Im looking to buy a pre-built gaming pc with a budget of £600. I'm clueless when it comes to computers so im hoping you lot could recommend a website to buy from and what pc. If I knew how to build one I would. Thanks
Getting advice on parts and then just following a tutorial is a much better option. It's honestly incredible simple and easy to build a PC. It's just a matter of plugging things into one another.
so is it worth just trying to build one myself?
If you can complete a jigsaw puzzle you can build a PC.
[QUOTE=Lethaxx;44849251]so is it worth just trying to build one myself?[/QUOTE]
Definitely, it's not that hard and takes a couple hours at most, then you're set for the next few years.
And even if you found it too difficult, you could always ask a friend. Over here, there are also stores that will offer to assemble your system for you for 10-20€ on top of your order.
Most prebuilt systems are more expensive than the sum of their parts, use cheap power supplies that are prone to failure, flashy cases that you may not need, and overpowered CPUs at the expense of the included graphics card (which is generally subpar for the overall cost).
For a more tight fit into the budget, swap the CPU out for an i5-4440 or 4460, the 760 for a cheaper 760 (such as MSI's), and/or the motherboard for a cheaper one that's still well reviewed and will fit your CPU. You can edit that PCPartPicker list, but make sure to switch to UK first. PCPartPicker will not show you motherboards that don't fit your CPU (as long as there's a CPU in your list), so you can't do much wrong there. But still, post your modified build again so we can look over it.
Note it doesn't list that particular optical drive as available in the UK.
thanks! i think i will build it myself, what's the worst that could happen?...
You can also drop the OD if you don't need it and install 8.1 with a usb as well.
Cant get some of that stuff in the uk that jc2gamer1456 has recommended, unless im using the website wrong?
[QUOTE=Lethaxx;44850794]thanks! i think i will build it myself, what's the worst that could happen?...[/QUOTE]
You could break a component, but that's not gonna happen if you're careful. Careful meaning you ground yourself and don't use force (that said, some parts are surprisingly resilient). When you look for a tutorial on PC building, it should explain these simple precautions to you.
When I built my first rig, I didn't really know what to do either, but after looking up some things, it really wasn't difficult.
JC2Gamer1456's updated list still contains a part that's not available in the UK: the optical drive.
Do you have a second computer (perhaps a laptop) with an optical drive, and a flash drive that's larger than 4GB? Then you can turn your flash drive into a Windows installation medium, and don't need an optical drive in your new computer for that.
If you don't want to read or burn CDs/DVDs/Blu-rays, you can just remove the drive from your configuration then.
If you can't transfer your Windows DVD to a flash drive, or you want to read/burn other DVDs/CDs, you'll need to replace that optical drive. Take it out of the part list and add, for example, this instead: [url]http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-optical-drive-drw24f1st[/url]
If you want to use Blu-rays, you need to use a Blu-ray drive instead. This one can read/burn DVDs/CDs and read Blu-rays: [url]http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/pioneer-optical-drive-bdc207dbk[/url]
This one can read/burn DVDs, CDs and Blu-rays: [url]http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/pioneer-optical-drive-bdr209dbk[/url]
You can use this tool to download the iso directly to a usb without even needing an od, though you need another computer with at least windows 7 on it [url]http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/create-reset-refresh-media[/url]. Also if you're a student you can get 8.1 for $70 and you get to download the iso directly that way [url]http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Windows-8.1-Pro-for-Students/productID.288769600[/url]
ive removed the OS and optical drive that JC2Gamer1456 has recommended, saving me £70 ish. Is it worth using that to upgrade anything thats on the list or should i just go ahead and buy it all?
You do still need a Windows license, even if you're not gonna use the DVD that comes with it.
But if you do have an [I]unused[/I] Windows 7/8/8.1 64-bit license, or you decide you have some more money to spare, you can upgrade the graphics card to an Nvidia GTX770 or AMD R9 280X.
There's no clear winner out of those two, the GTX770 is faster in some games, the 280X in others. Nvidia cards have Shadowplay (a tool for recording or streaming games which, as far as I know, is less resource intensive than third-party solutions) and PhysX (better/faster physics simulations in games that use it), while AMD has better support for gaming on 3+ monitors at once and a new technology called Mantle which may improve performance in games that support it. On power consumption and noise, again, test results vary, but never by much. I should note, however, that the GTX770 is slightly more expensive.
This is, by the way, the point after which diminishing returns set in. While faster graphics cards will still perform better than a GTX770 or an R9 280X, they are far more expensive, with a far lower price-to-performance-increase ratio than you get from upgrades all the way to these two cards. They will easily get you 60fps in most games at 1080p, with graphics options turned up to ultra and anti-aliasing activated, and only go slightly below that in extremely demanding games such as Metro: Last Light and Crysis 3 (again, with everything turned to max and AA on). A GTX780 Ti or R9 290X would get you about 60 in those, but they're twice as expensive.
The 290 is as far as I would go for 1080p since you can get them for a bit more than a 770, and they're better than a 780.
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