PC building on a budget

[16Vrhys]

i fancy having a go at building up a PC , i have an old pc sitting in the cubard is it better to build around this re case it etc to make it look newer and upgrade a few bits

 

or start from scratch , starting from scratch using second hand parts etc what is a good price to be looking at on spending for a budget but good spec pc ?

 

just so i know what sort of costs are involved

[PeeWee]

If you want a project PC start from scratch & use new parts. Its really not worth buying used stuff tbh as new parts are sourced cheaply enough & if your new to this you don't want to be fault finding possible faulty used components.

Buy your parts each payday staring with your choice of case, motherboard & processor.

Decide your route AMD or Intel 32bit or 64bit. Then you can build on it each month moving onto memory, then Hard drive. Follow this with your choice of graphics card & then your monitor (minimum 19" are cheap enough new now)

[Danny1107]

same as what peewee said, start from scratch, I'm building a medium budget PC will cost me about £500-600 in total but will be worth it in the end, I'm short on cash so I'll just be buying parts as and when I can

basic spec of what I'm building

4gb ram

2.6ghz processor (intel I5)

1024mb graphics card (ati)

1tb hdd

 

will eventualy be used through a hdtv, and will upgrade the ram to 8gb eventualy, and possibly twin graphics cards (ati crossfire)

 

theres people on here who will give you good advice, its where I got my advice from

Edited December 8, 2009 by Danny1107

[PeeWee]

same as what peewee said, start from scratch, I'm building a medium budget PC will cost me about £500-600 in total but will be worth it in the end, I'm short on cash so I'll just be buying parts as and when I can

basic spec of what I'm building

4gb ram

2.6ghz processor (intel I5)

1024mb graphics card (ati)

1tb hdd

 

will eventualy be used through a hdtv, and will upgrade the ram to 8gb eventualy, and possibly twin graphics cards (ati crossfire)

 

theres people on here who will give you good advice, its where I got my advice from

 

In all fairness I wouldnt call that medium budget, its quite high spec for budget, I guessing your going to us windows7 64 bit then?

 

You can build a good budget system for less than £300 not including monitor.

[16Vrhys]

so if i was to buy a bit or two a month how much i looking at for a medium spec pc ?

[PeeWee]

so if i was to buy a bit or two a month how much i looking at for a medium spec pc ?

 

 

Like I said, aim for around £300 minus screen.

Explain your usuage to give me a better idea?

Edited December 8, 2009 by PeeWee

[Danny1107]

same as what peewee said, start from scratch, I'm building a medium budget PC will cost me about £500-600 in total but will be worth it in the end, I'm short on cash so I'll just be buying parts as and when I can

basic spec of what I'm building

4gb ram

2.6ghz processor (intel I5)

1024mb graphics card (ati)

1tb hdd

 

will eventualy be used through a hdtv, and will upgrade the ram to 8gb eventualy, and possibly twin graphics cards (ati crossfire)

 

theres people on here who will give you good advice, its where I got my advice from

 

In all fairness I wouldnt call that medium budget, its quite high spec for budget, I guessing your going to us windows7 64 bit then?

 

You can build a good budget system for less than £300 not including monitor.

 

its a medium budget compaired to some of the ready built gaming systems i was looking it a while back

you can get a good spec for alot less, but for what I want the computer for and for how long it would last me I thought I might aswell go for a higher spec, and yes I'll be using windows 7 64bit

 

depends what its going to be used for, if its not for gaming then you dont need the high spec graphics card, and if you wont be saving alot of music/films on the system then you dont really need a big hard drive

[markbsi]

8gb of ram is waste of time as a 64bit machine it will only recognise 6gb, 32bit machine only see 3.25gb the rest is not used at all.

[Stu]

8gb of ram is waste of time as a 64bit machine it will only recognise 6gb, 32bit machine only see 3.25gb the rest is not used at all.

 

Incorrect statement #2 for tonight... 64-bit can address much higher than 6GB, depending on operating system.

[caled]

Do they still sell 32bit processors?

[Simonez]

Do they still sell 32bit processors?

 

yer ebay dude

 

and ive got 12gb running sound on a system ive just built, and it shows it all on win7

 

memory is cheapish so may aswell get 8gb! it will use it

Edited December 23, 2009 by Simonez

[mclovin9091]

8gb of ram is waste of time as a 64bit machine it will only recognise 6gb, 32bit machine only see 3.25gb the rest is not used at all.

 

Incorrect statement #2 for tonight... 64-bit can address much higher than 6GB, depending on operating system.

 

Yep according to Mr Gates the following is true:

 

* Vista Basic 64-bit: 8 GB of RAM

* Vista Home Premium 64-bit: 16 GB of RAM

* Vista Business/Enterprise/Ultimate 64-bit: 128+ GB of RAM

 

Granted there aren't any Motherboards that can hold any where near 128GB but it wont be long.

 

As for the OP if you can/need to start from scratch then thats best, also save up and buy everthing at once, there will always be some component that is just a little bit more expensive but also better but stick to budget. A budget of £500 will get a decent CPU, GPU, 1TB storage (min) DVD RW, 4GB ram, decent motherboard, budget 19" monitor. I currently have a AMD dual core 5200+, AmD Radeon 4870HD, 4GB ram, 22" widescreen monitor (resolution 1900*1080)and i can play the latest games fairly well with decent graphic settings i.e Dirt 2 and COD MW2.