Forget the wattage. They put the absolute crappiest power supplies in bundles with cases. You can put a name brand 500w psu next to a "mega robomarigold powerstar plus" 500w PSU and the megawhatsit will die in three months and take your motherboard with it. I cannot stress this enough: It is imperative to not skimp on your powersupply. The PSU is the heart of your computer and is a very critical and yet often very overlooked component. I highly recommend getting a good name brand PSU.
Thanks for the quick replies guys, so I take it that's a no? lol
Okay, going to look for a different power supply than the one I've listed above cause it's taking almost a fifth of the cost... unless that's normal? I think when I picked it it was one recommended in a high end guide. Any thoughts on the motherboard query?
Quick question, if I buy a piece of hardware from America will it run fine with other UK components? Cause there seems to be quite a difference in the cost of RAM.
Stuff like ram, the mobo, dvd drives and vid cards and such should run just fine whether in the USA or the UK. After all, they are getting all their power from the psu, not wall power. And even most good power supplies should cross over the pond well nowdays too, since the better psu's all have active pfc and autosense the input voltage. The frequency difference shouldn't matter either since the psu is converting to DC anyways. The only problem you might have would be with a video card that outputs a signal for television use because here in the US we use NTSC and if I'm not mistaken you guys use PAL in the UK and Europe.
On my last build the mobo, cpu, memory, video card, and PSU each cost me about the same. The case, HDD, DVD combined to about the same cost as each of the other parts. My last build was about 6x$150=$900
It is sort of strange because the CPU and memory used to be so much more expensive, relative to the other parts. And of course you can spend as much on a video card as you have.
Good good, what are the top online US suppliers? Hopefully most big ones will deliver internationally. Yeah we use PAL.
I'm really not sure on that, MathsPar. I know for a fact that Newegg doesn't ship international. But I think that any US company that would sell to the UK would be required to somehow charge (either in shipping or some other method such as customs) the VAT you all have to pay for any items bought, which I think would drive the price up to at least what you pay from a domestic store or website.
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LeonardoWake up and smell the glaciersEagle River, AlaskaIcrontian
edited July 2007
And if not the seller charging extra to pay for VAT, the buyer would be required to pay a customs duty/VAT (or both) before the shipped article is released to him.
Uk suppliers to look for ARIA/Ebuyer/dabs/Scan you already have overclockers.co.uk, pricey but sometimes have good deals. one to avoid unless visiting personally Eclipse.
Good good, think I'm getting a good idea of the parts I want and I've learned a few things along the way. I'll start building in a month when I get paid and hopefully some parts will be cheaper and I'll probably still alter a few parts before then.
Take care with yoyotech their returns policy is a bit iffy and the courier they use is a bit of a tard. Wish i could link back to a mates experiences with them but the micromart forums are down due to the severe flooding in England at the moment.
Should I take advantage of this 'wrong' price now? Seems like a good power supply.
500W FSP Blue storm II PSU 80% Efficiency.
http://www.scan.co.uk/todayonly/ - Click on the 'i' it comes to around £60, but if you go straight to 'buy' it comes to £35! Good price for a power unit but I'd appreciate your opinions.
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LeonardoWake up and smell the glaciersEagle River, AlaskaIcrontian
edited July 2007
Given a non-SLI/Crossfire rig, I think your power supply unit choice is excellent for 35 Pounds. You'd be hard pressed to find better for that money. 60 Pounds? Probably not, but then, I'm not accustomed to European retail pricing. If you think SLI or Crossfire is a future upgrade for your system, you'd do well to have more PSU reserve power.
It says they update their offers of the day at 12pm so I'll sleep on it and see what I think in the morning. Wont be puting everything together for another month so would be gutted if I saw a better offer during that time.
My current computer ran me $2300 in July of '06. When I pieced the same PC together 6 months later for a friend, it was $1600 with a better video card and even larger monitor. Progress hurts.
My last build ran me around $1100 almost a year and 1/2 ago with just under top of the line parts and it still eats everything up and better than most of my friend's computers.
I am afraid to see how much it would cost now :-P
Currently I am in the process of making a HTPC and looking to spend around $1000
since talking about random parts failing. My creative soundcard failed about 6 months ago. I reformatted a couple times since. every time I try to install the software for it my computer goes EXTREMELY slow and randomly blacks out, freezes, and shuts down. when i check my processes it shows devildr32.exe (which is creative) about 4 times. and I haven't had sound since. so anyways I absolutely hate creative lol and Before reading this thread was actually thinking about buying a new computer. But I didnt know it was as easy as you all say it is. Also knowing I have the support of you guys I think i can do it haha
Lol yeah the guys on this forum were an immense help when my hard drive died last winter and they haven't let me down since. It's like having a safety net to run through each stage with aswell instead of just following a guide.
By the way I bought that Power Supply Unit this morning as I decided it is a high quality PSU and there is not a big chance I'll find anything significantly better at that price or the same and significantly cheaper in the next month.
Comments
http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/
http://www.buildyourowncomputer.net/learntobuild.html
http://www.crazypc.com/articles/build.htm
http://www.motherboards.org/articlesd/how-to-guides/924_1.html
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,110665-page,1/article.html?tk=wb061603x
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?quicklinx=4LLQ
better than the one suggested earlier
http://www.pcupgrade.co.uk/productdetails.asp?ProductID=2563&categoryid=260
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?quicklinx=4KNH
It's 500 watts, 150 watts less than the previous power supply.
