[Rick Hughes[_5_]]

Been a number of years since I have built a PC from scratch .. had to
feed in loads of FD's to load Dos and W 3.1 :-)

I need a new PC at home, I have my spec sorted for a W7 64bit (apart
from case), and just wondering whether it's worth getting all the parts
and assembling yourself.
Or buying form one place and get them to assemble ... (Overclockers
assemble for £70 for example)

If they assemble .. at least you can be sure it all works together ...
and guarantee result, views ?

If you think getting it pre-assembled, any companies particularly good
price wise ?
Overclockers, SCAN, Power PC ?

Spec proposed:

ASUS P87ZZ-V LE
CPU Intel i5 3570K IvyBridge
16 GB DDR3 RAM (Samsung or Vengeance)
PSU 500W modular (Corsair or CoolerMaster)
GPU - MSI GTX560 Ti 1GB
SSD - 120GB SATA III Corsair
HDD - 1TB SATA III WD Caviar Blue
PCI - 2 port FireWire
1 x DVD/CD ROM
1 x DVD/CD RW
(BluRay RW to be added to future)

Undecided on CASE .. possibles a
CoolerMaster HAF 912
ANTEC 300
ANTEC 302

[Newshound]

On 09/07/2012 17:10, Rick Hughes wrote:
Been a number of years since I have built a PC from scratch .. had to
feed in loads of FD's to load Dos and W 3.1 :-)

I need a new PC at home, I have my spec sorted for a W7 64bit (apart
from case), and just wondering whether it's worth getting all the parts
and assembling yourself.
Or buying form one place and get them to assemble ... (Overclockers
assemble for £70 for example)

If they assemble .. at least you can be sure it all works together ...
and guarantee result, views ?

If you think getting it pre-assembled, any companies particularly good
price wise ?
Overclockers, SCAN, Power PC ?

Spec proposed:

ASUS P87ZZ-V LE
CPU Intel i5 3570K IvyBridge
16 GB DDR3 RAM (Samsung or Vengeance)
PSU 500W modular (Corsair or CoolerMaster)
GPU - MSI GTX560 Ti 1GB
SSD - 120GB SATA III Corsair
HDD - 1TB SATA III WD Caviar Blue
PCI - 2 port FireWire
1 x DVD/CD ROM
1 x DVD/CD RW
(BluRay RW to be added to future)

Undecided on CASE .. possibles a
CoolerMaster HAF 912
ANTEC 300
ANTEC 302

[The Natural Philosopher[_2_]]

Rick Hughes wrote:
Been a number of years since I have built a PC from scratch .. had to
feed in loads of FD's to load Dos and W 3.1 :-)

I need a new PC at home, I have my spec sorted for a W7 64bit (apart
from case), and just wondering whether it's worth getting all the parts
and assembling yourself.
Or buying form one place and get them to assemble ... (Overclockers
assemble for £70 for example)

If they assemble .. at least you can be sure it all works together ...
and guarantee result, views ?

If you think getting it pre-assembled, any companies particularly good
price wise ?
Overclockers, SCAN, Power PC ?

Spec proposed:

ASUS P87ZZ-V LE
CPU Intel i5 3570K IvyBridge
16 GB DDR3 RAM (Samsung or Vengeance)
PSU 500W modular (Corsair or CoolerMaster)
GPU - MSI GTX560 Ti 1GB
SSD - 120GB SATA III Corsair
HDD - 1TB SATA III WD Caviar Blue
PCI - 2 port FireWire
1 x DVD/CD ROM
1 x DVD/CD RW
(BluRay RW to be added to future)

Undecided on CASE .. possibles a
CoolerMaster HAF 912
ANTEC 300
ANTEC 302


I gey a local man to do mine

http://www.woc.co.uk

But thay are standard items, not weird gamers masturboards equipped with
king sized dickchips and infeasibly large fans and heatsinks.

So it might not suit you.


--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

[Nick]

"Rick Hughes" wrote in message
...
Been a number of years since I have built a PC from scratch .. had to feed
in loads of FD's to load Dos and W 3.1 :-)

I need a new PC at home, I have my spec sorted for a W7 64bit (apart from
case), and just wondering whether it's worth getting all the parts and
assembling yourself.
Or buying form one place and get them to assemble ... (Overclockers
assemble for £70 for example)

If they assemble .. at least you can be sure it all works together ... and
guarantee result, views ?

If you think getting it pre-assembled, any companies particularly good
price wise ?
Overclockers, SCAN, Power PC ?

Spec proposed:

ASUS P87ZZ-V LE
CPU Intel i5 3570K IvyBridge
16 GB DDR3 RAM (Samsung or Vengeance)
PSU 500W modular (Corsair or CoolerMaster)
GPU - MSI GTX560 Ti 1GB
SSD - 120GB SATA III Corsair
HDD - 1TB SATA III WD Caviar Blue
PCI - 2 port FireWire
1 x DVD/CD ROM
1 x DVD/CD RW
(BluRay RW to be added to future)

Undecided on CASE .. possibles a
CoolerMaster HAF 912
ANTEC 300
ANTEC 302


You might try posting this to uk.comp.homebuilt. Many knowledgeable folk
there.

