Homebuilt system - opinions

[General_Kirby]

Not dabbled with computer innards for years, but recently took on the challenge of building my Dad a new cheap but capable computer. Enjoyed it so much, I've kept it for myself! Playing Flight Sim for first time since the late 90's and rather enjoying it! Anyway for a total price of £263 I've got...

Unbranded cheap mATX case
600w power supply
Asrock n68 motherboard
4gb ddr3 ram
Sempron 140 (using motherboard, second core unlocked, now overclocked and running as Athlon x2 at 3.0ghz!)
500gb seagate sata hdd
blu ray/dvd ROM
Sapphire 5670 512mb ddr5 graphics card

Loaded an old copy of windows xp, and currently running at full HD resolution on my 37inch tv. So saving more money. Windows 7 and big monitor to come at later date. Thoughts and opinions? I feel this is a pretty awesome spec for the price, just bought Crysis as well which looks good!

[mixture]

Erm.... putting your post to one side ....

but recently took on the challenge of building my Dad a new cheap but capable computer

and

Age: 76

How old is your dad ?

[General_Kirby]

I'll admit, he's getting on a bit.

[Saab Dastard]

I enjoy building and upgrading PCs - I recently put together a system for £154 - using some bits and pieces, a few new parts and some ebay purchases - spec. is:

2.4GHz Athlon 64 X2 (from another PC I upgraded to 3GHZ part)
4GB RAM (ebay, £36)
ASrock mobo (new, £55)
256 MB Nvidia 6200 (ebay £8)
80 GB & 1TB SATA disks (one old, one new, £45)
A-Open case (new, £10 - ebay)

I got a couple of CD/DVD drives spare, plus a Creative Audigy sound card that I salvaged from a dead PC I was given (the CPU and or motherboard had failed), together with a 500W PSU.

It's running W7 pro (£38 student price - as it's for one of my boys) and Office 2010 pro (£39, as above).

Keyboard, mouse and monitor were also spares.

My sister replaced her dead PC (see above ) with a perfectly good generic PC from ebuyer for the princely sum of £249, delivered. 3GHz Core 2 duo, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, 256MB VGA card, Win 7 HP. She already had a nice LCD screen, so didn't have to shell out for that.

SD

[mixture]

Well, I have to say, that's very impressive. Fantastic to see him continuing to embrace new technologies.

I know a perfectly capable octogenarian who thinks they are "too old" for all this computer business, and I think it's a great shame as this individual has extended family around the world who would dearly love to exchange emails and photos.

Your post will be duly printed and shown to said individual next time I see them! It's never too late to learn !

[Sprogget]

I build mine too. My current main home pc is used as a media centre. It's an Antec Fusion black case,
an Asus PM5-VL mobo
2x500gb hdd
Nvidia 9400gt passive cooled gpu
Creative xtreme music sound card
Hauppauge win nova-t 500 dual dv-b tuner
Hauppauge analogue tuner for Virgin cable
Intel core duo E4400 processor
LG Blu ray drive
Win 7 ultimate
4gb ram

I built it four years ago, bits of it, like the cpu are old hat now, but I dropped another 2gb of ram in this year & it's perked right up. Nothing like the satisfaction of building & running a pc for a few hundred quid that would cost a couple of thousand if you asked Mr. Packard, or Mr. Dell for the same spec.

[JimmyTAP]

I've built my PCs for 15 years now. They're a bit like Trigger's broom, I've had the same PC since 1996; it's had 5 motherboards, 5 cases, 7 CPUs, 9 HDDs, 4 monitors etc.....
Having said that, for the first time I'm looking at buying a pre-built system.

[tony draper]

Likewise ,been building me own since the first pentium,used to take me kit to the puter emporium for memory upgrades ect then decided to take the lid orf and have look inside meself and realized a monkey could build one of these bloody things,
3.4 AMD Phenom II
ASUS M4N68Tfull size MB
4 gig ram
1 gig Geforce 9400.
the rest cheapest tat one could find,
Went back to a desktop case with this one,sick of those daft towers.

[terrain safe]

Have to say I've built my first new PC in a good few years and really enjoyed it. Even bought some stuff that wasn't the best 'value' but some of the best for the first time ever.

i7 2600K
Msi GD-65 Mother board
4GB 1600 memeory
1TB samsung F3 HDD
600 watt quality power supply
ATI 6870 1GB video card
Nice thermaltake case
plus the usual DVD writer, extra fans and a Gelid Tranquillo Heatsink and fan which keeps the CPU very cool indeed.
Windows 7 HP
£830 all in and it hasn't even broken into a sweat yet.

[Mr Optimistic]

Yes, I have been building PC's for a few years but I cannot match the prices shown here. For a gaming machine I would have said £100 for graphics card, £50 for proper PS (ie real watts, not the Chinese variety), £60 processor, £40 mobo, £40 HD plus case plus memory plus this, that and the other. Mind you, it is satisfying but boy do I hate applying the force necessary to install the processor heatsink.

[tony draper]

Best stick in the CPU and fit the heatsink/fan before you clag the MB into the case,much easier to force those heatsink retainer thingies over the hook thingies when it is on a solid surface.

[AnthonyGA]

The advantage of building your own PC isn't so much that you save money, as it often costs about the same as a pre-built machine. The advantage is that all of the money you pay for a home-built machine goes to buy things that you actually want or need, and none of it goes to pay for useless hardware or software that you don't want. So if you spend $1000 on a home-built PC, you get $1000 worth of things you want, whereas if you spend $1000 on a brand-name pre-built PC, you get $300 worth of things that you want, and the rest of the money is wasted.

[Mike-Bracknell]

Originally Posted by AnthonyGA

The advantage of building your own PC isn't so much that you save money, as it often costs about the same as a pre-built machine. The advantage is that all of the money you pay for a home-built machine goes to buy things that you actually want or need, and none of it goes to pay for useless hardware or software that you don't want. So if you spend $1000 on a home-built PC, you get $1000 worth of things you want, whereas if you spend $1000 on a brand-name pre-built PC, you get $300 worth of things that you want, and the rest of the money is wasted.

And then conversely you then spend the other $700 (and more) on your labour to put it together, and then fix it when it goes wrong.

(just showing the flipside of the coin)