Build or Buy a PC?

llamasg

Distinguished
Nov 24, 2012
66
0
18,640
I would like to buy/upgrade or build a PC very shortly but I'm not sure which road to go down... (£370 budget)

Current PC specs:
- Dell Inpiron 560
- Intel(R) Core 2 Duo 2.93 GHz
- 5.00GB RAM
- 300W PSU
- AMD Radeon HD 7750 Graphics card
- 500GB Hard-Drive

Desired specs:
-3.4 GHz CPU
-8GB RAM
-500W PSU
-I'm happy with my current graphics card :)
-1TB Hard-Drive

I use my PC for gaming and I can run things quite nicely now that I have my graphics card but overall the whole PC is a bit slow and bulky and not great for multi-tasking, what I mainly want is a CPU upgrade but the max I can have in my computer is a Intel quad core 2 duo....

So my question is; should I upgrade my current PC i.e. buy a new motherboard, case, hard-drive etc
or Buy/Build a new PC
I realize that upgrading my PC would essentially be a new build but I was just looking for what's cheapest :)

-- Thanks
 

llamasg

Distinguished
Nov 24, 2012
66
0
18,640

Sorry I guess I was a bit vague in my explanation, I edited my question :)
 

flong777

Honorable
Mar 7, 2013
185
0
10,690
Ihog is right, what you are going to use it for is important.

Having upgraded an older PC I would not recommend it. If you can afford to build a PC you will probably be much happier.

I converted 370 pounds to USD to help me better understand your budget. Your budget is roughly $600 USD.

Here is one build for you:

1. PSU - Corsair CX 600 ($60 after rebate on Newegg right now) Substitute Seasonic if Corsair is not available

2. CPU - 3570K ($220) rated by almost everyone as best bang for the buck CPU

3. GPU - ATI Asus or HIS 7850 ($169.99 after rebate) or AMD 7750 ($95)

4. Mobo - Asrock Extreme 4 ($135)

5. Case - Corsair 300R ($70 after rebate)

6. HDD - Seagate Barracuda ($60)

7. RAM - 8 GB (2 x 4GB) DDR 1600 $45

All prices taken from Newegg. Now Newegg prices may not be available in Britain and so you will have to let us know.

This build is $90 over your budget - the total is 452 British pounds. This is a first rate build and would be a very powerful computer. You could game on it, use it for school, virtually anything.

If you go to an ATI 7750 GPU (your original choice) you save $75 USD or 50 British pounds. this puts the cost of the above build to 400 British pounds which is very close to your budget (within 30 pounds). But again British prices for components may be more expensive with the VATT tax.

This PC will be much faster than your current PC and will probably be current for the next three years or so. Again, I did fix up an old PC and I was VERY unsatisfied with the results. Build a new one if you can, the difference is night and day.

The above build may give you some ideas and is just a suggestion. You can best determine what will meet your needs.

I hope this helps you.