[John Rumm]

On 09/07/2012 17:10, Rick Hughes wrote:

Been a number of years since I have built a PC from scratch .. had to
feed in loads of FD's to load Dos and W 3.1 :-)

I need a new PC at home, I have my spec sorted for a W7 64bit (apart
from case), and just wondering whether it's worth getting all the parts
and assembling yourself.
Or buying form one place and get them to assemble ... (Overclockers
assemble for £70 for example)

If they assemble .. at least you can be sure it all works together ...
and guarantee result, views ?

The advantage of building your own is you get to control the quality of
the small details... so things like selecting particularly quiet
components, mounting chassis fans on rubber mounts, carefully cable
tying stuff neatly, sticking noise dampening pads on the inside of the
metalwork etc.

The advantage of pre-built is you get someone else to sit through the
tedium of OS installs!

If you think getting it pre-assembled, any companies particularly good
price wise ?
Overclockers, SCAN, Power PC ?

Not used any of them, so can't comment.

However one thing to keep in mind, is that even with a whole unit
warranty, its not always cost effective to use it. I had someone bring
me about a prebuilt system which had suffered a PSU failure. The company
that supplied it were happy to fix it under warranty, but it had to be
sent back at the customers expense, and also they claimed it would be
restored to default configuration - hence the would need to do a full
backup first and then restore it when the machine came back.

So their choice was jump through the backup and restore hoops, pay for
sending it away, lose it for a few days into the bargain, and then doing
a full restore on it after it comes back, or pay for me to swap the PSU
for them on the spot! They decided the latter carried less risk and
hassle (although I did persuade them to do the backup anyway!)

Spec proposed:

ASUS P87ZZ-V LE

Not had many problems with ASUS boards in general...

[snip spec]

Looks fine, although fairly "normal" - so you would not have difficulty
finding a supplier to flog you that spec.

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

[The Natural Philosopher[_2_]]

John Rumm wrote:
On 09/07/2012 17:10, Rick Hughes wrote:

Been a number of years since I have built a PC from scratch .. had to
feed in loads of FD's to load Dos and W 3.1 :-)

I need a new PC at home, I have my spec sorted for a W7 64bit (apart
from case), and just wondering whether it's worth getting all the parts
and assembling yourself.
Or buying form one place and get them to assemble ... (Overclockers
assemble for £70 for example)

If they assemble .. at least you can be sure it all works together ...
and guarantee result, views ?

The advantage of building your own is you get to control the quality of
the small details... so things like selecting particularly quiet
components, mounting chassis fans on rubber mounts, carefully cable
tying stuff neatly, sticking noise dampening pads on the inside of the
metalwork etc.

The advantage of pre-built is you get someone else to sit through the
tedium of OS installs!


not in my case. What I get is the guarantee that at least the assorted
collection of hardware is plugged together correctly, and works well
enough to boot a windows loader.

After that I spend ten minutes installing a linux bootstrap and let it
chug through the installation whilst I have a coffee.

And if the hardware doesn't work IN ANY WAY the lot goes back to The Man
who replaces the defective bit. No buck passing 'the problem is in the
bit you bought from someone else, sir.



If you think getting it pre-assembled, any companies particularly good
price wise ?
Overclockers, SCAN, Power PC ?

Not used any of them, so can't comment.

However one thing to keep in mind, is that even with a whole unit
warranty, its not always cost effective to use it. I had someone bring
me about a prebuilt system which had suffered a PSU failure. The company
that supplied it were happy to fix it under warranty, but it had to be
sent back at the customers expense, and also they claimed it would be
restored to default configuration - hence the would need to do a full
backup first and then restore it when the machine came back.


My builder just takes it all back no problem and makes it all work.

So their choice was jump through the backup and restore hoops, pay for
sending it away, lose it for a few days into the bargain, and then doing
a full restore on it after it comes back, or pay for me to swap the PSU
for them on the spot! They decided the latter carried less risk and
hassle (although I did persuade them to do the backup anyway!)

Spec proposed:

ASUS P87ZZ-V LE

Not had many problems with ASUS boards in general...

[snip spec]

Looks fine, although fairly "normal" - so you would not have difficulty
finding a supplier to flog you that spec.



--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

[Peter Crosland]

On 09/07/2012 17:10, Rick Hughes wrote:
Been a number of years since I have built a PC from scratch .. had to
feed in loads of FD's to load Dos and W 3.1 :-)

I need a new PC at home, I have my spec sorted for a W7 64bit (apart
from case), and just wondering whether it's worth getting all the parts
and assembling yourself.
Or buying form one place and get them to assemble ... (Overclockers
assemble for £70 for example)

If they assemble .. at least you can be sure it all works together ...
and guarantee result, views ?

If you think getting it pre-assembled, any companies particularly good
price wise ?
Overclockers, SCAN, Power PC ?

