Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 mega_bassist wrote:

Bullockist wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
There are a number of places that allow you to pick your parts and then they assemble and send it to you. It's better than buying a "production" model that will leave you with weird bottlenecks or things missing (like an actual GPU), and it's 10x easier than making it yourself.

Places like?

Thanx for all the help guys, I'm leaning against putting it together myself with all this talk of soldering irons and pulling parts out, I'll be too scared I'll break something

I built my first two PCs this year (mine and my brother's), and I didn't have to solder anything. Literally, everything plugs into everything else. The only issue I had was routing the wires so the tower didn't look all messy inside.

And that is why you get a tower that has both side panals removable. That way you can thread all the cables to one side and have the other looking nice and neat.

 FirePainter wrote:

 mega_bassist wrote:

Bullockist wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
There are a number of places that allow you to pick your parts and then they assemble and send it to you. It's better than buying a "production" model that will leave you with weird bottlenecks or things missing (like an actual GPU), and it's 10x easier than making it yourself.

Places like?

Thanx for all the help guys, I'm leaning against putting it together myself with all this talk of soldering irons and pulling parts out, I'll be too scared I'll break something

I built my first two PCs this year (mine and my brother's), and I didn't have to solder anything. Literally, everything plugs into everything else. The only issue I had was routing the wires so the tower didn't look all messy inside.

And that is why you get a tower that has both side panals removable. That way you can thread all the cables to one side and have the other looking nice and neat.

Oh, I did get one like that...it just took me a bit to make things I how liked it This is the tower I bought.

Yeah, I actually splurged a little extra on my case so the one I got had rubber covered holes inside the body and a hidden panel on one side to hide all the cables.

Has anyone got any recommendations for a £1500(ish) system? I am looking for something powerful but cost effective. I'm not wanting to build it myself either.

 Palindrome wrote:
Has anyone got any recommendations for a £1500(ish) system? I am looking for something powerful but cost effective. I'm not wanting to build it myself either.

To bad, because you could build a pretty insane rig for that much!

Or I could get a custom PC website to build one for me for a modest fee which will have a warranty, be fully set up when it arrives and which will take no effort on my part.

 Palindrome wrote:
Or I could get a custom PC website to build one for me for a modest fee which will have a warranty, be fully set up when it arrives and which will take no effort on my part.

It's your money, feel free to waste it however you see fit!

 Sasori wrote:


It's your money, feel free to waste it however you see fit!

Of course it is, which makes your posts both redundant and patronising. I also don't classify this as a waste of money.

 Palindrome wrote:

 Sasori wrote:


It's your money, feel free to waste it however you see fit!

Of course it is, which makes your posts both redundant and patronising. I also don't classify this as a waste of money.

Excellent, glad to see you caught on to that. I was a bit worried.

You don't have to classify it it as such, that doesn't mean it isn't. It is.

Does anyone have any useful suggestions?

 Palindrome wrote:
Does anyone have any useful suggestions?

Why make useful suggestions when you can make yourself feel smarter by being snarky.

And people wonder why tech guys are so disliked.

 Polonius wrote:

 Palindrome wrote:
Does anyone have any useful suggestions?

Why make useful suggestions when you can make yourself feel smarter by being snarky.

And people wonder why tech guys are so disliked.

I don't think he's a tech guy, if he can't even build his own computer!

 Sasori wrote:

I don't think he's a tech guy, if he can't even build his own computer!

Actually I have built 2. However I no longer have sufficent knowledge in this area to ensure that I don't install incompatable components and frankly I can't be bothered building it, and more importantly setting it up.

If you have nothing better to say then I suggest you go and spam somewhere else.

 Palindrome wrote:

 Sasori wrote:

I don't think he's a tech guy, if he can't even build his own computer!

Actually I have built 2. However I no longer have sufficent knowledge in this area to ensure that I don't install incompatable components and frankly I can't be bothered building it, and more importantly setting it up.

If you have nothing better to say then I suggest you go and spam somewhere else.

Do you have sufficient knowledge to use google?

 Palindrome wrote:
Has anyone got any recommendations for a £1500(ish) system? I am looking for something powerful but cost effective. I'm not wanting to build it myself either.

What are you looking to do with it - what applications, and specific games? If your a CAD artist my recommendations would be a lot different than if you were looking for a gaming PC>

 Sasori wrote:

 Polonius wrote:

 Palindrome wrote:
Does anyone have any useful suggestions?

Why make useful suggestions when you can make yourself feel smarter by being snarky.

And people wonder why tech guys are so disliked.

I don't think he's a tech guy, if he can't even build his own computer!

Yeah, I was talking about you.

 Polonius wrote:

 Sasori wrote:

 Polonius wrote:

 Palindrome wrote:
Does anyone have any useful suggestions?

Why make useful suggestions when you can make yourself feel smarter by being snarky.

And people wonder why tech guys are so disliked.

I don't think he's a tech guy, if he can't even build his own computer!

Yeah, I was talking about you.

Well, then, fair enough!

 Soladrin wrote:
Yeah, I actually splurged a little extra on my case so the one I got had rubber covered holes inside the body and a hidden panel on one side to hide all the cables.

My new Antec 900 has something the other 2 didn't have - a mounting slot on the bottom of the PC for a SSD. It also included some silicone grommets, which is handy, I guess, for mitigating the vibration from a component with no moving parts... but it was a nice touch nonetheless.

 Ouze wrote:

What are you looking to do with it - what applications, and specific games? If your a CAD artist my recommendations would be a lot different than if you were looking for a gaming PC>

Gaming. Ideally something that will last at least a couple of years without needing to upgrade.

Ok, desktop or laptop?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Polonius wrote:
And people wonder why tech guys are so disliked.

