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I posted about a month ago after some advice, finally having time I've priced a computer from chillblast. After peoples opinions on what I've chosen, not ordered yet so time to make changes.
Cheers
If you have any questions about the spec then call CB - they'll talk you through any recommended changes etc. Best to ask now rather than in 1yr when you realise you should've specced a different mobo etc.
Buy a mac
Buy somewhere else.
This is pathetic:
"Are you a real stickler for detail? Then insist on only the finest cable work by employing the services of Chillblast’s resident master system builder!"
Charging you extra for artic silver is also pathetic.
They use a lot of misleading spiel on that webpage to make you spend a little more.
Here is a quite good company for PCs and parts:
Thanks for replies, had a quick look on CCL and put this together quickly
Intel Core i7-2600 3.4GHz Quad Core Processor
GeIL Enhance DDR3 8GB (2x4) PC3 10660 1333Mhz Memory
Asus P8H61 PLUS Socket 1155 Motherboard
Seagate Barracuda© SATA 6Gb/s 1TB Hard Drive
Asus GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB Graphics Card
LG GH22NS70 DVDÝRW SuperMulti 22x Internal Black Bezel (OEM)
Ikonik Taran A20 PC Tower Case
XFX Pro 650W Power Supply Unit
1 Year Return to Base Warranty
TP-Link TL-WN781ND 150Mbps Wireless Lite N PCI Express Adaptor
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (SP1)
60GB OCZ Agility 3 2.5" Solid State Drive
Any opinions on that?? Comes in at £820, already have monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers
cheers
Important question... What do you want to use this PC for? Without knowing that, it could be that you've massively overspecced a machine for your use and could save hundreds of quid, have massively underspecced and would end up changing half of it inside 6 months, or perhaps you might have it just right!
A few things I'd suggest...
Spend money on the things it's harder or more expensive to replace if you wanted to upgrade in the future... With that in mind...
Buy a Z68 chipset Mobo, not an H61. Better for future upgrade potential, if you want to overclock at all, of if you ever want to use an SSD for caching in the future. You might not want to, but they are better boards, and the Mobo is the most important part of the computer. Personally, I'd go Gigabyte, but then again Asus is fine too.
Unless you really will max out all 8 hyperthreaded cores constantly, save the money on the i7 processor and buy an 15-2500k. It's easily overclockable (safely designed to be from the factory) on a P67 or Z68 board, and will save you about £70 over the i7, which you can put to better use elsewhere.
Go for 1600MHz RAM as opposed to 1333. It's not night and day faster, but it has been proved to be a bit faster, and it's barely any more expensive. And get a good name brand, and make sure it's a matched set.
Get a decent power supply. Preferably a highly energy efficient one with lots of relevant connections that is also very quiet, NOT just one with the highest power output rating.
Personally, I'd go for an ATI GFX card over Nvidia, but that is personal preference. I think in the midrange, something like the 6870 is better VFM than the Nvidia equivalents, though at the high end Nvidia do have the performance advantage again.
Get a decent case, not just one that's as cheap as possible. Not only should it last longer and be more resilient to knocks, but if you find a good "silent" case, then it will often help make the computer as near as dammit silent. I hate loud computers!
Verdict is still out on SSD's for me also, not sure they offer the general user any performance advantage that's real (boot load time doesn't really matter other than for bragging rights) over a fast 7200rpm 3.5" HD, and they're a lot less reliable still. This is changing though... I'd love a big, fast one to mess about with if somebody gave me one, but they won't and they're damned expensive, and they still have a relatively high failure rate so I won't be buying one myself.
Buy a decent CPU cooler, not just the stock Intel one. An Arctic Freezer Pro 7 or similar is only £15, but will keep the CPU a lot cooler, and will be a lot quieter. Very good VFM upgrade IMO.
Also get a couple of quiet (BIG) case fans, probably 120mm each. The bigger you can fit the better, also the quieter too.
Anyway... Definitely worth saving the £70 or so on the processor IMO and spreading it out elsewhere, buying slightly better bits here and there...
Hope that has helped!
Oh, and build it yourself... It's VERY easy... Not just saying that either, this time last year I'd never done anything more than changed a couple of RAM sticks myself. Watched a few youtube tutorials, saw how easy it actually is, and built a decent high spec machines myself!
Very easy to build yourself, but if something is wrong (like the first system I did) then you have not got a clue what to do (or swap).
Saying that though, there is almost nothing you can plug in the wrong way wrong, so it is extremely easy.
Depending on what you want to do with it...Dell outlet might be a good source (typing this on a 17" laptop, 8gb ram, core i7, £650 inc vat)
Buy a Z68 chipset Mobo, not an H61. Better for future upgrade potential, if you want to overclock at all, of if you ever want to use an SSD for caching in the future. You might not want to, but they are better boards, and the Mobo is the most important part of the computer. Personally, I'd go Gigabyte, but then again Asus is fine too.