Spec proposed:

ASUS P87ZZ-V LE
CPU Intel i5 3570K IvyBridge
16 GB DDR3 RAM (Samsung or Vengeance)
PSU 500W modular (Corsair or CoolerMaster)
GPU - MSI GTX560 Ti 1GB
SSD - 120GB SATA III Corsair
HDD - 1TB SATA III WD Caviar Blue
PCI - 2 port FireWire
1 x DVD/CD ROM
1 x DVD/CD RW
(BluRay RW to be added to future)

Undecided on CASE .. possibles a
CoolerMaster HAF 912
ANTEC 300
ANTEC 302

Avoid Overclockers and Scan. It could be worth investigating any small
independent local companies.

Peter Crosland

[Alan Deane]

On 09/07/2012 17:10, Rick Hughes wrote:
Been a number of years since I have built a PC from scratch .. had to
feed in loads of FD's to load Dos and W 3.1 :-)

I need a new PC at home, I have my spec sorted for a W7 64bit (apart
from case), and just wondering whether it's worth getting all the parts
and assembling yourself.
Or buying form one place and get them to assemble ... (Overclockers
assemble for £70 for example)

If they assemble .. at least you can be sure it all works together ...
and guarantee result, views ?

If you think getting it pre-assembled, any companies particularly good
price wise ?
Overclockers, SCAN, Power PC ?

Spec proposed:

ASUS P87ZZ-V LE
CPU Intel i5 3570K IvyBridge
16 GB DDR3 RAM (Samsung or Vengeance)
PSU 500W modular (Corsair or CoolerMaster)
GPU - MSI GTX560 Ti 1GB
SSD - 120GB SATA III Corsair
HDD - 1TB SATA III WD Caviar Blue
PCI - 2 port FireWire
1 x DVD/CD ROM
1 x DVD/CD RW
(BluRay RW to be added to future)

Undecided on CASE .. possibles a
CoolerMaster HAF 912
ANTEC 300
ANTEC 302



I used to build a lot of PCs, mainly from computer-fair parts or ebuyer.
More recently when anyone asks me for PCs I just point they at Dell's
website, as for the price / warranty it's not cost effective to build
them from scratch any more, and always a better looking end result IMHO.

They seem well built and I've not heard of a single hardware fault on
any of them yet. Pity the OS is rubbish... (Prefer Linux or MacOS myself).

[John Rumm]

On 09/07/2012 19:36, Owain wrote:

On Jul 9, 6:56 pm, John Rumm wrote:
The advantage of pre-built is you get someone else to sit through the
tedium of OS installs!

Are you compiling Gentoo from source?


It was a slightly humorous comment, but there is the serious point that
if you want a machine with windows and office on it, its potentially a
couple of hours of waiting about getting them both installed and patched
up to the current configuration. That may be enough to sway a decision
where there is only a few quid difference in price between components
and pre-built[1].

(patching speed being partly a function of your internet speed as well)


[1] When discussing pre-built, its also worth thinking about the big OEM
built systems. With many of those, your software problem is the other
way around - you spend hours uninstalling all the crapware they loaded
for you!

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

[dennis@home]

"Owain" wrote in message
...
On Jul 9, 6:56 pm, John Rumm wrote:
The advantage of pre-built is you get someone else to sit through the
tedium of OS installs!

Are you compiling Gentoo from source?

I've done that, its pretty boring.

[F[_2_]]

On 09/07/2012 17:10 Rick Hughes wrote:

If you think getting it pre-assembled, any companies particularly good
price wise ?

Have a look at CCL Computers. I've not bought a pre-built from them but
have bought components and I've always been impressed with their
attitude and service.

If you decide to d-i-y, Ebuyer are the ones I usually use. Decent
prices, decent choice and quick delivery. Stick a 120GB SSD in to load
the OS onto and the install and subsequent boot-ups and application
loads are pretty quick.

--
F

[The Natural Philosopher[_2_]]

SteveW wrote:
On 09/07/2012 17:59, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Rick Hughes wrote:
Been a number of years since I have built a PC from scratch .. had to
feed in loads of FD's to load Dos and W 3.1 :-)

I need a new PC at home, I have my spec sorted for a W7 64bit (apart
from case), and just wondering whether it's worth getting all the
parts and assembling yourself.
Or buying form one place and get them to assemble ... (Overclockers
assemble for £70 for example)

If they assemble .. at least you can be sure it all works together ...
and guarantee result, views ?

If you think getting it pre-assembled, any companies particularly good
price wise ?
Overclockers, SCAN, Power PC ?

Spec proposed:

ASUS P87ZZ-V LE
CPU Intel i5 3570K IvyBridge
16 GB DDR3 RAM (Samsung or Vengeance)
PSU 500W modular (Corsair or CoolerMaster)
GPU - MSI GTX560 Ti 1GB
SSD - 120GB SATA III Corsair
HDD - 1TB SATA III WD Caviar Blue
PCI - 2 port FireWire
1 x DVD/CD ROM
1 x DVD/CD RW
(BluRay RW to be added to future)

Undecided on CASE .. possibles a
CoolerMaster HAF 912
ANTEC 300
ANTEC 302


I gey a local man to do mine

http://www.woc.co.uk

But thay are standard items, not weird gamers masturboards equipped with
king sized dickchips and infeasibly large fans and heatsinks.

