Are any of these online stores any good when it comes to custom building your own PC? abspc.com monarchcomputer.com alienware.com cyberpowerinc.com ibuypower.com
I can vouch for, monarchcomputer.com alienware.com cyberpowerinc.com ibuypower.com as I have bought from all of them but tell me one thing, why buy one of these if you can build one yourself for hundred's less? It really is easy, and you learn alot while building, also there is a certain satification of getting it done and setting back and telling everyone, Hey I Built That!
I agree with techguy 26 when you build your own your saving hundreds if not thousands in some cases. I built my newest computer about a month ago and saved about 900 hundred dollars when compared to a system from Alienware and Falcon. But if you don't won't to go through the whole process of shopping around for the best deals or have the money I would recommend the two companies I mentioned above, mainly because they build quality machines with good service to back it up.
it really does not take a huge amount of skill to build your own PC. you can find tons of step-by-step guides online that would help. That way you would save a LOT of money buying all the components individually, and you can tailor your computer to exactly what you want, and not have to pay more money for things you don't need. if you still want to buy a computer online, as far as gaming goes alienware is pretty much on top, but expensive!!
I've never built a PC before, was contemplating on building one myself, but it seems intimidating. The thought of me breaking the processor when installing it into the mobo or something breaking keeps playing in my head. I've no clue where to install the fan, where to put thermal grease, will the parts fit the case, do I have enough cooling, brands to avoid, etc. The only time I've ever worked with a PC was when I installed some RAM, HD and a DVD-RW. I'm worried about me building a PC and it's going to end up a "hack job" where I would be constantly tweaking, fixing or making adjustments because I did not set something correctly in the first place. I've tried looking for some online guides but most seems outdated. I'd like a very detailed guide with lots of pictures. Do you know any up to date guides?
I would be constantly tweaking, fixing or making adjustments because I did not set something correctly in the first place. well welcome to computers!!! especially gaming one's, it seems each game works better with a few adjustments here and there. and it seems changing one setting alters others, but it is not that hard and you have all of us to guide you, dropping a processor into a socket is easier than seating ram, and if you have put all these things into your existing computer building another is easy, oh and on your first build buy all retail parts not oem each part will come with very detailed instructions, motherboards I would recommend asus as mine came with a book that had pictures and was very detailed, also if you do want to build ask for suggestions to part's 1st what would you like to do with your new pc? as in mutitasking,gaming, video editing, encoding, ripping movies. what is the order of priority to you. 2nd what will your budget be? that way with a few suggestions you can weigh the pro's and con's of prebuilt and a custom built pc. 3rd these companies play on the fears of people and computers. thats why they make money.
That guide has Pentium II processor. Will the same steps follow for more up to date PCs? Mostly multitasking, Photoshop CS2, Illustrator, Quark, video encoding, editing. Gaming is not really a priority but would like to be able to run newer games on it's average settings. Somewhere around $1200(Monitor, keyboard, speakers, etc not included) but I don't want to "cut corners" so I'm still willing to shell out a few more dollars. What I have in mind is basically an AMD 3500 or higher, 1 Gig RAM, 256 MB Video Card DVI, a DVD-RW that can booktype, Windows XP Pro. A fast and huge HD and a sound card isn't high on my priority. Will that fit in the $1200 range? Would I be better off money-wise with an independent local computer shop?
