Advice For Building A PC
Hi guys
The warranty on my 1st Gen XPS 17 laptop ran out recently, and this has prompted me to contemplate selling it on ebay and replacing it with a PC. Since the laptop stays in one place and it is not future proof given the limited upgrade possibilities, I figured it may be a good idea to get rid of it now while it still holds a decent value.
Since I have never build a PC before, I thought it would be a good idea to ask you guys for some advice on what would be the best components to buy. Looking at, for instance, motherboards, it was quite daunting seeing how many different types there are.
So basically, can you guys recommend which of these parts I should get?
- Motherboard (It doesn't have to be the best but would at least want it to be able to support ivybridge so that it will be futureproof)
- CPU (I feel a sandybridge based one would be best bang for buck atm? Doesn't have to be top of the range, but at least comparable to the Core i7 Q840 in my laptop)
- GPU (Again, I'm not looking for top of the range, but rather, best bang for buck as I can always upgrade in a few years. Something at least comparable to the Nvidia 445m on my XPS 17)
- RAM Type (does it make that much difference)
- Wifi Card
- PC Casing
- PSU & Cooling (Really important to get a very quiet cooling system, as one of the main things annoying me with my current laptop is the amount of noise it makes.)
(Things like a monitor, ssd, etc I can work out for myself)
I'm looking to spend around the £600 mark. Don't really need top of the range CPU and GPU as I can always upgrade. Hopefully I'm right in thinking I don't HAVE to get a new ivybridge CPU right away even if my motherboard supports it. If this is the case, would at least want a half decent motherboard and cooling system to make sure I can upgrade it significantly in the coming years.
Thanks in advanced for any advice :)
All Comments (48)
Jump to unread Post a CommentLoads of good advice there
I personally would get a i5 2500k and a nvidia 560Ti
RAM: 8GB Corsair vengeance lp (low profile) £40
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V Premium £132
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/asus-p8z77-v-premium-motherboard-131-68-amazon-1258789?page=6: BUY THIS RIGHT NOW IT IS AN UNBELIEVABLE PRICE AND WON'T LAST, THE RRP IS LEGITIMATELY £350
GPU: Depends on requirements, the high end Radeon 6xxx series are meant to offer the best bang for buck (AMD Radeon 6750 / 6770 / 6850 / 6870). Deals keep popping up and disappearing ~£100
Wireless card: TP Link TL-WN881ND 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Express Adapter £15
Heatsink: Depends on taste, but i'd get a decent one, the i5 3570k processor overclocks quite well £30
Case: Depends on taste again, I'd personally buy a decent aluminium one for looks, noise and cooling plus ease of building £100
PSU: Depends on requirement and what you want to do in the future, fully modular ones are easier to handle and generally are higher quality. You'd need maybe 500W at most with the system as stands but that leave no room for additions. I personally have the Corsair AX 850, which is a top end PSU and £140 at amazon.
That's about £600 and will give you a decent system. Doesn't include storage or the monitor though, but you said they were covered.
Edited By: Domislice on Jul 17, 2012 12:20: Update
RAM: 8GB Corsair vengeance lp £40
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V Premium £132
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/asus-p8z77-v-premium-motherboard-131-68-amazon-1258789?page=6: BUY THIS RIGHT NOW IT IS AN UNBELIEVABLE PRICE AND WON'T LAST, THE RRP IS LEGITIMATELY £350 £132
GPU: AMD Radeon 6750 / 6770 / 6850 / 6870 ~£100 (deals keep popping up and disappearing)
Wireless card: TP Link TL-WN881ND 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Express Adapter £15
Will add more
Wow - that motherboard looks awesome. Cheers for the link! Will order it now!
Just curious though, is it actually possible to get a very quiet PC or will it definitely be louder than a laptop?
RAM: 8GB Corsair vengeance lp £40
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V Premium £132
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/asus-p8z77-v-premium-motherboard-131-68-amazon-1258789?page=6: BUY THIS RIGHT NOW IT IS AN UNBELIEVABLE PRICE AND WON'T LAST, THE RRP IS LEGITIMATELY £350 £132
GPU: AMD Radeon 6750 / 6770 / 6850 / 6870 ~£100 (deals keep popping up and disappearing)
Wireless card: TP Link TL-WN881ND 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Express Adapter £15
Will add more
Wow - that motherboard looks awesome. Cheers for the link! Will order it now!