Is it worth paying the £80 more for a top power supply or should I go with this?
Another question, if I buy a few parts from dabs.com will I only have the one delivery charge yeah?
Okay, going to look for a different power supply than the one I've listed above cause it's taking almost a fifth of the cost... unless that's normal? I think when I picked it it was one recommended in a high end guide. Any thoughts on the motherboard query?
Quick question, if I buy a piece of hardware from America will it run fine with other UK components? Cause there seems to be quite a difference in the cost of RAM.
http://shop3.outpost.com/product/5008315 - OCZ 2GB from USA - $79.99
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-072-OC&tool=3 - OCZ 2GB from UK - £66.96 = $136.95
It is sort of strange because the CPU and memory used to be so much more expensive, relative to the other parts. And of course you can spend as much on a video card as you have.
I'm really not sure on that, MathsPar. I know for a fact that Newegg doesn't ship international. But I think that any US company that would sell to the UK would be required to somehow charge (either in shipping or some other method such as customs) the VAT you all have to pay for any items bought, which I think would drive the price up to at least what you pay from a domestic store or website.
Just noticed there is an Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q660 for about £30 more than the Duo I had originally looked at. Worth paying the little extra for?
http://www.yoyotech.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=3_5&products_id=3476&osCsid=43f2230638e7219803fa6ce538a3656e - Quad
[EDIT] Found better price so changed link
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?quicklinx=44HD#specifications - Duo
500W FSP Blue storm II PSU 80% Efficiency.
http://www.scan.co.uk/todayonly/ - Click on the 'i' it comes to around £60, but if you go straight to 'buy' it comes to £35! Good price for a power unit but I'd appreciate your opinions.
I am afraid to see how much it would cost now :-P
Currently I am in the process of making a HTPC and looking to spend around $1000
By the way I bought that Power Supply Unit this morning as I decided it is a high quality PSU and there is not a big chance I'll find anything significantly better at that price or the same and significantly cheaper in the next month.
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards/PCI-E/ATI+Radeon+X1900+Series/Jetway+ATi+Radeon+X1950+Pro+256MB+?productId=27834
Jetway ATi Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB - £65
It looks much better than the £100 one I looked at earlier. I wasn't planning to buy parts til end of August but these 'bargains' keep appearing.
So what's the advice? Buy or wait?
Here's where I'm at so far,
PSU:
Was - http://icrontic.com/forum/showthread.php?t=56521&page=2 - £78
Bought - 500W FSP Blue storm II PSU 80% Efficiency - £40
Processor:
Was - http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?quicklinx=44HD#specifications - £140
Now - Intel Core 2 Quad-Core Pro Q6600, 775, 2.40 GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 8MB Cache CPU
http://www.yoyotech.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=3_5&products_id=3476&osCsid=43f2230638e7219803fa6ce538a3656e - £163
Motherboard:
Was - http://www.pcupgrade.co.uk/productdetails.asp?ProductID=2563&categoryid=260 - £90.46
Now -
MSI P6N SLi FI V2 NF650i SLi S 775
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Motherboards/Socket+775+(Intel)/MSI+P6N+SLi+FI+V2+NF650i+SLi+S+775+?productId=26761 - £72.79
OR
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 Socket 775
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Motherboards/Socket+775+(Intel)/Gigabyte+GA-P35-DS4+DDR2?productId=27305 - £102.81
Optical Drive:
Was - http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000LSZKRE/ciaouk-ce-21/ref=nosim - £29
Now - Pioneer DVR-212BK - DVD±RW (±R DL) - 18x/18x/12x - Serial ATA - Black
http://www.advancetec.co.uk/acatalog/Pioneer%5fDVR%2d212BK%5fDVD%b1RW%5f%28%b1R%5fDL%29%5f18x18x12x%5fSerial%5fATA%5fblack%2ehtml - £20.33
RAM:
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-072-OC&tool=3 - Was £80, Now £67
Video Card:
Was - XFX GeForce 7600GT 256MB DDR3 PCIE Dual DVI
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4G23&SearchType=1&SearchTerms=geforce+7600&PageMode=3&SearchKey=All&SearchMode=All&NavigationKey=0 - £70
Now - Jetway ATi Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Graphics+Cards/PCI-E/ATI+Radeon+X1900+Series/Jetway+ATi+Radeon+X1950+Pro+256MB+?productId=27834 - £65
Case: Was - http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?quicklinx=4KN3 - £46
Now - Foxconn TLA-002 Black/Silver Case
http://www.xcase.co.uk/p/345994/foxconn-tla-002-blacksilver-case-no-psu.html - £20
OR
Akasa Zen Silent-Cool - Black
http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Cases/MIDI+Tower/Akasa+Zen+Silent-Cool+-+Black?productId=25262 - £30
Previous Total: £617 or £587
New Total: 40 + 163 + 72.79/102.81 + 20.33 + 67 + 65 + 20/30 = £448.12 or £488.14 Around a 25% drop so quite pleased.
Still need help regarding:
Motherboards - What affect should using Quad Core instead of Dual Core have on my decisions on picking a motherboard?
Cases - Worth paying an extra tenner for fans?
Optical Drive - Just your opinion if it's a good choice?
Graphics Card - Buy or wait?
No opinion on the optical. They're all the same these days; just different shells, same internals.
Graphics card: Buy.
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=600245 - £64