Hi. I am a website design/developer. Currently I use a laptop but want to buy a desktop. Im looking for a monitor of ~28". As for the desktop im looking to be able to play the latest games so that will bump the cost up. Whats the best rig for gaming, photoshop/dreamweaver I could get for ~£500? It seems I will struggle to get a decent gaming desktop for that much? Thanks for all advice. Budget:£500-600 (desktop only) Main uses of intended build: Gaming, Photoshop, Dreamweaver Parts required: All Monitor resolution: 1920x1080 (Don't have it yet but want a 27" monitor) Storage requirements: Don't mind, have a tb external hd.
Hi, need a little more info before we can make suggestions otherwise it's just guess work. When you say 'desktop' do you solely mean a desktop case (horizontal) or can it also be a tower case (vertical). Also is that budget to include a monitor? What games do you play? You might want to look at the buyers guide and get an idea of what you want from the budget build.
Desktop I just mean not a laptop, so tower or horizontal I don't mind, Game wise It would need to be able to cope with the latest. £500ish is just for the computer. Monitor is likely to be £250ish. I checked the buyers guide and it looks pretty good (cheapest one) but I would like suggestions for upping the processor or if possible how much for an intel option.
I'd recommend the following build. A cheap but brilliant quad core, coupled with a moderately decent board, and a brilliantly priced 4GB kit. It's perfect for Photoshop, Dreamweaver and the like, and it won't have any trouble with games. The case is a budget offering but for the build quality and its features, it's brilliant, add Thermaltake 120mm fan included in there, it'll suit this system well. Ontop of that you have a quick and reliable DVD RW and a 1TB Samsung F3 drive, which is very nimble aswell as spacious. And finally, the Gigabyte GTX 460 1GB is probably THE best GTX 460 with all things considered. It's the best overclocker excluding the MSI hawk, it's only a little extra over the cheapest 1GB 460's, and with that little price increase you get a brilliant non-reference heatsink with a factory overclock (which will likely mean nothing once you push past it yourself).
Did you forget the link? EDIT: Thanks just noticed image. Looks good. Would probably downgrade the hd to save some money. Only thing there which looks a bit troubling is the PSU. Seems a bit cheap, no? Otherwise its pretty much exactly what I was wanting.
Originally.. Yes. Damn Sky and thier terrible service, only sites I had access to for the past 2 hours were Ebuyer and Bit-Tech, so I couldn't upload it. Left a monitor out, better at finding HDTV's than monitors I'm afraid.
I'm afraid that PSU is a bit too cheap - it's listed as having only 1x PCI-E power connector, (you'll need 2 of them for the GTX460) and whilst you could use a molex->PCI-e power adapter, they are full of fail, and should not be used in the long term! A good alternative is: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/204353 (at £50 - Although OCZ aren't the most well known for PSU Building, I've never had a problem with an OCZ PSU, other than them being a little noisy) Or http://www.ebuyer.com/product/190751 (at £50 - good brand, but less watts) If you're willing to spend a bit more: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135514 - Corsair are known for quality and reliability or http://www.ebuyer.com/product/191826 - XFX iirc are in fact Seasonic PSUs rebranded/repackaged. Seasonic imo are the best PSU manufactures around. But make sure you check it is a Seasonic-made one, as they have released some in the past which weren't.
Which of the above budget PSUs would you recommend. Im leaning towards the first or last. Also whats the processor like? I've never owned an AMD processor. Is it worth upgrading to : http://www.ebuyer.com/product/190673 On the subject of monitors did you say its best to look for a 1080p LCD tv? Ive always been under the illusion they don't work so well as monitors.
Personally, I think I would go for the Be Quiet - as they generally have a better reputation than OCZ, however you may "need" more wattage than 530. Ideally, a PSU should be running at 50% load - work out your potential load using the free PSU wattage calculator here: http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp If the total is below 400w, then get the Be Quiet - it should be more than ample. We are also assuming that the OCZ can in fact produce 600watts when under full load - but again, who knows? I assume you have no plans to upgrade to a SLi (dual graphics card) setup or alike in the near to mid-future?