alien13.... isnt that guide a little bit old.... I, personally, am a big fan of overclocked Celeron processors for home computers, but since they're not quite a plug-and-go proposition, a proper Pentium II 350 is a decently fast lol anyway... McDung I remember the first time I built my own pc. my friend did his and he explained to me how to do it and assured me it was easy. That was a few years ago now with win98 but the ammount of trouble i had was unbelievable.... wrongly formatted and partitioned drive, floppy cable inserted wrong way, wrong type of ram bought, incompatible drivers, under-powered power supply and that was just the easy bits. it ended up costing me more than what it would to buy in a store but i learned a lot of lessons that year which helped in the future. Sure it is easy to build a pc if you know how, i often build them for my friends and it takes me roughly 1- 2 hours from the components arriving to getting a working pc playing games perfectly. but if you have never done it before i would reccomend getting it bought from a store. then after you have owned the pc for a while look into getting upgrades. as you install new parts one by one you will become used to where each component goes and a bit of research on the internet will help make sure you dont buy anything that wont fit and learn you what will fit and how it will effect the pc. if you do decide to build one your self then the main things to look out for are making sure that before you buy anything that it is compatible with the rest of the components, double check everything before you boot it up for the first time eg connections, motherboard shorting on something left inside, cpu fan's power connector is in place - that sort of stuff. the case should not be a problem as long as it isn't one of those micro cases then everything should fit in so it will be down to how you want it to look. also you arent really going to break the cpu when installing as long as you handle it correctly. you will not crack the core if you get a decent heat sink and fan but some cheap hsf's need a worrying ammount of force to clip in place. and there are plenty of guides to appling the thermal paste available online. one is here http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm anyway hope that helps a bit. oh and as for enough cooling - if your not going to be overclocking then the standard amd heatsink and fan that comes with retail cpu's will do fine, and add 2 case fans if you can 1 at the front sucking air in and one at the back blowing it out Its a shame you don't live in england i could build you a kick ass pc for that ammount of money that would play new games well above average and do everything else you would need.
How much soldering is there to be done when you build your own P.C..The main reason I want to build a PC is that I want to run 4 optical drives in one tower and I need a custom box to do that. I would like one that has a door on the side of the tower so you can change out parts and drives easily. Is this hard to do?
you can buy a case that will fit in 4 optical drives. pretty much all do. and there is no soldiering in building a pc unless you do some extreme customisation.
McDung Maybe this will help, seems a little more up to date than that other guide. http://www.buildeasypc.com/
Well, like I've previously said, I've already did previous upgrades on a PC like a new HD, more RAM, ethernet card and a DVD-RW. I've also re-formatted my HD and started from scratch, installed OS, partitioned it yada yada yada. But never built a PC before. Will that experience of me installing those parts be enough to build on on my own? This is my biggest concern in building one on my own. Are you sure I'd get a lot of PC for $1200 in the UK? I mean, the Pound has been on a downward slide against the Dollar lately.
ok lets see 1200 bucks to spend, all these come from newegg of course. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16819103539 this is the new 3700 64-bit san diego core with 1MB L2 Cache. 325.00 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131524 ah the asus a8n-sli board is reknown and just in case you one day want to go down the sli road you can awesome board better price 140.00 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820227031 ocz performance series ddr400 pc3200 512mb x 2 1 gb of really good memory. cas at 2-3-3-6 cost 100 bucks! http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822144391 western digital caviar 300 gb hard drive 127.00 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811144089 this aspire case isn't cheap at 140.00 bucks, but one thing is for sure it's plenty cool with 5 80mm case fans, and you won't have to worry about power with a nice 500 watt power supply. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16827152047 this dvd burner is the nec 3540 internal, I personally own one of these and it has better compatibility than my sony. 46.00 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814150091 the 6800gt is a awesome card and will be able to play whatever you throw at it for a long while 296.00 ok that is one hell of a computer come out to be 1175 bucks, and I will pretty much gurantee you you wont pick that up at best buy or alienware!
You left out the software and the O.P. system etc. but what you have sounds awesome. I'll bet with 2000 grand you can build a real top of the line tower.