Just curious though, is it actually possible to get a very quiet PC or will it definitely be louder than a laptop?
Yes a quiet PC is certainly possible, it depends on the quality of the components. It's another reason to buy a decent PSU as cheap ones are often incredibly noisy under load. Also graphics card can be noisy so look at reviews. Fans on a decent case will be quiet so I wouldn't worry about those.
RAM: 8GB Corsair vengeance lp £40
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V Premium £132
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/asus-p8z77-v-premium-motherboard-131-68-amazon-1258789?page=6: BUY THIS RIGHT NOW IT IS AN UNBELIEVABLE PRICE AND WON'T LAST, THE RRP IS LEGITIMATELY £350 £132
GPU: AMD Radeon 6750 / 6770 / 6850 / 6870 ~£100 (deals keep popping up and disappearing)
Wireless card: TP Link TL-WN881ND 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Express Adapter £15
Will add more
Wow - that motherboard looks awesome. Cheers for the link! Will order it now!
Just curious though, is it actually possible to get a very quiet PC or will it definitely be louder than a laptop?
Yes a quiet PC is certainly possible, it depends on the quality of the components. It's another reason to buy a decent PSU as cheap ones are often incredibly noisy under load. Also graphics card can be noisy so look at reviews. Fans on a decent case will be quiet so I wouldn't worry about those.
Alritey
I was looking at liquid cooling but it seems a bit complicated to install.. It's really important to me though to have a very very quiet PC. I'm so sick of hearing a constant fan noise on my current laptop.
RAM: 8GB Corsair vengeance lp (low profile) £40
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V Premium £132
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/asus-p8z77-v-premium-motherboard-131-68-amazon-1258789?page=6: BUY THIS RIGHT NOW IT IS AN UNBELIEVABLE PRICE AND WON'T LAST, THE RRP IS LEGITIMATELY £350
GPU: Depends on requirements, the high end Radeon 6xxx series are meant to offer the best bang for buck (AMD Radeon 6750 / 6770 / 6850 / 6870). Deals keep popping up and disappearing ~£100
Wireless card: TP Link TL-WN881ND 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Express Adapter £15
Heatsink: Depends on taste, but i'd get a decent one, the i5 3570k processor overclocks quite well £30
Case: Depends on taste again, I'd personally buy a decent aluminium one for looks, noise and cooling plus ease of building £100
PSU: Depends on requirement and what you want to do in the future, fully modular ones are easier to handle and generally are higher quality. You'd need maybe 500W at most with the system as stands but that leave no room for additions. I personally have the Corsair AX 850, which is a top end PSU and £140 at amazon.
That's about £600 and will give you a decent system. Doesn't include storage or the monitor though, but you said they were covered.
Nice! Cheers for the help. Will probably buy a decent second monitor for around 100 quid. Also will probably buy an SSD (perhaps 128GB)
I'm not sure if I'll spend that much on a processor though, I've heard the i5 2500k is the best bang for buck? Are these two processors a lot better than the Core i7 Q840 in my laptop?
RAM: 8GB Corsair vengeance lp (low profile) £40
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V Premium £132
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/asus-p8z77-v-premium-motherboard-131-68-amazon-1258789?page=6: BUY THIS RIGHT NOW IT IS AN UNBELIEVABLE PRICE AND WON'T LAST, THE RRP IS LEGITIMATELY £350
GPU: Depends on requirements, the high end Radeon 6xxx series are meant to offer the best bang for buck (AMD Radeon 6750 / 6770 / 6850 / 6870). Deals keep popping up and disappearing ~£100
Wireless card: TP Link TL-WN881ND 300Mbps Wireless N PCI Express Adapter £15
Heatsink: Depends on taste, but i'd get a decent one, the i5 3570k processor overclocks quite well £30
Case: Depends on taste again, I'd personally buy a decent aluminium one for looks, noise and cooling plus ease of building £100
PSU: Depends on requirement and what you want to do in the future, fully modular ones are easier to handle and generally are higher quality. You'd need maybe 500W at most with the system as stands but that leave no room for additions. I personally have the Corsair AX 850, which is a top end PSU and £140 at amazon.
That's about £600 and will give you a decent system. Doesn't include storage or the monitor though, but you said they were covered.
