would happily forego things like overclocked systems in order to keep the price down as i’m sure for what i’d be using it for i’d have little to no need for the extra clock cycles. I may try and source the components separately, perhaps changing the mobo for lammies one and see what the price is to try and make a comparison.

The offer of a win 7 key would be greatly appreciated though not an issue if it can’t be done 🙂

[Lammie]

@xdc the doc wrote:

Hey lets put this baby to bed – if any1 can be arsed… go through WETs build.

Prove to me you can get a machine EXACTLY LIKE THIS for at least 200 quid cheaper than PC specialist are selling it for and post links to the components you have sourced.

It needs to be pre overclocked – but plenty of component sellers will sell you overclocked chips.

I would argue that setting up all the system and troubleshooting it is worth a fair bit too – but lets just take that out of the equation.

Genuinely wanting to see an answer to this.

Your on….

So here is what WET got quoted from pcspecialist-

Case
COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™i5-3570k Quad Core (3.40GHz @ max 4.60GHz)
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPERX BEAST DUAL-DDR3 2400MHz X.M.P (4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 – 2 DVI, HDMI, DP – 3D Vision Ready
Memory – 1st Hard Disk
240GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB 3.5″ SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H40 Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler (£39)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Audio (£32)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT – AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 8 64 Bit – inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build – Approximately 9 to 11 working days
Miscellaneous
FREE METRO: LAST LIGHT GAME with GTX 660 & UPWARDS GPUs!
Quantity
1

Price: £1,317.00 including VAT and delivery.

Spending half an hour or so having a quick scout around….

Case: Cooler Master Sileo 500 £61.79 ebuyer – http://www.ebuyer.com/155062-coolermaster-sileo-500-black-case-no-psu-rc500kkn1gp

Overclocked Motherboard bundle: INTEL IVYBRIDGE Core i5 3570K, THERMALTAKE CONTAC29 Silent Cooler, ASUS P8Z77-V LX (New Z77 Chipset) OR GIGABYTE Z77-D3H (New Z77 Chipset) PATRIOT VIPER RED V3 8GB 1600Mhz – £309.99 Palicomp – http://www.palicomp.co.uk/intel-amd-cpu-bundles-cpu-motherboard-ram-combo/overclocked-intel-core-i5-3570k-ivybridge-bundle/prod_338.html

Graphics Card: PNY GTX 670 XLR8 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card with FREE ASSASSINS CREED III Download Coupon + Metro Last Light game coupon £262.76 ebuyer – http://www.ebuyer.com/368523-pny-geforce-gtx-670-2gb-gddr5-dvi-dvi-hdmi-displayport-pci-e-graphics-gf670gtx2gepb

1st HDD – SSD Samsung 250GB 840 Series SSD £135.78 ebuyer – http://www.ebuyer.com/409850-samsung-250gb-840-series-ssd-mz-7td250bw

2nd HDD Seagate 1TB Barracuda Internal Hard Drive SATA-III 3.5″ Hard Drive, 7200RPM, 64 MB Cache, 1 Year Manufacturer Warranty £49.98 ebuyer – http://www.ebuyer.com/search?sort=price+ascending&a05320=SATA-III&4=1000&subcat=3265&cat=392&page=1

Ist Optical Drive – Blu Ray Drive – LiteOn IHOS104 SATA Blu-Ray Optical Drive | OEM. BD-ROM, DVD-ROM, Up to 4x Blu-Ray Read Speeds, SATA Connection, Software Included. £22.98 ebuyer – http://www.ebuyer.com/339402-liteon-ihos104-sata-blu-ray-optical-drive-oem-ihos104-06

2nd Optical Drive – DVD RW – Liteon Ihas120 20x Dvd±rw (dual ±r)/ram Sata Drive, £14.00 ebuyer – http://www.ebuyer.com/410561-liteon-ihas120-20x-dvd-rw-dual-r-ram-sata-drive-ihas120-04

