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How easy would it be for a know-next-to-nothing nob-end like myself to build a PC?
I guess I could get XP from torrent and any other soft I needed but what else do I need?
Obviously I’d need a hard-drive, some ram and a shit hot graphics card not to mention a processing chip and maybe some kind of dvd/cd burner but that’s about the extent of my knowledge.
Can all this stuff be ‘slotted-in’ or do you need some wiring skill?Oh and is it worth doing? Is it cheaper?
Any advice would be much appreciated and if you were to suggest chips or cards I’d be even happier.Thanks in advance.
Pretty much building a PC is fairly easy, since 95% of the components will only go in one way (due to how all the slots are done, ie agp card will only go in an AGP slot so you couldn’t accidently put it in a PCI slot)
Yes it can be alot cheaper than buying from places like alienware/dell etc but lately the prices on pre-built compared to self built have closed together some what over the last few years.
Personally i tend to buy most my stuff from http://www.overclockers.co.uk since its pretty local for me so i can pick the parts up myself, there prices arn’t too bad you can sometimes find cheaper else where but means you gotta search and have things shipped from different places.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Full_Systems.html
If you look at there full systems there not too badly priced and honestly i think if you self built the bits you’d prolly only save %10 which normally there cost for building it for you.
But short rundown on parts needed.
Power Pack (500w+)
CPU (try get duel core)
Motherboard (get one that’s PCI-Express and possibly do SLI and supports duel core naturall)
RAM (loads of different RAM out there depends how good a make you want, try for 2gig on a gaming rig)
Graphics Card (again depends how good you want, 6 series Nvidia’s are still pretty good but you’ll prolly want a 7 series, dunno too much about ATI since i rarely buy them always had Nvidia the last few times i’ve built)
Sound Card (prolly worth just getting the X-Fi stuff, but all depends on how much again you want to spend)
Hard Drive ( good prices at the moment for 200gig + also get SATA)
Floppy Drive (just incase)
Montier (need a new one?)
Keyboard/Mouse (again not really needed if you have one already)
Case (get a decent cooling one with plenty of space inside, best asking around on that one)
Optical Drive’s (DVD Re-Writers that can Double Layer right are pretty good )
Any Extra Fans (to help cooling)But if you in no big rush could be worth waiting another 6-8months DX10 cards will be out (possibly with Havok Pysics chips on them) and so will Windows Vista. Personally i’m waiting till this time next year, so DX10 cards are out and i know what games coming out will really need it
Cheers that’s a brilliant eye-opener and gives me a lot to research.
One more question. I’m based abroad but need an English operating system. If I was to install an English copy of XP would that get everything running ok or would I need to deal with any other issues? (I’d be buying all my hardware over here).
Thanks once again.
English XP will be fine. Assuming you don’t need to switch languages then XP Home edition in English should be OK for you.
The thing you will need to look out for if you got for a SATA drive is that installing XP is not trivial if you are a novice. Do a Google on “installing XP SATA” to get more background.
I would also recommend that you actually buy a copy of Windows XP. Apart from the legalities of bit-torrenting it, the operating system is the one bit of software on your PC you want to be 100% sure is kosher. It really is a false economy otherwise.
or hold your horses and wait for vista and run the risk of being a beta tester.
Where exactly are you at the mo?
I get my stuff here in Spain from a company called Alternate but they are actually german and have outlets in Austria Belgium and the low countries also. Ok the language could be a barrier but If you find what you are after in overclockers then its not too hard to do a search and at least compare european pricesPersonally I would buy from the shops mate – not much of a price difference, and you usually get free tech support. Mesh have an open case policy so you can fuck about with the innards at your leasure, and still have a valid warranty (although you have to pay extra to fix stuff that isnt theirs)… that is the route I would take… and have (but then again I am a complete fuck up when it comes to pcs!)
Cheers everyone. I’m in Japan and I can get English operating system laptops but the shops assume that if you work in Japan you’re a high powered executive knob-jocky and can afford top-of the range laptops with a bunch of software you don’t need and the inability to install decent graphics cards and play games. I can afford it if I save a few months and that’s what I did last time but the problem is I’ve seen Chronic playing Battlefield and I want in. It looks awesome so I’m seriously considering building a desktop.
I can read a bit of Japanese and what I can’t read, the missus can but I don’t want to feel like I’m taking a language lesson every time I install something. I want to enjoy my leisure time.
If their’s no clash between any Japanese bought hardware and English XP it seems self-building is the way to go. I don’t want to wait for Vista because I’m a heavy user of all things bittorrent and I’ve heard dodgy stories about vista checking your licenses before allowing you to update so I’ll stick to XP for the moment.
I’ll definately be using Insane’s tool for my old laptop though 🙂XP also checks your license now before doing updates automatically. There was a thread about this here a couple of months ago.
I agree you should go with XP now rather that wait for Vista. I don’t think the latter will bring much to the party for some time.
ah but do keep checking the torrents and emules for “windows genuine advantage” as it gets hacked every time its updated by XP
got to love them hackers . Keep software developers on their toes 😈
on another note buying hardware in Japan wont make it Japanese with regards to things sutch as bios as the universal language seems to be english 😉Building your own PC doesent seem to be cost effective nowadays – but there are other benefits.
For one… building a PC makes you think a bit about how its put together… and installing all the software yourself means that you have a bit of a clue when things go wrong.
Its one of those processes that act as a sort of “gateway” to further knowledge. Just look at how clueless Turks is whenever something goes wrong with his PC – that should inspire you to do some homework and build it yourself 😈
Japanese systems not only have the japanese language pack set as default but also a modified BIOS – my memory is a bit rusty but the rest of the world has 1 form and japan has 1 which is slightly different which may or may not work with the rest of the worlds stuff. Language-wise you can just set english as the default language though so not a problem.
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