Large fans and heatsinks are good even on basic machines - it means low
fan speeds and therefore low noise.

well last one he built me has no fan beyond the one in the PSU..


Intel Atom board, no graffix at all :-)

Does a little bit of file serving web serving, dns, backups.. probably
draws about 10W.


SteveW


--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

[geoff]

In message , Rick Hughes
writes
Been a number of years since I have built a PC from scratch .. had to
feed in loads of FD's to load Dos and W 3.1 :-)

I need a new PC at home, I have my spec sorted for a W7 64bit (apart
from case), and just wondering whether it's worth getting all the parts
and assembling yourself.
Or buying form one place and get them to assemble ... (Overclockers
assemble for £70 for example)

If they assemble .. at least you can be sure it all works together ...
and guarantee result, views ?

If you think getting it pre-assembled, any companies particularly good
price wise ?
Overclockers, SCAN, Power PC ?

Spec proposed:

ASUS P87ZZ-V LE
CPU Intel i5 3570K IvyBridge
16 GB DDR3 RAM (Samsung or Vengeance)
PSU 500W modular (Corsair or CoolerMaster)
GPU - MSI GTX560 Ti 1GB
SSD - 120GB SATA III Corsair
HDD - 1TB SATA III WD Caviar Blue

How much more does a 2TB HDD cost?
£20?

PCI - 2 port FireWire

Does anyone still use firewire?


1 x DVD/CD ROM
1 x DVD/CD RW
(BluRay RW to be added to future)

Why not just buy one, what do you really need two for?
Make it a bluray RW and have done with it for £60


Undecided on CASE .. possibles a
CoolerMaster HAF 912
ANTEC 300
ANTEC 302



--
geoff

[SteveW[_2_]]

On 09/07/2012 21:35, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
SteveW wrote:
On 09/07/2012 17:59, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Rick Hughes wrote:
Been a number of years since I have built a PC from scratch .. had to
feed in loads of FD's to load Dos and W 3.1 :-)

I need a new PC at home, I have my spec sorted for a W7 64bit (apart
from case), and just wondering whether it's worth getting all the
parts and assembling yourself.
Or buying form one place and get them to assemble ... (Overclockers
assemble for £70 for example)

If they assemble .. at least you can be sure it all works together ...
and guarantee result, views ?

If you think getting it pre-assembled, any companies particularly good
price wise ?
Overclockers, SCAN, Power PC ?

Spec proposed:

ASUS P87ZZ-V LE
CPU Intel i5 3570K IvyBridge
16 GB DDR3 RAM (Samsung or Vengeance)
PSU 500W modular (Corsair or CoolerMaster)
GPU - MSI GTX560 Ti 1GB
SSD - 120GB SATA III Corsair
HDD - 1TB SATA III WD Caviar Blue
PCI - 2 port FireWire
1 x DVD/CD ROM
1 x DVD/CD RW
(BluRay RW to be added to future)

Undecided on CASE .. possibles a
CoolerMaster HAF 912
ANTEC 300
ANTEC 302


I gey a local man to do mine

http://www.woc.co.uk

But thay are standard items, not weird gamers masturboards equipped with
king sized dickchips and infeasibly large fans and heatsinks.

Large fans and heatsinks are good even on basic machines - it means
low fan speeds and therefore low noise.

well last one he built me has no fan beyond the one in the PSU..


Intel Atom board, no graffix at all :-)

Does a little bit of file serving web serving, dns, backups.. probably
draws about 10W.

I did look at one of those for my own server, but I decided that a more
powerful processor made sense, as I could then use it for transcoding
video on the fly for the kids' X-box while streaming music for my wife.

I agree that for many purposes an Atom based board is a great idea.

SteveW

[Rick Hughes[_5_]]

On 09/07/2012 18:21, Nick wrote:
"Rick Hughes" wrote in message
...
Been a number of years since I have built a PC from scratch .. had to feed
in loads of FD's to load Dos and W 3.1 :-)

I need a new PC at home, I have my spec sorted for a W7 64bit (apart from
case), and just wondering whether it's worth getting all the parts and
assembling yourself.
Or buying form one place and get them to assemble ... (Overclockers
assemble for £70 for example)

If they assemble .. at least you can be sure it all works together ... and
guarantee result, views ?

If you think getting it pre-assembled, any companies particularly good
price wise ?
Overclockers, SCAN, Power PC ?

Spec proposed:

ASUS P87ZZ-V LE
CPU Intel i5 3570K IvyBridge
16 GB DDR3 RAM (Samsung or Vengeance)
PSU 500W modular (Corsair or CoolerMaster)
GPU - MSI GTX560 Ti 1GB
SSD - 120GB SATA III Corsair
HDD - 1TB SATA III WD Caviar Blue
PCI - 2 port FireWire
1 x DVD/CD ROM
1 x DVD/CD RW
(BluRay RW to be added to future)

Undecided on CASE .. possibles a
CoolerMaster HAF 912
ANTEC 300
ANTEC 302


You might try posting this to uk.comp.homebuilt. Many knowledgeable folk
there.


wasn't aware of that ng ... will do so

[Rick Hughes[_5_]]

On 09/07/2012 18:56, John Rumm wrote:
On 09/07/2012 17:10, Rick Hughes wrote:

Been a number of years since I have built a PC from scratch .. had to
feed in loads of FD's to load Dos and W 3.1 :-)

I need a new PC at home, I have my spec sorted for a W7 64bit (apart
from case), and just wondering whether it's worth getting all the parts
and assembling yourself.



