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P.C Building

Papercut

Papercut

Jermaine Jenas
I've always had laptops and they've generally been sat on a desk and been hard-wired into the router. As a result, I've decided on a project... Never attempted this before but fancy trying now and particularly seeing the cost benefit. Having done some research (and being frightened by terms like 'thermal paste', 'cable management', 'liquid cooling', etc) I've tried to put some parts together (using a great site http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/).

I've also used camelcamelcamel to wait on price drops (I'm in no rush and will get more joy the more money I save).

I'm not a big gamer (I said 'gamer' ;)) but will likely use it for light video/photo editing and perhaps even a cheeky game of FM. I do however want it to be relatively future proof (as my laptop proved to be).

First things first, I invested in a:
SANDISK Ultra Plus 2.5" Internal SSD - OEM - 256 GB for £69. I'll use this to boot from.

I've also just ordered a:
NZXT Source 210 ELITE Midtower Case with 3.0 USB - White off Amazon for £27 (the black was £42).

I've been trying to put together parts using Intel i5 4th gen but have been swayed towards a:
AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor (retailing at the mo for circa £75 (hope this doesn't start an Android-IOS, Apple-PC debate!)

I can list a few more items if needed (as I don't want to sound like a total noob haha)

Oh the video card is the priciest part (exluding the monitor):
Sapphire Radeon R9 270X 2GB Dual-X Video Card at £119.


My question: How safe is it to buy components/parts from ebay? Some sellers have 100% rating so should I be swayed by that? If yes, should I also consider used parts? Should I buy some parts new from retailers at all costs?

On another note; I think I may stick with the Windows 7 64 bit that I already possess.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated. :)
 
What MB are you looking at?

I'd be tempted to get one with a slot for a 256MB M.2 SSD for the OS and then just chuck a big, traditional, moving parts HD in with it. It's a little more expensive, but the speed is ridiculous.

I use an M.2 for the OS on my laptop and boot is around 7-8 secs from cold to my desktop.
 
I've had to opt for a Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3P (£65) as the original one I had in mind (BIOSTAR TA970) didn't have onboard USB 3 headers (I've assumed this is important).

Yep, looking at the Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£35) not sure I'd need more than that really.
 
The Gigabyte boards are usually very reliable, have one in my rig aswell, and you need internal usb 3.0 headers if you want to connect the usb 3.0 ports on your case. The cpu is decent, especially for it's price, but I would go for a aftermarket cooler on the AMD processors. They tend to run hot and the stock coolers are ****! :D
 
Built my first PC last week and enjoyed it. I got most of my parts from scan.co.uk and aria.co.uk, with the odd part from ebuyer. The first two sites tend to have bundles going which may save you a few quid here and there

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/ - a good website with a really helpful forum with a lot of people always happy to answer new posts.
 
scaramanga said:
What MB are you looking at?

I'd be tempted to get one with a slot for a 256MB M.2 SSD for the OS and then just chuck a big, traditional, moving parts HD in with it. It's a little more expensive, but the speed is ridiculous.

I use an M.2 for the OS on my laptop and boot is around 7-8 secs from cold to my desktop.
Click to expand...

I have a similar set up, i just bought a SSD and have windows booting from it, 13 seconds from cold, not bad for a 5 year old cheap machine! The only problem i have is that if i install itunes on the ssd and link to my music library onca SATA moving parts hdd its very laggs as the SATA HDD cant keep up.
 
Eriktheviking said:
I have a similar set up, i just bought a SSD and have windows booting from it, 13 seconds from cold, not bad for a 5 year old cheap machine! The only problem i have is that if i install itunes on the ssd and link to my music library onca SATA moving parts hdd its very laggs as the SATA HDD cant keep up.
Click to expand...
Have you tried putting the iTunes library on the SSD with the media on the HDD?
 
scaramanga said:
Have you tried putting the iTunes library on the SSD with the media on the HDD?
Click to expand...

Not yet, it's a good idea to try though, not had chance to configure windows and all the settings yet. Will have a go this weekend. iTunes really is a **** piece of software to get set up well.
 
scaramanga said:
What MB are you looking at?

I'd be tempted to get one with a slot for a 256MB M.2 SSD for the OS and then just chuck a big, traditional, moving parts HD in with it. It's a little more expensive, but the speed is ridiculous.

I use an M.2 for the OS on my laptop and boot is around 7-8 secs from cold to my desktop.
Click to expand...

Never heard of these before. So this can effectively be the hard drive?
They have a Crucial CT512M550SSD4 512GB M550 M.2 Type 2280 Internal SSD on Amazon for £209. That would cover me I reckon (and I'd back up photos etc on an external). That said; it may be for the future. Is it much faster than M.1 SSDs?

