daymoon
Premium Member
Registered: 1st Aug 08
Location: Selby, North Yorkshire
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Seeing as my laptop is kinda old and can't upgrade much hardware within it, decided to build my own PC.
Where is the best place to buy mother board+CPU bundles? not too bothered if it comes with RAM or not as they are cheap enough on their own.
Also what CPU would you lot recommend? PC would be mainly be used for doing some software development with Visual Studio 2010, little gaming ( like WRC 2010 )..
Budget wise I want to spend about 200-250 on mother board bundle and video card.
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Gary
Premium Member
Registered: 22nd Nov 06
Location: West Yorkshire
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Buy a pre built. Tend to be cheaper
Try cclonline
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N3CRO
Member
Registered: 12th Apr 07
Location: Sandy, Bedfordshire
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Overclockers.
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Russ
Member
Registered: 14th Mar 04
Location: Armchair
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Scan 3xs
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Dom
Member
Registered: 13th Sep 03
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Not a huge budget to play with, but for £250 i'd look at the AMD bundle on OCuk (£140) which will leave you enough for a ATI 6850/6870 or a Nvidia GTX 450/460. Obviously that is only for the motherboard, CPU and graphics card. You'd still need to spend a bit of a decent, quality PSU + DDR3 Ram and harddrives/case/optical drives etc if you need them.
For an intel bundle, you're looking at another £100 ontop (£250) just for for an i5 motherboard/cpu bundle.
As for pre-built, you're not going to get much of a system for £250.
quote: Originally posted by Russ
Scan 3xs
Apparently good bundles, DannyB was looking at them, but the cheapest bundle is £360 but it does include 4GB DDR3 - http://3xs.scan.co.uk/ShowSystem.asp?SystemID=1202
[Edited on 14-11-2011 by Dom]
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Sam
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Registered: 24th Dec 99
Location: West Midlands
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Motherboard - anything ASRock/Gigabyte is good, make sure it supports DDR3 memory.
CPU - anything that is at least a dual core processor. Stay away from shit processors like the Intel Celeron and AMD Sempron.
With your sort of budget I'd recommend an Intel Pentium CPU (socket 1155) or something like an AMD Athlon II X2/X4 CPU.
RAM - DDR3 1333 memory will be fine.
Graphics card - depends on what sort of games you want to play. 1GB PCI Express cards can be had for as cheap as £30 these days for example, but they tend to be bottom-mid range cards and won't be brilliant with all 3D games - basically the more you spend on a card the better spec it would be.
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DannyB
Premium Member
Registered: 6th Feb 08
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I reccomend Scan if you want to spend a bit more money, but if you just want an average desktop you may aswell buy pre built for that sort of budget. That budget isnt much really if you want to buy them parts on their own. My bundle is coming in at just over £500 that's just the main components though, no sound card, graphics card, PSU etc.
I can't reccomend scan enough though, used them for years and their customer service is top notch, fast delivery too.
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daymoon
Premium Member
Registered: 1st Aug 08
Location: Selby, North Yorkshire
User status: Offline
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Not worried about HDD or optical drive.
Not getting a fancy case, it will just collect dust anyway.
http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-intel-performance-bundle--inc--p8h61-m-lx2-motherboard--intel-core-i3-2100---4gb-ddr3-memory--7J0Z.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=product+search&utm_content=Q200
seems cheap?
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daymoon
Premium Member
Registered: 1st Aug 08
Location: Selby, North Yorkshire
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http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/motherboardbundles/mbb-i32124.html
or this?
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N3CRO
Member
Registered: 12th Apr 07
Location: Sandy, Bedfordshire
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Neither of them sound too bad tbh.
I'd go for the Asus one personally although I don't know much about Novatech.
[Edited on 15-11-2011 by TheNobleOne]
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Russ
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Registered: 14th Mar 04
Location: Armchair
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Not fussed about hdd? As in u already have one? Or not wanting a fancy one?
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daymoon
Premium Member
Registered: 1st Aug 08
Location: Selby, North Yorkshire
User status: Offline
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quote: Originally posted by Russ
Not fussed about hdd? As in u already have one? Or not wanting a fancy one?
I would either take one out of my laptop (SATA connection) or take the one my dad just replaced in his PC.
He upgraded the DVD driver in favour of Blue-ray writer so I will have that. I don't have the need for any more than 160GB hard drive anyway so even if I have to buy one they are not mega money.
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Dom
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Registered: 13th Sep 03
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quote: Originally posted by TheNobleOne
Neither of them sound too bad tbh.
I'd go for the Asus one personally although I don't know much about Novatech.
[Edited on 15-11-2011 by TheNobleOne]
Didn't realise places where still selling i3's but it's a foxconn board from the the images and Novatech aren't too bad of a company. But out of those two deals, i'd opt for the Asus just because of the components. Although saying that, neither bundle price is all that as you can price up something similar yourself - ie: i3 2120 + a Gigabyte board + 4GB XMS3 for £168 @ scan (reckon you could knock a bit more off if you shopped).
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daymoon
Premium Member
Registered: 1st Aug 08
Location: Selby, North Yorkshire
User status: Offline
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I thought i3's where recently released?
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Dom
Member
Registered: 13th Sep 03
User status: Offline
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quote: Originally posted by daymoon
I thought i3's where recently released?
They are intel's 'budget' processors and i thought they had stopped manufacture of them but obviously not
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