The physical build does not worry me nor loading OS / Apps .. .in fact
would order without OS as prefer to do this myself.

My concern was getting all parts that work together ... for example many
posts in forums of guys having trouble getting multiple banks of RAM, is
it a RAM strip fault a combination fault, a MB fault ... getting to
bottom of that could be expensive & time consuming.

If they only charge around £75 for building it up .. maybe it's worth it
for that.

Or I buy a MB + CPU + RAM bundle and at least the 3 core items 'should'
be OK together and fully compatible,

[Rick Hughes[_5_]]

On 09/07/2012 19:39, Peter Crosland wrote:

ANTEC 302

Avoid Overclockers and Scan. It could be worth investigating any small
independent local companies.

Peter Crosland


Care to recc any ?

[Rick Hughes[_5_]]

On 09/07/2012 19:43, Alan Deane wrote:
On 09/07/2012 17:10, Rick Hughes wrote:

I used to build a lot of PCs, mainly from computer-fair parts or ebuyer.
More recently when anyone asks me for PCs I just point they at Dell's
website, as for the price / warranty it's not cost effective to build
them from scratch any more, and always a better looking end result IMHO.

They seem well built and I've not heard of a single hardware fault on
any of them yet. Pity the OS is rubbish... (Prefer Linux or MacOS myself).

It's a DEll 9200 Dimension I have now ... just need to get a faster
machine as it can't cope with HD video editing.

I bought it from Dell refurb stock (you can search on line) ... as to
failures, had 3 HDD fail while under warranty ... bit worrying on WD
Caviar Blue reliability.

[Rick Hughes[_5_]]

On 09/07/2012 21:43, geoff wrote:

How much more does a 2TB HDD cost?
£20?

Not seen as little diff as that
Typ SATA III 1TB is £75 and 2TB is around £130



PCI - 2 port FireWire
Does anyone still use firewire?

Yep .. me ... for Video capture ... DVI straight into PC from Camcorder
- avoids use of capture card, and gives you direct DVI files.
Maybe when Cancorders start using USB3 FireWire will go away ..
A Firewire PCI cards is only about a £5 anyway.



1 x DVD/CD ROM
1 x DVD/CD RW
(BluRay RW to be added to future)

Why not just buy one, what do you really need two for?
Make it a bluray RW and have done with it for £60

The reason I had 2 was for DVD copy ... Master in ROM drive and blanks
in RW. Maybe I could do without ... and mount .iso image instead.
Are the BluRay DVD/CD combo drives good value & relibale ? ... or are
BluRay RW drives still pretty new and evolving for PC's... like DVD
drives, early ones were quite slow on W speed.

[F[_2_]]

On 09/07/2012 22:05 Rick Hughes wrote:

My concern was getting all parts that work together ... for example many
posts in forums of guys having trouble getting multiple banks of RAM

Just buy 'matched' RAM modules from Crucial?

--
F

[Rick Hughes[_5_]]

On 09/07/2012 22:18, Rick Hughes wrote:
On 09/07/2012 21:43, geoff wrote:


PCI - 2 port FireWire
Does anyone still use firewire?

Yep .. me ... for Video capture ... DVI straight into PC from Camcorder
- avoids use of capture card, and gives you direct DVI files.
Maybe when Cancorders start using USB3 FireWire will go away ..
A Firewire PCI cards is only about a £5 anyway.


In case I was misunderstood ... I know that USB2 at 480 Mbs exceeds
Firewire 1394b ... but many digital camcorders had a Firewire interface.
This was useful as you could use pass through ... feed VHS in and use
the Firewire to provide DVI out to PC.

Maybe pass through to USB also exists ... not sure about that.

Assume they will migrate to USB3 and 5Gbs over the micro USB socket in
the future.

[Rod Speed]

Rick Hughes wrote

Been a number of years since I have built a PC from scratch .. had to feed
in loads of FD's to load Dos and W 3.1 :-)

I need a new PC at home, I have my spec sorted for a W7 64bit (apart from
case), and just wondering whether it's worth getting all the parts and
assembling yourself.

I've just done that with my latest, no regrets.

But then I do that a lot more often than you do.

Or buying form one place and get them to assemble ... (Overclockers
assemble for £70 for example)

I did get one done like that for a mate, and discovered
that the ****ers had ****ed that up very comprehensively
indeed, didn't even manage to use the right screws to
attach the motherboard to the case.

If they assemble .. at least you can be sure it all works together ... and
guarantee result, views ?

Yes, that's one theoretical advantage.

But are you going to insist that they open it up
so you can inspect if before you pay for it ?