Power Supply – Corsair TX 650W PSU – 80plus Bronze Certified, 8x SATA Connectors, 2x PCI-Express Connectors, 8x 4pin Molex Connectors, 80plus Bronze Certified Efficiency, A dedicated single +12V rail, ultra-quiet 140mm double ball-bearing fan £71.25 ebuyer – http://www.ebuyer.com/257232-corsair-tx-650w-psu-80plus-bronze-certified-cp-9020038-uk

CPU Cooler – Corsair Hydro H40 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket AM2/AM2+/AM3/AM3+/FM1/775//1155/1156/1366) £38.95 Overclockers – http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-012-CS

Thermal Paste – Arctic Cooling MX-4 Thermal Compound (4g) £8.99 Overclockers – http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=TH-003-AR

Soundcard Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio 7.1 Sound Card – OEM (PCI-Express) (30SB104200000) £35.99 Overclockers – http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=SC-052-CL&groupid=701&catid=11

Operating System – Microsoft Windows 8 64-bit DVD – OEM (Window 7 64-Bit OEM same price) £69.99 – ebuyer – http://www.ebuyer.com/407517-microsoft-windows-8-64-bit-dvd-oem-wn7-00403

Total : £1082.45 Whist not an exact match to the pcspecialist quote, not far off from a quick wizz around the interwibble 😀 So, the above equates to a potential saving of £234.55 and if you looked harder you could probably shave a few more quid of the overall price.

[xdc the doc]

Ohhhh… good effort.

That is a very good match….. EXCEPT.

You have cunningly changed his 2400mhz 16gb ram for 8gb of 1600mhz.

So go to your link… http://www.palicomp.co.uk/intel-amd-cpu … d_338.html and click the option for 16gb of 2100 ram (still not a s good as PC specialist ./ not as good a brand name but let it go.

Adds a cool 80 quid to your build…. total savings now £150 so you fail my challenge. 🙂

Hey – £150 is not to be sniffed at… but I would still conclude that the PC specialist price there is pretty damn good. Whether you think £150 quid is worth a year warranty, the removal of risk of you frying something by accident in the build, and the saving in time that it takes you too build the thing… thats for you to decide.

By the Way WET – I agree with what peeps have been saying about the soundcard – you might as well leave it off. I did buy an expensive sound card as I was using my PC to power a home cinema surround system – but in retrospect it wasn’t worth the cash.

[bmstalker]

Gary, the source quoted in that article doesn’t exist (BSN News), I’m pretty sure that the new cards won’t be out until next year and if they do, I’ll hopefully be able to take advantage of the step up thing where you can swap old cards for new withing 3 months of purchase. It won’t happen though.

edit.

Actually, after a bit more searching, I found their source article. What they are saying is a load of shit, it’s the 700m series that is coming out. It’s the mobile graphics chips coming out that are based on the same architecture as the 600 series. The 700 desktop series will be next year. Stupid news article to whore some website hits.

[bmstalker]

Also, if you want to find the cheapest of each part, use this website

http://pcpartpicker.com/

you can specify criteria for each part and it will show you the selection available at the lowest price. Great site, but I ordered all from the one site. Might help you though WET

[xdc the doc]

@bmstalker wrote:

Also, if you want to find the cheapest of each part, use this website

http://pcpartpicker.com/

you can specify criteria for each part and it will show you the selection available at the lowest price. Great site, but I ordered all from the one site. Might help you though WET

Good site Ben – just looking at it now as I am tempted by a 670 myself. Actually looking at prices it reminds me of another point – that 670 Lammie links to is very cheap – but it only has one small looking fan – there are loads of different versions out there and most people would pay a bit extra to get one of the nicer ones (I am looking at this one) http://www.ebuyer.com/368520-gigabyte-gv-n670oc-2gd-gv-n670oc-2gd

These cost 40-50 quid more than the basic version – so it would be worth you asking PC specialist exactly what brand they are using WET. When I bought my computer from them a few years back I was worried as i was getting a notoriously loud 470 – but I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were going to fit the Palit version of the card with a better cooling set up.

If they are doing the same with their 670s that means that you would have to knock off another 40 or 50 quid from the potential savings from building yourself. Once you are down at the 100 quid mark i reckon you are wasting your time building yourself for sure.

[Author]

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