Building new PC.

[ant101]

Hey, wanted to say great site and an awesome community. Anyways I am a graphic designer; I am looking to build a pretty powerful machine. The thing is I don’t have any previous experience on building desktops. I have some questions to ask to clear my mind up before I buy anything and any expert help is appreciated.

1) I have read that Newegg is the best place to buy online. If true is it because of the prices or customer service.
2) I am not sure what processors are best so I am taking a limb on the new Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor.
3) The graphics card I am have herd about being the best is gforce. As I have no experience on this I cannot tell which one but I would say from medium to a good one.
4) I was thinking of having 2 GB ram and anything from 180 GB-250 GB hard drive.
5) My budge is about 500 pounds or 1000 US dollars, I would like to stick to it but couple pounds off wouldn’t hurt.
6) I was thinking of a 19 inch flat screen.
7) Should I buy my case with the power supply? And what power supply would suite my build. I will also want to run broadband on this pc and have a resonable amount of usb ports.
8) For the mother board I want something that can handle 2 GB ram , an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz 4M shared L2 Cache LGA 775 Processor, and a pretty strong graphics card and still not fry and also to be compatible with my power supply.
9) The sound card I have no clue but I would want to be able to have a surround sound plugged up.
10) I will need a drive that could burn DVDs and CDs at a fast/reasonable speeds.
11) I’ve read that vista isn’t all it is hyped up to be, should I stick to windows xp with all of the programs in the bundle.
12) How hard is it to set up your pc from the BIOs and how hard is it to build?
13) I will also bee needing to connect broadband to this pc and have a l
I told you I need serious help with this but if anyone is willing to help I will sure appreciate it. I am probably missing parts and I need someone to help me with this and also to bring all the parts together and include some of the missing parts which I probably have left out. If anyone can help me via msn messenger, that is even better.

 

[jamesgoddard]

Are you UK? If so newegg won't be available to you.

 

[ant101]

Yes i am in Uk, o too bad are there any other sites?

what is overclocking and is it necesary?

 

[Neceros]

See this thread for more info
http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/Monster-Gamer-ftopict229750.html

 

[jamesgoddard]

At the level of technical skill I feel you come across as having, I would question if building it up yourself is the best route.

Have a look at MESH Computers, they have a good reputation and have been around for 20 years. You will not really get a cost saving from building it yourself over these guys. http://www.meshcomputers.com/

 

[alcattle]

Some of your questions:

1.Good place to check prices is scan.co.uk then you get an idea and can seek price many places.

2. e6600 is a good pick. Stay with it.

3. a 7600 series card is a good choice, It will power a 19" monitor.

4. Yes, no other choice is better. You can look at 4 GB later when Vista is improved. 250-320 is the sweet spot, lots of us choose Seagate 7200.10.

5. It will be tight but should be about $1000.

6. Good choice.

7. No,always better off with a good PSU. 500W is about what you should start with.

8. Easy to do, within budget.

9. Start with onboard sound. Try what works and then upgrade.

10. Most new drives fit that rule.

11. Good plan, give it a year.

12. Take your time, read the manual and ask alot of questions.

13. Your ISP can walk through the basics, tweaking can be a challenge but doable.

Take time and reliese you are already ahead of most of the people out there.

 

[jamesgoddard]

If you do want to build yourself - I put something together on ebuyer.com. I assume you will need software and the monitor. £500 is not much to work with,

Antec Black SLK1650 Mini Tower Case - With 350W SmartPower PSU 072294 124 in stock £33.99 £33.99
LiteOn LH-16D1P-01C 16x52x DVD-ROM Black - OEM 126087 384 in stock £8.04 £8.04
ASUS M2NPV-MX SKT AM2 Nvidia 6150 PCI-E 5.1 channel audio uATX 113976 96 in stock £38.20 £38.20
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ (2.4GHz) Socket AM2 L2 1MB 2x512KB Cache Retail Boxed Processor 122941 155 in stock £66.17 £66.17
Western Digital WD1600JS Caviar SE 160GB 7200RPM SATAII/300 8MB Cache - OEM 094406 888 in stock £29.53 £29.53
Microsoft OEM Windows Vista Home Premium x32Bit (DVD) - 1PK 123052 1375 in stock £59.98 £59.98
BenQ FP92WA 19" widescreen (1440 x 900) 300 cd/m2 700:1 5ms 0.284 mm VGA (HD-15) 3 Years Warranty 120830 119 in stock £97.99 £97.99
Logitech Value Keyboard Black PS/2 - OEM 104914 120 in stock £4.51 £4.51
Logitech RX1000 Black/Silver Laser Mouse - 1000DPI - USB 114181 49 in stock £11.20 £11.20
Logitech OEM S100 Stereo Speaker 2 W Rms 2 pieces Black 081445 677 in stock £5.09 £5.09
Corsair 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-5300/5400 (667/675MHz) (TWIN2X2048-5400C4) CL4-4-4-12 with Heat Spreader 098708 Stock expected today £86.67 £86.67

Shipping Band: £0.00
Shipping Surcharge: £0.00
Subtotal: £441.37
VAT: £77.27

Total: £518.64

 

[ant101]

Thanx for the help people, i will try tu build but i will folow guides and so on and speaking of them are there any good ones. I gues i could do 500 just on the computer no screen. I will stick with intel procesor and does every mother board work with inel core procesor.

looks like a good graphics card.
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/118475/rb/26379395811

most psu come with 350w is that bad or could it power my pc and not burn out or should i go with 500w

will post my part list tomorow i hope the experts will help me with my mother board and other parts