If you think getting it pre-assembled, any companies particularly good
price wise ?
Overclockers, SCAN, Power PC ?

Spec proposed:

ASUS P87ZZ-V LE
CPU Intel i5 3570K IvyBridge

That's the way I went, but with an Asus P8P67V3

16 GB DDR3 RAM (Samsung or Vengeance)
PSU 500W modular (Corsair or CoolerMaster)
GPU - MSI GTX560 Ti 1GB
SSD - 120GB SATA III Corsair
HDD - 1TB SATA III WD Caviar Blue
PCI - 2 port FireWire
1 x DVD/CD ROM

No real point in that.

1 x DVD/CD RW
(BluRay RW to be added to future)

Undecided on CASE .. possibles a
CoolerMaster HAF 912
ANTEC 300
ANTEC 302

I got the CoolerMaster Elite 334 myself.

Some of the hard drive slots are a bit close to the mother board for
convenient use.

[Rod Speed]

John Rumm wrote
Owain wrote
John Rumm wrote

The advantage of pre-built is you get someone else to sit through the
tedium of OS installs!

But wont necessarily install it the way you want it installed.

Are you compiling Gentoo from source?

It was a slightly humorous comment, but there is the serious point that if
you want a machine with windows and office on it, its potentially a couple
of hours of waiting about getting them both installed and patched up to
the current configuration.

Hardly ever with Win7. And you can do something else while it updates
anyway.

That may be enough to sway a decision where there is only a few quid
difference in price between components and pre-built[1].

It was a lot more than a few quid in my case.

(patching speed being partly a function of your internet speed as well)

Yes, but you can do something else while it happens with a slow net service.

[1] When discussing pre-built, its also worth thinking about the big OEM
built systems. With many of those, your software problem is the other way
around - you spend hours uninstalling all the crapware they loaded for
you!

[The Other Mike[_3_]]

On Mon, 09 Jul 2012 21:35:47 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:


well last one he built me has no fan beyond the one in the PSU..


Intel Atom board, no graffix at all :-)

Which Atom board comes without a GPU?


--

[Rod Speed]

"Rick Hughes" wrote in message
...
On 09/07/2012 18:56, John Rumm wrote:
On 09/07/2012 17:10, Rick Hughes wrote:

Been a number of years since I have built a PC from scratch .. had to
feed in loads of FD's to load Dos and W 3.1 :-)

I need a new PC at home, I have my spec sorted for a W7 64bit (apart
from case), and just wondering whether it's worth getting all the parts
and assembling yourself.



The physical build does not worry me nor loading OS / Apps .. .in fact
would order without OS as prefer to do this myself.

My concern was getting all parts that work together ... for example many
posts in forums of guys having trouble getting multiple banks of RAM, is
it a RAM strip fault a combination fault, a MB fault ... getting to bottom
of that could be expensive & time consuming.

If they only charge around £75 for building it up .. maybe it's worth it
for that.

Or I buy a MB + CPU + RAM bundle and at least the 3 core items 'should' be
OK together and fully compatible,

I did that last with the MB + RAM bundle, or more strictly saw that
they had been flogging that bundle and so bought that pair myself.

You don't see any particular problem with the CPU with an i3 etc.

[Rod Speed]

"Rick Hughes" wrote in message
...
On 09/07/2012 19:43, Alan Deane wrote:
On 09/07/2012 17:10, Rick Hughes wrote:

I used to build a lot of PCs, mainly from computer-fair parts or ebuyer.
More recently when anyone asks me for PCs I just point they at Dell's
website, as for the price / warranty it's not cost effective to build
them from scratch any more, and always a better looking end result IMHO.

They seem well built and I've not heard of a single hardware fault on
any of them yet. Pity the OS is rubbish... (Prefer Linux or MacOS
myself).

It's a DEll 9200 Dimension I have now ... just need to get a faster
machine as it can't cope with HD video editing.

I bought it from Dell refurb stock (you can search on line) ... as to
failures, had 3 HDD fail while under warranty ...

Yeah mate of mine got a Dell, not refurb stock,
and had some warranty replacements too.

bit worrying on WD Caviar Blue reliability.

I avoid those myself, but I use the Samsung 2TB Greens and
now that Seagate now owns them, they are hard to find.

[John Rumm]

On 09/07/2012 22:05, Rick Hughes wrote:
On 09/07/2012 18:56, John Rumm wrote:
On 09/07/2012 17:10, Rick Hughes wrote:

Been a number of years since I have built a PC from scratch .. had to
feed in loads of FD's to load Dos and W 3.1 :-)

I need a new PC at home, I have my spec sorted for a W7 64bit (apart
from case), and just wondering whether it's worth getting all the parts
and assembling yourself.



The physical build does not worry me nor loading OS / Apps .. .in fact
would order without OS as prefer to do this myself.

My concern was getting all parts that work together ... for example many
posts in forums of guys having trouble getting multiple banks of RAM, is
it a RAM strip fault a combination fault, a MB fault ... getting to
bottom of that could be expensive & time consuming.

