New Computer

[Adiss]

Hello,

Two questions ...

1. At the current prices of prebuilt machines is it better to buy or build?

2. What are the cheapest build sites you know of?

[Jazza]

Dell?

[RonHaze]

it's probably cheaper to buy rather than build now coz of economies of scale and all that shit, unless u have sepecificrequirements for what componenets u want. supermarkets actually have quite good machines for sale nowadays.
Aldi did some well cheap good spec machines a while ago.

scan.co.uk have some bare bones systems that u can add to

[Adiss]

Ive have spec'd out the machine I want to build at £700

2200XP AMD, 1Gb RAM, 80Gb HDD, 120GB HDD, 5.1 Surround w/ Speakers, DVD/CDRW Combie, Geforce FX5200, Server Case, Printer, USB TV Box

[Markeh]

One word and one word only, build. :)
You can be guaranteed to pay a couple of hundred pound more on branded computers just because of the name, no matter what you'll be using your computer for.
It's just a matter of shopping around for the lowest component prices, it also gives you a bit of experience in making your own PC so that when it comes to upgrading you#ll know what to do. :)

Also just a quite tip of advice, I'd get an ATI card, preferably a Radeon 9700/9800 Pro, they're cheaper and I find are faster than most Nvidia cards atm.

[Jazza]

Originally posted by Adiss
Ive have spec'd out the machine I want to build at £700

2200XP AMD, 1Gb RAM, 80Gb HDD, 120GB HDD, 5.1 Surround w/ Speakers, DVD/CDRW Combie, Geforce FX5200, Server Case, Printer, USB TV Box

You dont want much, do you? :p

[Adiss]

Originally posted by Jazza Bing
You dont want much, do you? :p

Sorry should have explained that is my current build price, I can build that for just over £700 inc delivery

[Jazza]

Oh *understands*

[Ego]

Build it. The experience will be good, you can properly tailor it to what you want and it will most likely be cheaper.

There's a list of retailers I made around somewhere - see if you can knock the price a little lower :)

[Adiss]

Originally posted by Ego
Build it. The experience will be good, you can properly tailor it to what you want and it will most likely be cheaper.

There's a list of retailers I made around somewhere - see if you can knock the price a little lower :)

Im an IT profession, I've built hundreds of them. cheers tho :p

The reason I ask is the market currently contains loads of built machines who's profit margins are so small that its difficult to build machines cheaper.

[Mr_Wobble]

There are some good buys in the prebuilt market, and you get a load of extras (webcam, scanner, printer, etc), as well as software, often chucked in too. The thing is to know exactly what you're buying. Exactly which components they've used - motherboard, video card, sound card, etc, and make sure it's all upgradeable for the future.

Self build gives you the chance to build exactly what you want, from the quality of components you want. I've always self built my PC's as I usually perform some sort of major upgrade every 12-18 months, and reuse older parts initially (hard drives, DVD drive, case, etc).
You can end up spending a lot more on the basic hardware alone, but it will be exactly what you want.

It all depends upon what you want. Do you need a games machine, a graphics machine, or just a half decent office & Net machine?

Mr_Wobble ;)

[Mist]

Originally posted by Adiss
Ive have spec'd out the machine I want to build at £700

2200XP AMD, 1Gb RAM, 80Gb HDD, 120GB HDD, 5.1 Surround w/ Speakers, DVD/CDRW Combie, Geforce FX5200, Server Case, Printer, USB TV Box

You seem to have overlooked the motherboard. Possible the single most important thing. Worth spending more money on even at the expense of other bits. A computer with shit hot components but just a shit motherboard will always be..shit.

[RomanticDude]

A computer with shit hot components but just a shit motherboard will always be..shit.
very true

i'd build....cheaper that way.