So I'm building a new computer...

[Lordmonkey]

...and i was wondering if anyone knew about any decent sites I could look at for components. I'm talking a heavy beast of a l33t machine here, primarily to play games on, but whenever I search for sites all I ever get is:

"BUY NOW!!! 800MHZ YOU COULDN'T OVERCLOCK IF YOU TRIED OMG!!! ONLY £6'000'000!!!" etc...

[Penitent]

I don't know what sites are good for a UK shopper, but Newegg.com will at least give you some point of reference.

I'm also in the midst of doing research for a new gaming PC; I hope to have all the main components by mid October.

[Lordmonkey]

hmm, I found quite a good selection of stuff on Novatech and compiled a list of selected components...

Components list:

Motherboard/RAM/Fan bundle:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...tml?MBB-N43051

NVIDIA nForce4 MCP, PCI-E, £200.47.

Graphics Card:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...tml?ASU-GF6625

GeForce 6600 256MB PCI-E, £91.65. Wanted the new 7800 but it'll cost me more than my soul.

Case:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...html?TT-ARMORB

ThermalTake Armour Case (Black), £86.95. It's screams l33t like nothing else...

Power Supply:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...tml?NOV-PSU450

450Watt ATX Power Supply. Deliberately went for a powerful one as I expect to be overdoing it quite a bit.

Hard Drive:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...html?MAX-P8L20

200Gb, 8Mb cache, £57.38. Had good reviews, and it's cheap for the size. Not IDE though...

Sound Card:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...html?NOV-SC51N

Novatech 6.1 7 Channel CMI audio, £9.49. Not too fussed about this.

CD-ROM/RW/DVD:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...tml?NOV-DVDCD8

ummm… £23.50

Total Cost: £485.89

If anyone can spot any conflicts or problems that this combination could cause, pointing them out would be much appreciated...

[fredmundo]

I'd check out www.ebuyer.com I get quite a lot of stuff there and it's usually at a great price. I've also had pretty good experience with thier customer service, I had to return a faulty motherboard (dodgy IDE controller), I had my replacement on my doorstep 8 days after I posted the board away..which I thought was pretty good. You get a lo of customer reviews with each item generally so you don't just have hardware review sites to go on either..
www.scan.co.uk are also pretty good.

[Enazel]

try www.cclonline.com

[BigJim]

I'd check out www.ebuyer.com I get quite a lot of stuff there and it's usually at a great price. I've also had pretty good experience with thier customer service, I had to return a faulty motherboard (dodgy IDE controller), I had my replacement on my doorstep 8 days after I posted the board away..which I thought was pretty good. You get a lo of customer reviews with each item generally so you don't just have hardware review sites to go on either..

Ah, so they're good then?
Nice one, I was looking on there a little while back for my gfx card, & their prices were decent, but they had a notice up at the time saying they were having problems with thier warehouse or something, & so orders were getting a bit backed up, don't worry, etc..

Being the cynical bugger I am, I moved on sharpish, & decided to pay a bit more & get it from amazon instead.
(a radeon x700 256mb, ended up costing me about 9-10 quid more)
If they're that good for you then I'll think about them more seriously in future, cheers for the heads up.

[Jo Bennett]

ebuyer are very good, just be aware that the very cheap stuff can havethe occasional glitch. I bought a couple of 100baseT network cards for less than GBP2 each, they were fine but I had to undo one of the screws because the hole had been drilled in slightly the wrong place so it wouldn't fit in the PCI slot. All the other kit I've bought from them has been faultless.

[Maxxev]

I can vouch for CCL computers as well, and have often found ebuyer to be good value

also www.redstore.com is pretty cheap

[Cheesejoff]

I'd say www.aria.co.uk are about as cheap as you can get. They don't always have items in stock though.

The PC looks good, if the mobo comes with 512 RAM like it seems to then it's a very good deal. The HD also looks pretty good, but I'm not sure if it is IDE. It's in the IDE section, but it looks like its ATA with a 40-Pin IDC cable, so I'm not sure.

[KingNic]

Power Supply:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...tml?NOV-PSU450

450Watt ATX Power Supply. Deliberately went for a powerful one as I expect to be overdoing it quite a bit.

No. Don't. The only thing in your PC that you shouldn't cheap out on is a power supply. A cheap power supply will in no way have enough power to run a decent PC and will probably pop in a few months at most. Taking the motherboard, CPU, memory and probably graphics card with it.

Get a £60ish PSU with a brand name like Antec or Thermaltake.