Motherboard makers will publish a list of tried and tested RAM
configurations, and CPU models and steppings. Just buy stuff off the
"approved" lists and you will be fine. (you will probably be fine if you
don't!)

If they only charge around £75 for building it up .. maybe it's worth it
for that.

Or I buy a MB + CPU + RAM bundle and at least the 3 core items 'should'
be OK together and fully compatible,



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

[John Rumm]

On 09/07/2012 21:43, geoff wrote:

Spec proposed:

ASUS P87ZZ-V LE
CPU Intel i5 3570K IvyBridge
16 GB DDR3 RAM (Samsung or Vengeance)
PSU 500W modular (Corsair or CoolerMaster)
GPU - MSI GTX560 Ti 1GB
SSD - 120GB SATA III Corsair
HDD - 1TB SATA III WD Caviar Blue

How much more does a 2TB HDD cost?
£20?

PCI - 2 port FireWire

Does anyone still use firewire?

If you have a miniDV camera or similar, then yes...

(I also use it for analogue capture using a miniDV camera as a real time
digitizer. Seems to get better results than the basic PC digitizers)



--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

[brass monkey]

"John Rumm" wrote in message
...
On 09/07/2012 21:43, geoff wrote:

Spec proposed:

ASUS P87ZZ-V LE
CPU Intel i5 3570K IvyBridge
16 GB DDR3 RAM (Samsung or Vengeance)
PSU 500W modular (Corsair or CoolerMaster)
GPU - MSI GTX560 Ti 1GB
SSD - 120GB SATA III Corsair
HDD - 1TB SATA III WD Caviar Blue

How much more does a 2TB HDD cost?
£20?

PCI - 2 port FireWire

Does anyone still use firewire?

If you have a miniDV camera or similar, then yes...

(I also use it for analogue capture using a miniDV camera as a real time
digitizer. Seems to get better results than the basic PC digitizers)

+1
I use a miniDV. My antique laptop (dicky laptop) has a firewire port. If you
need firewire on a desktop, ebay ~£3.

[geoff]

In message , Rick Hughes
writes

The reason I had 2 was for DVD copy ... Master in ROM drive and blanks
in RW. Maybe I could do without ... and mount .iso image instead.
Are the BluRay DVD/CD combo drives good value & relibale ? ... or are
BluRay RW drives still pretty new and evolving for PC's... like DVD
drives, early ones were quite slow on W speed.

So how important is write speed - if you have two drives, you just leave
it to chug away while you go and do something else


--
geoff

[The Natural Philosopher[_2_]]

The Other Mike wrote:
On Mon, 09 Jul 2012 21:35:47 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:


well last one he built me has no fan beyond the one in the PSU..


Intel Atom board, no graffix at all :-)

Which Atom board comes without a GPU?


It may have a GPU,. but nothing is connected to it :-)


--
To people who know nothing, anything is possible.
To people who know too much, it is a sad fact
that they know how little is really possible -
and how hard it is to achieve it.

[Rick Hughes[_5_]]

On 09/07/2012 22:50, Rod Speed wrote:


16 GB DDR3 RAM (Samsung or Vengeance)
PSU 500W modular (Corsair or CoolerMaster)
GPU - MSI GTX560 Ti 1GB
SSD - 120GB SATA III Corsair
HDD - 1TB SATA III WD Caviar Blue
PCI - 2 port FireWire
1 x DVD/CD ROM

No real point in that.




'in what' not sure what you mean here.

[Nightjar]

On 09/07/2012 20:56, SteveW wrote:
On 09/07/2012 17:59, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
....
But thay are standard items, not weird gamers masturboards equipped with
king sized dickchips and infeasibly large fans and heatsinks.

Large fans and heatsinks are good even on basic machines - it means low
fan speeds and therefore low noise.

A very large heat sink and low power and you can get away without any
fans at all. Ideal for a machine in a domestic setting that only needs
to deal with emails and the occasional bit of simple word processing.

Colin Bignell

[Rick Hughes[_5_]]

On 09/07/2012 22:24, F wrote:
On 09/07/2012 22:05 Rick Hughes wrote:

My concern was getting all parts that work together ... for example many
posts in forums of guys having trouble getting multiple banks of RAM

Just buy 'matched' RAM modules from Crucial?


Not quite bottomed out what RAM to use ... even just getting 2 x 8GB
modules there is so much choice.
I'm sure somewhere there is a spec that states MHz and latency required
to suit MB and CPU, just not found it yet.

[Nightjar]

On 10/07/2012 00:40, John Rumm wrote:
On 09/07/2012 22:05, Rick Hughes wrote:
....
My concern was getting all parts that work together ... for example many
posts in forums of guys having trouble getting multiple banks of RAM, is
it a RAM strip fault a combination fault, a MB fault ... getting to
bottom of that could be expensive & time consuming.

Motherboard makers will publish a list of tried and tested RAM
configurations, and CPU models and steppings. Just buy stuff off the
"approved" lists and you will be fine. (you will probably be fine if you
don't!)...