Yeah it is old. I dont know why i used that one i thought i had coppied a different one (Coz i have sum bookmarked)
HEY MCDung, Man i know how you feel i recently( 1 week ago built my OWN computer) at first i was unbelievably scared as to if i would have all the right parts, would i be able to get everything in a $500 budget, ...and just plain old nerous. But then I said to myself Doom 3 and Half life 2 look really good and i want to play them... which was my inspiration...i called up a friend(MAJOR techie) and asked him to help me build a comp. Well everything he told me i went AGAINST... I CHOSE ON MY OWN!!! firs he told em what to look for in a good part and such then i started to look for better prices and deals that he had ovelooked.... after abot a month of finding parts MAKEING SURE THEY WERE COMPATIBLE, i finally presented all this to my dad and he was proud and ordered my parts. 5 days ago i got my arts in and called up my friend and told him to come over and help me put this thing toether... it was gonna take him 2 hours to get to my house... me .. hehe im a very impatient person... during the time it took my friend to arrive i put my mobo in the case, installed my power supply.. but held off on the processer because just like you i did not want to crack the core of a 150 dollar proc... well when he came ove he said look at the instructions and just put it over the holes.. I said errr ok ,, and found out that they use a Zero Fore Insertion just drop it alligned properly and ur done... heatsink/cooling fan goes rigt ver the proc, which was a breeze to install .. an they rest like the HD, RAM, Vid CArd was oo so very easy to install... basically just slide em in the slots.. Whoo and I WAS DONE!! Specs Of MY VERY OWN Comp: Amd Athlon 64 300+ $150 Foxconn NF4UK8AA Motherboard $100 NVidia GeForce 6600 GT $165 Ultra Dragon case with 500Watt PSU $120-$60(rebates)<< tiger drect pQi 512 MB RAM $35 Got every thing from NEWEGG.COM except for the case>>> TIGERDIRECT.COM BOTh very GOOD sites ,, o and newegg shipped 2 days earlier than scheduled date.... Newegg ROCKS.....
Thanks y'all for the replies, keep it coming. Looks like I'll be saving a bunch of money by switching to newegg. To techguy26 The whole thing plus XP pro would cost me around $1400 including taxes and shipping, not bad at all. Can you suggest another case with PSU or a case and PSU? I've read reviews on the Aspire case you've mentioned. The reviews say that some had PSU issues with the case. Should I just ignore those comments and go with the Aspire? If I go with the Aspire and do some OC'ing in the future, will the cooling be sufficient? Can you also suggest another video card/s which is just a step below the one you've suggested? And for warranties, do you guys feel the need for an extended warranty with this setup or will the manufacturer/store warranty be enough? Should you throw away the boxes and just keep the receipts and manuals, will those be enough in case some warranty issues happen *knock on wood*?
I have only owned 1 PC for about 5 years now. I have done many upgrades to it but it's only a matter of time before I get myself another one. I paid $850 for my PC which was suppose to have a P4 but instead had a Celeron. Got screwed there and it was too late by the time I found out. I had moved to far away to make a big deal out of it. First think I did when I got it was take it apart, keep in mind I had never done this before. All I knew I had either just seen it or read it somewhere. I put it back together and worked just fine. My brother thought I was stupid for spending $850 and then take it apart risking breaking it. I don't feel its that hard to build your own PC if you do your homework. Putting the pieces together is a delicate process but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to do it. Just be careful. Make sure you get the right parts and no big deal. And about the tweaking part, there is nothing better than tweaking a PC to your liking to get the most from it. There are so many places online that can help you with that and so many programs that can makwe it easier. Take the chance and join the rest of us in this great world of building the PC and sticking it to the computer stores for selling expensive PCs with unnecesary software and hardware.
yes you would, especially if this price does not include monitor & kb etc $1200 = £683 at a guess i would say you could get with that ath64 3500 (£160) 1.5 gig ram (£75) 200gb hdd (£70) ati x800 pro (£160) dvd writer (£30) and a nice looking case (£60 - £80) - with some change left over. (£75 - £85 on motherboard) And if you post on this site what you are thinking of buying before you order im sure there will be plenty of people will tell you if something is not going to be compatible. Unless you have no experience of what goes where and does what inside a pc i suppose its not going to be easy to make a mistake. you already know how to install the os and connect the ide drives, ram and pci cards and unless you are careless the cpu will be easy to fit too. if you get into any real trouble im sure your local pc store will put the parts togeather correctly for you for a small price.