Coming from a lawyer, I snickered

 Ouze wrote:

 Soladrin wrote:
Yeah, I actually splurged a little extra on my case so the one I got had rubber covered holes inside the body and a hidden panel on one side to hide all the cables.

My new Antec 900 has something the other 2 didn't have - a mounting slot on the bottom of the PC for a SSD. It also included some silicone grommets, which is handy, I guess, for mitigating the vibration from a component with no moving parts... but it was a nice touch nonetheless.

How do you like that case so far? Would you say you'd prefer it to a Thermaltake?

 Sasori wrote:
How do you like that case so far? Would you say you'd prefer it to a Thermaltake?

I'm a huge fan. This is my third 900 build - so far my previous desktop (2007), my Windows Server (2010) and my current build (2014) all use them. Everything fits well, it has a great cooling fan up top that moves are quietly, and each iteration gets a little bit better - the current one has USB3 ports, the aforementioned SSD thing, and rubber anuses in the back for routing some watercooling, if you get down like that, as well as a giant cutout in the tray for upgrading your CPU cooler if you do so later.

It's not perfect - it's a little heavy, it's not toolless and it doesn't have a removable motherboard tray. It's a great fit for my specific needs.

Thermaltake makes great, well received cases. I really considered the Level 10 case, it looks like a good design. Ultimately though, while I lean liberal, my hardware is deeply conservative and I went with what I trust. Another great case I almost got was the Corsair Carbide AIR, but I wouldn't have been able to mount my 5-in-3 drive cage in it. Corsair, Thermaltake, Silverstone, I'd trust them all.

 Ouze wrote:

 Sasori wrote:
How do you like that case so far? Would you say you'd prefer it to a Thermaltake?

I'm a huge fan. This is my third 900 build - so far my previous desktop (2007), my Windows Server (2010) and my current build (2014) all use them. Everything fits well, it has a great cooling fan up top that moves are quietly, and each iteration gets a little bit better - the current one has USB3 ports, the aforementioned SSD thing, and rubber anuses in the back for routing some watercooling, if you get down like that, as well as a giant cutout in the tray for upgrading your CPU cooler if you do so later.

It's not perfect - it's a little heavy, it's not toolless and it doesn't have a removable motherboard tray. It's a great fit for my specific needs.

Thermaltake makes great, well received cases. I really considered the Level 10 case, it looks like a good design. Ultimately though, while I lean liberal, my hardware is deeply conservative and I went with what I trust. Another great case I almost got was the Corsair Carbide AIR, but I wouldn't have been able to mount my 5-in-3 drive cage in it. Corsair, Thermaltake, Silverstone, I'd trust them all.

I've always just gone with Thermaltake, a bad habit really, as I tend not do any case research. I find it's really hard to break from the brands I like, when it comes to components.

I'm honestly not a huge fan of Water cooling, but it's nice to know it's available if I choose to upgrade.

Thanks for this, I'll have to keep Antec in mind next go around.

Let me be clear - I like this Antec case. The Antec 1200 is pretty good too. However, they made some fairly poor cases too.

Anandtech is a good place to research cases, IMO. He's not afraid to say something sucks even if they advertise.

 Ouze wrote:
Ok, desktop or laptop?

Desktop. Basically I want an 'economical' high end system, an extra £100 for a component that will only give me 1 extra FPS isn't something that I would be interested in.

 Palindrome wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Ok, desktop or laptop?

Desktop. Basically I want an 'economical' high end system, an extra £100 for a component that will only give me 1 extra FPS isn't something that I would be interested in.

sounds to me like what you want is the ability to expand later. RAM and video cards are what drive most gameplay, and rather than buy huge now, make sure you can expand/replace what you buy.

that is literally the only advice I have!

 Palindrome wrote:
Desktop. Basically I want an 'economical' high end system, an extra £100 for a component that will only give me 1 extra FPS isn't something that I would be interested in.

Configuration#: 749035 (http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/saved/749035)

I don't buy prebuilt desktops so I cannot firsthand comment on this, but I bought a white box laptop from these guys a while ago and I was happy with it. It's the kind of build I made myself, more or less, even if you want to find a different vendor.

I know you said you didn't want to build, but I'd strongly suggest you remove the GPU that is included in that configurator (a 770 GTX) and go integrated graphics for now, save the money, and get one of the enthusiast type Maxwell cards that will be coming out soon. They are going to really stomp the current Kepler series, I think. I know "waiting for the best video card" is a game that will wind up with you literally never having a computer if you do it, but we're talking 2 or 3 months tops and you'd get significantly more bang for your buck - the low-end $150 ones that have come out so far are absolute monsters for the money.

Nonetheless the 770 GTX should hold up pretty damn well for a few years, and if you upgrade it later the PC in generally will hold up a few more.

 Ouze wrote:
Configuration#: 749035 (http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/saved/749035)

Windows 8? Adding in a sound card?

I like the Xonar cards, I think they're a big improvement over the Realtek crap chips that are default.

So far as OS, I only did the first page. You will want Windows 7.

As a more serious post, I got my current PC from a custom builder site last year. Very happy with it.

I wanted it to be small, reasonably powerful, low power draw and silent. And no more than about £600.

So, I got one with an intel SSD (nice and reliable), a low-power T model intel i5 processor (the integrated graphics are good enough for my purposes), 8 GB ram.

Got it from PCspecialist for £557, here's the details:

Product Description
Case
PCS Hush! Silent Mini-ITX Case + 80W PSU
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4670T (2.3GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® H81I-PLUS: Mini-ITX, LG1150, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
INTEL® HD GRAPHICS MEDIA ACCELERATOR 4000
1st Hard Disk
180GB INTEL® 530 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 490MB/sW)