.... and the Crucial web site has both a system scanner and an advisor
tool to make choosing compatible memory simple.

http://www.crucial.com/uk/systemscanner/
http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/advisor.aspx

Colin Bignell

[Martin Brown]

On 09/07/2012 17:10, Rick Hughes wrote:
Been a number of years since I have built a PC from scratch .. had to
feed in loads of FD's to load Dos and W 3.1 :-)

I need a new PC at home, I have my spec sorted for a W7 64bit (apart
from case), and just wondering whether it's worth getting all the parts
and assembling yourself.
Or buying form one place and get them to assemble ... (Overclockers
assemble for £70 for example)

If they assemble .. at least you can be sure it all works together ...
and guarantee result, views ?

If you think getting it pre-assembled, any companies particularly good
price wise ?
Overclockers, SCAN, Power PC ?

Spec proposed:

ASUS P87ZZ-V LE
CPU Intel i5 3570K IvyBridge
16 GB DDR3 RAM (Samsung or Vengeance)
PSU 500W modular (Corsair or CoolerMaster)
GPU - MSI GTX560 Ti 1GB
SSD - 120GB SATA III Corsair
HDD - 1TB SATA III WD Caviar Blue
PCI - 2 port FireWire
1 x DVD/CD ROM
1 x DVD/CD RW
(BluRay RW to be added to future)

Undecided on CASE .. possibles a
CoolerMaster HAF 912
ANTEC 300
ANTEC 302

The CPU won't last long without a heatsink on it...
Intel's stock coolers are noisy whining things too!

Worth considering if you need a high power gamers graphics board as the
Ivy bridge chipset can do respectable DVD playback and transcoding. If
you intend to play games at hires then it is worth it but otherwise
probably not. Money saved would get you a Blueray super multi RW.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[F[_2_]]

On 10/07/2012 09:24 Rick Hughes wrote:

Not quite bottomed out what RAM to use ... even just getting 2 x 8GB
modules there is so much choice.
I'm sure somewhere there is a spec that states MHz and latency required
to suit MB and CPU, just not found it yet.

Crucial have a tool on their site for deciding which modules to use.
Just identify the motherboard and you'll be provided with a list and
details of suitable modules.

--
F

[DCA[_3_]]

On 09/07/2012 17:35, newshound wrote:
On 09/07/2012 17:10, Rick Hughes wrote:
Been a number of years since I have built a PC from scratch .. had to
feed in loads of FD's to load Dos and W 3.1 :-)

I need a new PC at home, I have my spec sorted for a W7 64bit (apart
from case), and just wondering whether it's worth getting all the parts
and assembling yourself.
Or buying form one place and get them to assemble ... (Overclockers
assemble for £70 for example)

If they assemble .. at least you can be sure it all works together ...
and guarantee result, views ?

If you think getting it pre-assembled, any companies particularly good
price wise ?
Overclockers, SCAN, Power PC ?

Spec proposed:

ASUS P87ZZ-V LE
CPU Intel i5 3570K IvyBridge
16 GB DDR3 RAM (Samsung or Vengeance)
PSU 500W modular (Corsair or CoolerMaster)
GPU - MSI GTX560 Ti 1GB
SSD - 120GB SATA III Corsair
HDD - 1TB SATA III WD Caviar Blue
PCI - 2 port FireWire
1 x DVD/CD ROM
1 x DVD/CD RW
(BluRay RW to be added to future)

Undecided on CASE .. possibles a
CoolerMaster HAF 912
ANTEC 300
ANTEC 302






Surely, it depends on overall price.
You may find a supplier such as Chillblast.com have one at the same spec
they'll sell you assembled and with a guarantee for not much more (Thats
what I found anyway)

This one is similar to your spec but you can downgrade the Video card,
add an SSD, remove Windows etc?
http://www.chillblast.com/Chillblast...underbird.html

[Rod Speed]

Rick Hughes wrote
Rod Speed wrote

16 GB DDR3 RAM (Samsung or Vengeance)
PSU 500W modular (Corsair or CoolerMaster)
GPU - MSI GTX560 Ti 1GB
SSD - 120GB SATA III Corsair
HDD - 1TB SATA III WD Caviar Blue
PCI - 2 port FireWire
1 x DVD/CD ROM

No real point in that.

'in what' not sure what you mean here.

Yeah, my original was a tad cryptic.

I meant that there isnt much point in a ROM drive now.

It makes more sense to have either two RW drives or to have just one RW
drive.

[Rod Speed]

Rick Hughes wrote
F wrote
Rick Hughes wrote

My concern was getting all parts that work together ... for example many
posts in forums of guys having trouble getting multiple banks of RAM

Just buy 'matched' RAM modules from Crucial?

Not quite bottomed out what RAM to use ... even just getting 2 x 8GB
modules there is so much choice.

But the total cost of RAM isnt great, so not much point in getting too
obsessive.

I chose to use the motherboard/RAM combination that the seller
chose to flog on the basis that they would have worked out that
that combination worked fine, particularly when Asus showed the
ram in the works fine list for that motherboard.

I'm sure somewhere there is a spec that states MHz and latency required to
suit MB and CPU, just not found it yet.

Its rather more complicated than that.

Just use the list that Asus provides for each motherboard.