This is a very good point. If i remember correctly, the H61 chipset seriously restricts usability. It's got no SATA 6Gb/s capability, for instance, rendering your SSD useless. Defiantly go for the Z68 or P67.
A SSD would provide the greatest noticeable increase in performance, over any other upgrade in hardware, in a normal desktop environment.
The prices of SSD have dropped massively. Especialy compared to HDD and the increase that they have suffered because of the floods int he far east. Its about £1 a Gb now.
Thanks for replies, PC will be used for a bit of everything, uni work, music, gaming, internet browsing, some photo editing, watching TV and DVDS's as it will be my main TV, so I shall ask for a blu-ray player too.
Have considered building myself, but with my bike that needs building and uni work I don't have the time and won't for the next few months.
After considering what has been mentioned I've came up with this, plus a couple of internal fans extra, advice would be appreciated.
Intel Core i5-2500 3.3GHz Quad Core Processor
8GB Kingston Hyper X Red Limited Edition DDR3 1333Mhz Kit
Asus P8H67-M Socket 1155 Motherboard
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB (7200rpm) SATA 6Gb/s 16MB 3.5 inch Hard Drive
Asus Radeon HD 6770 1GB Graphics Card
LG GH22NS70 DVDÝRW SuperMulti 22x Internal Black Bezel (OEM)
Antec Nine Hundred Two V3 - Midi Tower
XFX Pro 650W Power Supply Unit
CarePack - 1 Year Onsite
TP Link TL-WN881ND 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Express Adapter
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Quiet (Rev 2)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (SP1
Comes in at £760
thanks
Spend money on a decent case and PSU, these will stay with you for a long time if you get good ones.
For psu look for a gold 80+ rated one for energy efficiency. My fave psu brand is corsair, their 650w and 750w ones ate about £80 and are very quiet. Dont bother with the ones with detatchable cables, you can always tuck them somewhere!
Also I tend to include more than one dvd drive in my system, means less swapping of discs and easier backups.
I have an ssd and other than boot i am not sure of benefits!
Spend money on lots of 1600 ram (8gb) is perfect. I have 16gb of corsair ram (it was only £75 and I was rebuilding my pc at the time so thought , why not) the speed difference over 8gb is negligable.
You have the best value processor chosen. Personally I have amd cpu's, but that more out of supporting the underdog rather than buying the best (mind 6 core sounds good and my phenom was only £130).
Building a pc is easy. I get all my bits from ccl, but they are fairly local to me and give fantastic aftersales service.
Motherboards are gigabyte for me currently. Had a bad experience of two failed asus boards last year so have dumped that brand (others will post the opposite if you search I am sure, but thats my experience).
After considering what has been mentioned I've came up with this, plus a couple of internal fans extra, advice would be appreciated.
Intel Core i5-2500 3.3GHz Quad Core Processor
8GB Kingston Hyper X Red Limited Edition DDR3 1333Mhz Kit
Asus P8H67-M Socket 1155 Motherboard
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB (7200rpm) SATA 6Gb/s 16MB 3.5 inch Hard Drive
Asus Radeon HD 6770 1GB Graphics Card
LG GH22NS70 DVDÝRW SuperMulti 22x Internal Black Bezel (OEM)
Antec Nine Hundred Two V3 - Midi Tower
XFX Pro 650W Power Supply Unit
CarePack - 1 Year Onsite
TP Link TL-WN881ND 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Express Adapter
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Quiet (Rev 2)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (SP1
Without risking sounding like a broken record... Go for a Z68 mobo, or a P67 at the very least. H67 and H61 will limit your future upgrade path.
Also get the 2500k processor, not the 250. Few quid more but can be overclocked easily.
Also, if you're gaming, spend the extra on a 6870 over a 6770. About 50% more performance for only about £20 more!
Probably wise to get a 1TB HD or larger too...
Oh and building a PC takes about an hour from scratch... To say you haven't got the time is a null and void argument. Can understand if you can't be bothered though, but it is easy and also you learn a lot about how they work as a result.
mboy +1
The lad talks sense.
😉
Right, after all the advice I've decided to build it myself. I think I've covered everything in this.
Motherboard, RAM, Processor and Cooler in this bundle: Krypton Z68 600i Intel Core i5 2500K 3.30GHz @ 4.60GHz Overclocked Bundle.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-063-OE
Graphics card: HD 6870 – http://www.cclonline.com/product/66370/HD-687A-ZHFC/Graphics-Cards/XFX-AMD-Radeon-HD-6870-1GB-Graphics-Card/VGA0369/
Case and PSU: http://www.ebuyer.com/143854-antec-300-three-hundred-case-0761345-08300-3
Think I've covered everything, do I need anything to build it myself? Also, any good tutorials online??
Cheers
Looks like a good choice to me!
To build yourself....well you just need a couple of hours if you are doing it for the first time.