Whilst it is an option, I'd advise against downgrading the HDD simply due to the price per gigabyte a HDD of that size offers. 500GB drives for example are only around £10 less. That's half the space just for saving £10. As for the PSU, cheap? Yup, sure is, but it's still a quality power supply, pretty much any Antec PSU is reliable and efficient bar the exceedingly old ones. If you wanted similarly priced alternatives there's a Corsair CX400w PSU for £40, of course the downside here is that there's 100w less to play with, ergo, you have less room for potential upgrades, on the plus side the quality is increased, as is efficiency. Don't worry about the power requirement, that system should consume around 380w under full stress, in relation, amp requirements aren't that high. I highly disagree, it's stable, reliable, has more than enough power, and yes, you would have to use a Molex- PCI-E adapter but I disagree about thier usage, I've been using one on my 8800GTS 512 for the past 2 and a half years, it's been fine. If you were to go with one of those previously mentioned, the OCZ PSU is fantastic, the only problem is it pushes even further over your budget. On the plus side it is pretty damn good, and modular. I wouldn't advise upgrading to that CPU, simply because you're paying so much extra. I'd only recommend buying a BE, if you're going to want the best possible overclocking capabilites from the system. Apart from that it only gives a slightly higher clock and an L3 cache to play with over the Athlon II X4, which won't give a huge performance increase, especially in gaming. As far as monitors are concerned.. I didn't say it would be best to look for a HDTV. I just mentioned I'm only good looking for them, as I'm terrible looking for good priceerformance monitors. 1 vs the other, a monitor will definately give a higher pixel density, but on the other side, a HDTV will give alot more screenspace, for your money, and aslong as you don't go too big, (37" or over) 1920x1080 will look just fine. I myself have been using a 32" HDTV for ages, and it's fantastic for everything, a plus is that IPS panel screens in HDTV's are usually found cheaper than thier monitor bretheren.. Which would greatly help with colour accuracy in Photoshop.
I agree on the HDD note - £10 is not much in the long term, and addionally, would apply the same maths to the PSU - spend £10, and yes - you could have the modular OCZ, or the Quieter Be Quiet. Everyone tries to skip on the PSU, and granted, the Antec isn't a generic PSU, and I too agree it will be stable, but most people will agree with me that the use of a molex->pci-e power adapter is bad practice! However, I respect that Unlinked has a different opinion and experience. But come-on - it's £10 (and another £10 for the extra 500GB as Unlinked mentioned). That is only a few pints at the pub and a few coffees at a cafe!
Yeah Im just not very bothered about hd space, already have 1tb external. Suppose its worth it for £10 though. I think im leaning towards the OCZ PSU. Would there be anything else I need to order to build this? Tools, anti static etc?
If you have a screw driver.. You won't need anything else.. Perhaps a beverage. Although if you want to engage in some decent cable management, you might want some cable ties and bases.. And a pair of scissors.
This Neatens up the job very nicely, additionally aids airflow. I am a little obsessed with cable ties and cable management - sadly I'm always taking my rig apart, so I go through cable ties like I do clean shirts! Anti-static wristbands etc aren't necessary, I bought one about 5 years ago and have never used it - if you're worried about static, just touch a radiator before working with the hardware (this earths you and removes any static electricity). You get used to working in computer parts quite quickly - touch the edges and heatsinks rather than the circuitry itself (although tbh, I've found that touching the circuits itself generally doesn't result in bad times ) The OCZ PSU should do you nicely - I've got 2 OCZ's in my house - a Fatal1ty modular one, and a 500w stealth xtreme, as I said before, I've never had problems. Good luck with your build Cheers, James
Thanks guys, help is greatly appreciated. Just now looking for a cheap standard wireless mouse+keyboard then a monitor.
Hey everyone, posting again with some problems. I have set up the computer which I believe is correct but im not getting any signal on the monitor to get bios. All fans seem to be running, LEDs on motherboard, fans on GPU etc. Any ideas what the problem is? Maybe im doing something completely stupid. Currently connecting monitor to pc via graphics card, DMI to HDMI.
Make sure the card is inserted into the PCI-E slot fully, and make sure any power cords (4pin/6pin/8pin PCI-E and so on) are connected to the card. If you have a speaker, and it's connected to the board, are you getting any beeps out of the system?
I have no speakers attached but the system is beeping when turned on yes. Im pretty sure the card is fully in the PCI-E slot. Manual for graphcs card doest mention any other power cords but the fans on the card seem to be on so it must be powered.
What beep sequences is it giving, if any? Or is it a single beep? Also, that's standard, the PCI-E slot will still be providing power, and the card will initiate the cooling despite the lack of power simply as a safety precaution. If you did buy a GTX 460, you should connect two 6pin PCI-E cables to the card.
Aha, I wondered what those connectors were for. I am now getting a signal to the monitor and its booting but then stalls. It says: Booting from local disk... _ But doesn't change, also my keyboard doesn't seem to be able to do anything. Connected to both usb and into the motherboard.
