Build a PC for £1000 or below

News & General Discussion
1

Ok,

So I am just about to get a new PC. It will be used for developing and occasional playing.

I am looking for a complete package (including monitor, mouse and keyboard if possible). If not then I will purchase on their own.

I would ideally like to run games such as Black Ops 2 and hopefully the new one once released.

It seems if I lived in the USA I could do it for a lot cheaper than here in the UK.

If anyone has the time to find something suitable it would be appreciated. I have searched online and found quite a few that seem ok, although there are a lot more tech savvy and experienced people on here then me.

Thanks in advance.

P.S Building it myself is not out of the question, but after doing some small homework it seems that off the shelf and self builds do not differ in price that much.

2

Check this website out:

a friend of mine bought a pc there and he’s very happy with it.

I’ve also been researching for a new pc for when i have the money to buy it, and this is the cheapest and most powerfull pcs i could find, it’s definitely cheaper than buying pcs in my country (hardware and software are really expensive here, for example a recently released game costs around 70€-75€, while in the US it’s 60$ i think and that equals to 45€).

Hope that helps.

3

$1500 seems to be the reasonable price in my experience buying in the states and south korea.

4

Thanks guys!

Vibox has some decent computers and on Amazon they have a lot of sales for their systems

5

You should definitely build it yourself, it’s not hard, and in my experience, off-the-shelf systems use lower quality components to enlarge their profit margins…

Have a look at this site: http://www.logicalincrements.com/ - and get your hands “dirty” :slight_smile:

6

Yep , defiantly agree on this. Building your own computer is very useful, not only do you save money AND get a better computer, but you can do system cleans, upgrades, and fixes comfortably. It takes about 5 hours for your first build to put together and about 5 hours of research for parts. Then for your second build you can probably get the whole processes done in about 3 hours. If you like it you can even build them for your friends and help them out.

~lanDog

7

here’s a video that help you.

8

Build it yourself, I recommend:

CPU- Intel i7 or i5
Motherboard- Asus P8Z77-V Pro, great features.
RAM- any 8GB
Video- Asus GTX 660 or 670 or 680.
Hard Drives: Samsung SSD for windows/some apps, 2-3TB WD for storage/apps.
Case- Antec P280, silent and cool.
PSU- 600W
Cooler- Corsair H80i, silent and cool.

Sorta what I have, it’s powerful yet pure silent.

9

Thats going to be over 1000 bucks. Your not going to get a 680 and be on a medium budget. I reccomend going with extra watts for the PSU its going to be a pain in the ass to change them out; if needed.

10

Thanks for all the replies. I will be building it myself as I fancy learning something new. Gonna spend today looking at parts then I will jump in at the deep end

11

Yep very true, I’d say its down to differences in scale (i.e. far bigger market), differences in tax and import duty etc.

For many years I settled with using Dell in the uk, buying from their ‘factory outlet’, which offered discounts on systems that were cancelled/returned etc. Pretty sure they weren’t refurbished as such, just that the buyer cancelled after they were sent out for some reason. Due to this they were unable to resell them as new, so offered a pretty nice discount on them. However its very hit or miss as to whether you can find one with the right specs and features, plus you can (or couldn’t) make any further changes to the spec.

Main reason for going with Dell was they offered a decent service at the time, sending out technician the day after delivery to replace a dead DVD drive for example. Unfortunately I don’t think their service is up to that standard any more. So for my last PC (i think 2010) I looked for a different supplier, but found it quite difficult in the uk as there aren’t really any well known brands/companies. In the end it came down to two companies that seemed to have a good reputation Overclockers uk and Chilliblast.

In the end I went with Overclockers uk as i’d bought a few bits and pieces from them in the past. They aren’t perfect, but they do at least have some level of customer care that have sorted out the few problems i’ve ever had with them (e.g. returning a monitor after a couple of weeks that developed a fault). Overclockers is also great for building your own PC and they have a very active forum.

One thing with Overclockers is they have frequent weekly best buys, so its worth looking for a couple of weeks or checking the forums to see if there have been any discounts on the type of system you are after. I’ve found their prices to be very reasonable for pre-built systems.

Personally I’d advise against building your own, especially if you don’t have much experience. For me, the smal savings you can make just isn’t worth the time you’ll spend making it, nor do you get the peace of mind of returning a pre-built system if it breaks down, instead the onus is on you to find the faults, taking it apart etc.

Plus these days is pretty involved, making sure you get compatible parts, requiring substantial research, which again wastes time, where you could be earning money. Of course you could go with someone else’s, build specs, but then you may as well just get pre-built.

12

Thanks for this response.

The more I look into it, the more a prebuilt system is looking likely. I have checked a few pc’s on overclockers and then checked individual prices for parts via amazon and some other sites. It seems like I will only be saving £100-150, for the time I will need to check everything is compatible like you said and having to service and fix things myself it really does not seem worth the hassle.

I think I will just have a look at some prebuilt systems on overclockers and some other outlets and see what is available.

13

If your fine with spending extra money, then that beats one of the biggest pluses to building your own PC. Another big one is control, if you buy a custom computer they really hike the prices up and so the only reasonable way to get complete control and power where you need it, is to build it yourself.

Its not too much work checking compatibility as most parts try their best to be universal. Most of the capability issues are obvious like a AMD AM3+ processer only works with AMD AM3/AM3+ motherboard.

~lanDog

14

The Verge has a very interesting article on this. Have a look!

15

Newegg time…

16

I also recommend building your own. It can be scary at first but in actuality the parts fit together like lego pieces. What I did when I built my own was first look up all the parts myself, then posted them on a specialized forum where people gave feedback and recommended changes. Worked out pretty well.