Just need a philips and a regular screwdriver, maybe some cable ties and something to cut them with if you want to tidy the PSU cables and SATA cables away.
Fit motherboard first (check if the CPU cooler needs a bracket on the back of the motherboard before fitting...most don't these days but check the coolers instructions before fitting the MB into the case.
The hardest bit is often clipping on the PSU coolers retaining clip...can take a bit of pressure.
Take your time to study the leads from the PSU. Its IMPOSSIBLE to plug anything into the wrong place, but easy to miss out stuff that should be plugged in and/or tangle the cables by being sloppy with the order and neatness of your work.
There will be three little wires from the case to plug into the MB: one for the HDD light, one for reset and one for power button.
Your MB manual will guide you through all this.
There will also probably be conectors for external USB on the case or external sound outputs via the front of the case. Your case and MB manual will help here as every case is different.
GFX cards, memory and SATA drives are all just plug and play, really nothing to go wrong.
Modest static precautions are advised (I just touch a naked radiator pipe before starting).
Once everything is plugged in (so thats the big connector on the MB, one or two of the smaller square power leads on the MB, power to the GFX card (it will need a separate power lead if its a chunky one) and power and SATA cable to each HDD and DVD drive then you are ready to load up to install windows.
Easiest way to do this is boot up the PC, while still in the bios screen press DEL or ESC or whatever it says to enter setup.
Then find the settings to alter "first boot device". Change this to CD/DVD.
Then save and reboot with the windows disc in the PC.
Now begins 5 hours of installation and windows downloads and updates!
All easy stuff.
CB may be a small outfit but they're pretty switched on and plenty of their machines get top marks in various reviews. I'm well happy with my build (about 16 months old now).
Thanks for the replies everyone, have started ordering bits today so I'l let you know my experience of building my first computer in a few weeks
:thumbsup:
Don't be afraid to post on here if you need any help/advice at all again...
And FWIW, I learnt how to build a computer off Youtube... Some good (and some bad videos) out there, but I just found this one which is pretty good and should help you a lot...
That video is very helpful, makes it look so easy, quite looking forward to building it myself now...
Mboy knows what he's talking bout. Agree with everything he says.
I've got two upcoming investments, full susser and a new computer so following this thread with interest.
It is easy, makes building bikes look complicated!
The hard part with PC's in general is keeping Windows running well, not building the hardware...
There's no mention of an operating system I could see in your list.
Have you factored that into your budget?
Comment on PSU considered, anyone have any recommendations on a case?? Motherboard will be Gigabyte Z68X-UD3P in this bundle from overclockers with a radeon HD 6870 graphics card.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-080-OE
I already have a copy of windows 7 64bit, just forgot to list it
After a bit of research I have found 2 power supplies for consideration, one the corsair TX 650W
http://www.ebuyer.com/257232-corsair-tx-650w-v2-psu-80plus-bronze-certified-cmpsu-650txv2uk
The second the PC power and cooling silencer MK III
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-014-PP&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=2179
Thanks
Not at home at the moment, will have a look online when I get back. But I'd always go for a coolermaster case myself. Everything is designed to go together very quickly, they're well made, and they offer versions speifically designed to be quiet, which IMO is very important.
PSU wise that Corsair TX650 above will be ideal, though IMO Coolermaster equivalents are usually just as good and a bit cheaper. Got an equivalent spec 650W coolermaster in my PC and it was about £50, same specs, same efficiency, really quiet in use etc.
Gigabyte board you've mentioned is a good board.
6870 is as I mentioned before, probably best bang for buck GFX card on the market right now. It's got 80% of the performance of an NVIDIA 580Ti for 1/3 the price. And 50% faster than the still very good 6770 for only 20 quid or so more! There's not many games will tax a 6870... Just make sure you buy a 600W or above PSU for it...
Actually, now I'm home, have discovered the 6870 needs a minimum of 500W PSU, not 600W. With that in mind, I'd get the following case/PSU bundle, which is a bargain price and quality components...
[url] http://www.ebuyer.com/267881-coolermaster-silencio-550-with-gx-550w-psu-rc-550-kka550 [/url]
The case is very well reviewed, and the PSU is the same as I've got only the 550W version not the 650, but its still got all the same connections etc. and is powerful enough for your needs.
Have just saw that case with the power supply, would it be wise to get an extra fan or 2?? Thanks for your help
Comes with 2x120mm fans already installed. Personally, I wouldn't bother buying any more... Case accepts a max of 3 fans anyway. Got 3x120mm fans fitted inside my own case, and found that didn't need 2 of them at all, so I've unplugged them!
Case just ordered, with free next day delivery!
The 6870 graphics card is the AMD radeon HD 6870?? http://www.cclonline.com/product/66370/HD-687A-ZHFC/Graphics-Cards/XFX-AMD-Radeon-HD-6870-1GB-Graphics-Card/VGA0369/ <