Nice! Cheers for the help. Will probably buy a decent second monitor for around 100 quid. Also will probably buy an SSD (perhaps 128GB)
I'm not sure if I'll spend that much on a processor though, I've heard the i5 2500k is the best bang for buck? Are these two processors a lot better than the Core i7 Q840 in my laptop?
I'm not on expert on liquid cooling but make sure your case supports it or you'll have to do some modifying to get it to fit. An i5 2500k is £150, so £25 less. Compared to the i5 3570k it runs hotter and more inefficiently at stock speeds but overclocks incredibly well. The i5 3570k heats up quickly so doesn't overclock as far without decent cooling. I would say that unless you're going to overclock to the extreme they both run identically under load. As said before the i5 3570k is cooler at idling though and the integrated graphics chip is better, which sounds irrelevant if you have a dedicated GPU but your motherboard has the facility to use it when the power of the dedicated GPU isn't required to save energy. Also the i5 3570k is newer :D
PS Don't worry about overclocking, that motherboard has a facility to do everything for you at the click of a button.
Asus Asus P8Z77-V Premium - £132
Kingston 8GB RAM - £40
Zalman Z11 Plus case - £50
LG DVD burner - £14
Noctua nh-d14 - £57
Gigabyte GV N56GOC-1GI - £130
Seasonic S12II-520 - £67
Any wifi card - £10
Seagate Barracuda 1 TB 7200rpm - £62
£722 in total. depending on where you want to save, it can be brought down to your £600 target.
Well I sorta know what to get now. The motherboard was the main confusion but I've now ordered the one on Amazon.
My main target now is getting the PC to be as quiet as possible. Also, am I right in assuming these desktop i5s blow the socks off my laptop 1st Gen i7?
forget about water cooling. it makes sense only if you watercool all the parts and costs about the same as your whole rig, when you get quality components, it's only meant for real high end.
Edited By: kunyk on Jul 17, 2012 13:27
Yeah that cooler will probably be fine. Tbh im so used to how annoyingly loud the XPS is that any half decent cooler would probably make a world of difference.
Also, I really like the look of that case, but I don't have much space for it if it's too big. Also, I would need the option of turning off the lights for when it's on overnight.
Dimensions 260(W) x 498(H) x 525(D)mm
but Zalman Z9 is narrower.
and to the Lights - you can simply replace the 2 fans, with the ones that don't have the LED on them if you find it glowing too much- about £15 will do.
or get Z11 (not the plus version) it's only got 1 glowing fan in the front.
Edited By: kunyk on Jul 17, 2012 14:06
Dimensions 260(W) x 498(H) x 525(D)mm
but Zalman Z9 is narrower.
and to the Lights - you can simply replace the 2 fans, with the ones that don't have the LED on them if you find it glowing too much- about £15 will do.
or get Z11 (not the plus version) it's only got 1 glowing fan in the front.
Dimensions 260(W) x 498(H) x 525(D)mm
but Zalman Z9 is narrower.
and to the Lights - you can simply replace the 2 fans, with the ones that don't have the LED on them if you find it glowing too much- about £15 will do.
or get Z11 (not the plus version) it's only got 1 glowing fan in the front.
Doesn't the noctua cooler come with fans?
Also, how many hard drives can this motherboard support and do I need to buy the Sata cables seperately?
Edited By: chris2010uk on Jul 17, 2012 14:19: correction
User's manual
ASUS Q-Shield
2 x SATA 3Gb/s cable(s)
4 x SATA 6Gb/s cable(s)
1 x 3-Way SLI bridge(s)
1 x 4-Way SLI bridge(s)
1 x SLI bridge(s)
1 x Q-connector(s) (2 in 1)
1 x ASUS Front Panel USB 3.0 Box(es)
1 x ASUS Wi-Fi GO! card(s)
2 x Wi-Fi Ring Moving Antenna(s)
SATA cables come with motherboard. usually about 2 or 3.
you can have as many drives you want and can fit in the case, you're limited just by the space, not even by the number of SATA connectors on the board, as you can buy SATA expansion card for PCI slot.
Edited By: kunyk on Jul 17, 2012 14:28
How totally hilarious and original, how is a comic genius such as yourself not a well know prime time celebrity?
0/10 , troll harder.