And now I've found a new term 'bang for bucks' :lol:
 
Eriktheviking said:
I have a similar set up, i just bought a SSD and have windows booting from it, 13 seconds from cold, not bad for a 5 year old cheap machine! The only problem i have is that if i install itunes on the ssd and link to my music library onca SATA moving parts hdd its very laggs as the SATA HDD cant keep up.
Click to expand...

I've just deleted I-Tunes off my laptop, really peeves me off (how many bleedin' updates are required!). I will have to stick it back on there at some point but I'm taking an i-tunes holiday :D

In terms of booting up - I get the the OS will boot up fast however, I assume the drivers (that run on start-up) will still be slower if on the main HD?

Cochise; thanks for the tip, will check it out. :)
 
NorwegianSpursFan said:
The Gigabyte boards are usually very reliable, have one in my rig aswell, and you need internal usb 3.0 headers if you want to connect the usb 3.0 ports on your case. The cpu is decent, especially for it's price, but I would go for a aftermarket cooler on the AMD processors. They tend to run hot and the stock coolers are ****! :D
Click to expand...

The cooler I had earmarked is Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO for around £25. Seems to be decent?
 
Papercut said:
Never heard of these before. So this can effectively be the hard drive?
They have a Crucial CT512M550SSD4 512GB M550 M.2 Type 2280 Internal SSD on Amazon for £209. That would cover me I reckon (and I'd back up photos etc on an external). That said; it may be for the future. Is it much faster than M.1 SSDs?

And now I've found a new term 'bang for bucks' :lol:
Click to expand...

M2 are lightning fast - they were originally designed as cache so they have to be. There are a number of different sizes, 42mm, 50mm, etc so check that they fit whatever socket your MB has for them.

You can then use a traditional drive for storage and spend most of the time with it spun down (saves on power, heat and noise).
 
Eriktheviking said:
Not yet, it's a good idea to try though, not had chance to configure windows and all the settings yet. Will have a go this weekend. iTunes really is a **** piece of software to get set up well.
Click to expand...

Most of the work is done on the library files, iTunes won't access the media files until you tell it to.

Just thinking it through now though - much of your wait is probably the drive spinup. My HTPC has aggressively spun down drives and that's the biggest wait in getting anything off of that drive. iTunes probably hits the "automatically add to itunes" folder on startup, and that (I believe) may have to reside within the media folder.

You will need to get some monitoring software running to get the full answer, but it may be that you have to also put the media folder on your SSD with a symlink to you HDD where all the music/video files actually are. That way you should theoretically avoid iTunes hitting the slower disk at any point.
 
If you aren't going to be overclocking your processor then you probably won't be needing to worry about the aftermarket cooler. The one that will be supplied with the CPU should be adequate
 
As far as vendors go, scan.co.uk and ebuyer are good. The build geeks at work use them regularly.

Regarding the bulld, I actually am thinking of building one soon to replace my ****ty OEM dell of 5 years. am seriously thinking about an AMD for the first time. Are they still as noisy as they were a few years ago?


Sent from my iPad using Fapatalk
 
I need some help.

Need to build that new desktop mentioned in my post above a while ago.

Thing is I have a budget of £400 and wanted to do some light photo editing, browsing etc...

and my son wants to game on Steam with it so it needs some oomph.

I haven't done this in a long time and the web is confusing me. I have no doubt I can put it all together and I can put an OS on from USB and stuff but it's picking the right components.

I want an SSD and HDD for defo but the HDD can wait.

HELP!
 
LutonSpurs said:
I need some help.

Need to build that new desktop mentioned in my post above a while ago.

Thing is I have a budget of £400 and wanted to do some light photo editing, browsing etc...

and my son wants to game on Steam with it so it needs some oomph.

I haven't done this in a long time and the web is confusing me. I have no doubt I can put it all together and I can put an OS on from USB and stuff but it's picking the right components.

I want an SSD and HDD for defo but the HDD can wait.

HELP!
Click to expand...
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/parts/partlist/

They'll usually tell you what's compatible.
 
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£154.98 @ Dabs)
Motherboard: MSI B150M BAZOOKA Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£61.31 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (£37.83 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Sandisk SSD PLUS 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£37.97 @ Novatech)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar 750GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£25.99 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 380 2GB Video Card (£119.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Rosewill SRM-01 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£24.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply (£29.99 @ Aria PC)
Total: £493.05
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-03 14:36 BST+0100
 
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