Sound Card:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/s...html?NOV-SC51N

Novatech 6.1 7 Channel CMI audio, £9.49. Not too fussed about this.

Your motherboard has on-board 7.1 sound and Nforce chipset sound is usually pretty darn good tbh.

[fredmundo]

I agree abou the PSU, Cheap ones only give you more problems later, lots of strange glitches, and lock ups after a few months.Chieftec also make pretty good one's.
I just got a sweet Antec entry level server tower for my new PC, it wasn't cheap but hey, it's a case for life and not just for christmas. The PSU that came with it rocks, it has a cable to connect to the mobo so that the fan speed can be adjusted by your motherboard, and it's got a modular cable set up, you just plug into it the connectors you want, leave the ones you don't want in the box, no more spare cables cluttering up the inside of you case, it really makes future tweaks a lot easier....
here's a link to my lovely monolith:
http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=90604

[Enazel]

Agree with the others, PSU is the one thing you don't want to be cheap on, if it starts having problems, it can and probable will take out the rest of the stuff on you computer, with power spikes, depowering at bad times etc.

[Tyrion Reaper]

Ive used www.overclockers.co.uk often and there customer service is great (ordered a graphics card years ago and they didn't have it in stock even though the website said it did so they emailed me and asked me if it was ok to give me the next version up, which was about £150 more, for no extra cost. Obvisouly I took it) and the prices aren't bad either

[fredmundo]

Yeah I've order a few things from overclockers, i though that they were pretty cool too..better for specialist stuff...
THe other bits you realy don't want to cheap out on are memory and motherboard... Memory problems can look similar to PSU troubles..although they have less potential problems to take other stuff down with them. I use Crucial almost exclusively ( www.crucial.com/uk ), your stuff is delivered special delivery (it'll arrive the next day if order early morning) garunteed compatible and a 10yr warranty too in the event that you are still using it then! Nad they have cool memory selector which if you don't know what type of memory you need will determine it from you when you provide your system details...
As for motherboard, it the one bit of your PC that connects everything together... imagine trying to hold a business meeting with a foreigner and a bad translator..you don't know what you'll end up getting!

[Disposable Hero]

In Holland we have a site called tweakers.net but I think that would be of no use.

They have a best buy guide out every month and i got me most of the components for the high-end gaming rig. So i went out and got me a 7800 GTX and a AMD Venice 3500+ processor. I have never seen anything on a pc like Battlefield 2, Doom 3 or Lock On: Military air combat with that 7800.

If you want, i can send you a rough translation in English of the best buy guide for September.

Ronnie

[Lordmonkey]

Ok, I think what i'll do is go for a good power supply and not worry too much about the case, although i would like several fans on it (have overheated pc's in the past... don't like the smell of smoke that much tbh )

My mate reccomended I get hold of a SATA hard disk, since it's supposed to be the future and their better for some reason. Sticking witht he motherboard and graphics card atm, unless someone can match that price with a 7800 GTX

In Holland we have a site called tweakers.net but I think that would be of no use.

They have a best buy guide out every month and i got me most of the components for the high-end gaming rig. So i went out and got me a 7800 GTX and a AMD Venice 3500+ processor. I have never seen anything on a pc like Battlefield 2, Doom 3 or Lock On: Military air combat with that 7800.

If you want, i can send you a rough translation in English of the best buy guide for September.

Ronnie

WOW you got a 7800!? What did that set you back?

[alterion]

... hexus.trust is your friend mate.. some of the best stores.. i can reccomend scan and microdirect.co.uk.. just don;t buy form overclockers and you'll be fine

[Penitent]

Question for those who suggest a good PSU:

I'm also in the process of building a new PC, and I've heard endless admonitions not to skimp on the PSU. I intend to heed those admonitions.

I've decided on an Antec Server case, with a built-in 500W PSU; I think it is an Antec Neopower.

I've read that Antec is a reputable brand for this sort of thing; is there anything wrong with going with a built-in one? Is it the same product as a PSU sold separate from a case?

[Disposable Hero]

The 7800 cost me about 500 euros.

I buy a new PC once every two or three years, and I try to get the good stuff. It is probably the one thing I spent a lot of cash on.
But you know, I don't drink much, have no kids, and I work about 40 hours a week. I need toys!

[Disposable Hero]

@ Penintent

I have an Antec case woth a 300W. Just be careful, though. The conector to my mobo had a 10 pin thingy and the receiving bit was 12 pins.
Lets just say I was not pleased at all when I (well, actually a mate) was building it and I was hopping on one foot to play BF2 and the damned thing wouldn't fire up!