in the shops they seem to be anything from £500 up to £1500. Surely they dont cost that much when they are all made in china?
And is it relatively easy to do or would i need an expert?
2007-03-15 05:08:23 · 10 answers · asked by eric t 1 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Desktops
You could do it yourself, but nowadays it is much cheaper to buy a barebones system from someplace online, such as TigerDirect.
2007-03-15 05:13:07 · answer #1 · answered by whodeyflya 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is possible to buy a machine ready made within your budget but generally the more you pay the more you get.
The question is do you actually get what you need?
What I mean is, if you pay £500 for a Pc, printer, scanner web cam etc. for your home office to do nothing but office type stuff fine, but buy the same bundle for gaming and you will probably be disappointed.
If you take the same £500 and buy the RIGHT parts you won't have the printer etc but you will have a smile on your face.
Building a P.C. isn't difficult, but I would reccomend doing a little study first. "Toms hardware guide" contains information on choosing parts and building pcs and is a good place to start, also check out pc magazines, if it still exists look up "PC Advisor" magazine online for a good step by step guide. check amongst friends for someone who has built (succesfully) before.
Or as a last resort find a shop that will build EXACTLY what you want
The basic steps are :
1. decide what the machines main purpose will be ie. Gaming, Graphics, Video editing, Music? this helps choose the parts. for example a Gaming machine I would spend as much as possible on the video card ,for a Music workstation the video card would be less important than the Sound card
2. Work out your budget ,remember you need an operating system.
3. Choose the best componants you can afford. If you have to adjust your budget think of what you NEED to get the machine working. Dont go for an inferior video card /cpu /motherboard just so you can afford that second GB of ram settle for 1Gb for now, adding more Ram costs a lot less than upgrading a video card. Find a case that has a suitable power supply 500w or more (depending on what your using ) some cases come with keyboard/ mouse
4. Shop around for parts and dont be in too much of a rush, some parts Ram , Cpu's and Drives can drop in price considerably over a few weeks. Case's are about the slowest changing.So if buying over a few months or so keep an eye on prices you may pick up some bargins. Computer fairs are also worth checking
2007-03-15 14:55:46 · answer #2 · answered by Yoda 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
As some of the answers say it's easy enough assembling a computer, the hard part is deciding what you want in it. Motherboards will only take certain CPUs, there are different slots for different Ram modules, The PSU needs to be powerful enough to supply a steady power output to your components. And as yet I have not even mentioned Graphic cards and the rest. Before you buy anything research the project thoroughly. there is an excellent website at http://www.micromart.co.uk join up (free) and go on the forums. Ask questions there and you will get some great advice, the guys are all experts and happy to help you get into building your first machine. Hope this helps. Good luck, and enjoy.
2007-03-15 07:34:46 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
CPU = £40
MOBO = £50
HDD = £45
1GB RAM = £50
Case = £35
17" TFT = £100
K'board, Mouse & Speakers = £15
Total = £335
You do not have to be an expert, it is no more difficult than building an Airfix kit. You will have to do some research into building it and there are static electricity safety precautions to observe, but other than that, it is a piece of p*ss.
Buy your kit at www.ebuyer.com, www.aria.co.uk and www.cclonline.com. I have found these to be the cheapest and the best. Lots of luck.
2007-03-15 05:26:40 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Very easy. And this way you get to choose each component.
Let's see, you need a case, motherboard (w/cpu & video/usb/networking), RAM, harddrive. Yeap, that's about it! And it's almost impossible to assemble it wrong.
Have some fun with it. Talk to one of the geeks in the store to see what components they like. You could end up with an unusual screaming machine for the same cost as a knock-off.
2007-03-15 05:23:37 · answer #5 · answered by Jim 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Build by yourself? US $800 for a very current machine (not bleeding edge though) US $1k (about 500 pounds) to have a shop doing it with some high markup.
Relatively easy, but most people don't go about making their kitchen tables...
2007-03-15 05:16:20 · answer #6 · answered by Andy T 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you know which parts to get, you can make yourself a very nice computer for ₤400.
2007-03-15 05:23:23 · answer #7 · answered by jkomets 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
its as cheap to go to the shops in the past i have built pcs but not now
2007-03-15 10:21:03 · answer #8 · answered by simonjohnlaw 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
mine is top spec and i put it together for about 700 quid.
2007-03-15 05:18:27 · answer #9 · answered by Alfred E. Newman 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Try here for info
http://www.techtutorials.net/
http://www.theeldergeek.com/
http://www.techtutorials.net/cgibin/links/search.cgi?query=build%20a%20pc
http://tomshardware.co.uk/
http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/
2007-03-15 08:27:24 · answer #10 · answered by george r. n. 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