New computer for me: best UK website? What to go for?

In My Humble Opinion
1

The time has come for me to have my usual 4-year upgrade. I usually go for self built computers, but I haven’t followed the market for quite a while and now I have a few questions.

I used to make any hardware purchase on www.dabs.com because they used to have plenty of choice and reasonable prices. Now they don’t feel as good a bargain as they were, and sometimes they restrict my choice a bit. What other good UK websites do you know that give me reasonable choice and prices?

What would be the requirements to run games released this year with good performance? What graphics cards are the best compromise between price and performance? What brands and standards to go for, or avoid, for, say, motherboards? Hard drives? Memory?

Another option, of course, could be to buy an assembled computer, and of course Dell is the first brand that comes to mind, but they have this obsession to push Windows Vista on you on so many of their models, especially the more game-oriented ones. Are there any other brands that offer assembled computers with the kind of performance I’m looking for, for a decent price?

I’m hoping to keep my budget under £400, possibly under £300 if reasonable. Am I being realistic?

2

Is there an independent computer shop near to you ? In my experience they are better for both pre and after-sales advice and will build your computer to your exact requirements. They may be slightly more expensive , but at least you have a real human to deal with.

3

It’s getting pretty hard to find any machines that don’t come with Vista preinstalled now. You might be fighting a losing battle on that criterion.

Sub £400 gaming PC? That’s a tall order. I think you’d probably have to buy a machine with the express intention of upgrading the graphics card - maybe starting with something like this or this.

4

Hmm, I see. I think I’ll have to plan for a larger budget, and go for self built.

5

I generally get my stuff from Novatech and Scan. Don’t get any unusual stuff from Scan. I used to patronise MicroDirect, but they’ve changed owners and I’ve been warned off them.

6

My current machine is an Alienware which would probably blow your budget, but my two previous machines were from Mesh and I had no problems with them at all.

7

I’ve not bought a pre-built desktop since 1998, I’vebuilt my own (and for family and friends) using a combination of Dabs, Ebuyer (can’t recommend them anymore), OcUK and some others for smaller items (Scan, Watford Electronics). I really like OcUK. Always had excellent customer support, and their forums are actually quite helpful before you make a purchase.

8

I had to go through all this a few months ago, and spent a long time trawling through different sites, asking friends in the trade etc., comparing offers and trying to make the right decision. In the end I bought my new machine from Evesham, and I can say I’ve been pretty pleased with everything - the machine, the after-sales service, the helpline etc.

It’s hard to give very specific advice because it’s such a personal decision. I will just mention two things that I feel very strongly about. (1) Cheapest is never best. Cheap stuff is cheap for a reason, and is always a false economy in the medium- to long-term. For just about any purchase, computers or otherwise, I always try to size up the ‘average’ market price for what I want, and then go to the seller whose prices seem to hover just on the ‘quality’ side of ‘average’. (2) Paying extra for the two or three years on-site warranty is worth every penny, in my experience. Particularly with a company like Evesham, who really take this side of their business seriously. Got any sort of problem with the box they sold you? One quick phone call, shazam, a guy comes round the next day and sorts it out. I even had a problem with my machine that, strictly speaking, wasn’t necessarily Evesham’s fault or responsibiliy, but they were still willing to send a guy round to see if he could figure out the problem.

9

An IT colleague reccomended www.computerplanet.co.uk to me.

I ordered one last night… £1,666 but they do the whole range.

10

I had a good browse on the suggested websites and decided I should definitely go for a self built box. This way I can squeeze much more performance out of my budget. So now I have to decide on the all-vital couple of CPU and motherboard - Intel or AMD? And what motherboard brands should I avoid?

11

May I hijack slightly? I’m thinking of putting together a modest gaming system using what I can of a five-year-old PC. Are ATX cases still usable with current motherboards? Will the latest graphics cards fit (PCI-E? Or is it PCI-X? I’m really out of touch)? And would a decent quality 350W Antec ATX PSU still (a) cut it and (b) have all the right connectors?

12

ATX cases are still the standard.

Graphics cards are PCI-E (PCI Express). I’ve only seen PCI-X on server boards.

You might find that a 350W PSU is underpowered, the latest graphics cards are extremely power hungry (they have their own power connectors now). Also, it might not have SATA power connectors which would limit your choice of hard drives.

13

I’ve always used Dabs and am about to put in a large order. I would love to know if there’s a better option out there, other than buying it all separately.

I was the same as you. Completely and hopelessly out of date. Google to the rescue, I think I know what I want now, heh.

Dabs’ range does seem to have gotten smaller though. A lot of the recommended power supplies on forums/websites simply weren’t available on Dabs. Eventually I found one: Corsair VX 550W (Dabs:£51). Official stats. This one has a greater than 80% efficiency and 41A on the (single) 12v rail. It should work fine for any single graphic card setup.

The PC I have put together (waiting in my shopping basket until next payday) is £880 including delivery.

Case: CoolerMaster Centurion 5 - £36
PSU: Corsair Memory 550W VX PSU - £51
Mobo: Asus P5K-E - £90
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 - £116 (Apparently a really good overclocker)
Graphics: 8800GTS 640mb OC2* - £260
Memory: 4x1gb 5300 (2*(21gb) kits) Crucial - £70
Hard Drive: Western Digital Raptor 150GB - £123
DVD-RW: Optiarc ( AD7170S-0B) - £17
CPU Heatsink/Fan**: Zalman Heatpipe 9700 - £37
Operating System: Vista Home Premium 32bit OEM** - £64

*OC2 graphics card just means it comes already overclocked (and still under warranty). I know I can overclock it myself but for £200+ I want an intact warranty.
**Unneeded, I just want to be able to push my CPU while keeping the fan quiet.
***OEM means no manuals or tech support and you can only install it to one motherboard. For £64 I’m not arguing. I don’t consider the 64bit version worth it yet but I’m happy to be corrected.

All from Dabs.

Now, looking at that, you can exchange or exclude some items. You don’t need a Raptor HDD. Swap it with a perfectly adequate £40 HDD and you’ve saved £83.

You can swap the graphics card with the 320MB version and save yourself around £80 with almost no performance loss below 1600x1200 resolution.

The after market CPU heatsink/fan is unnecessary if you plan on doing no/little overclocking.

You can get by fine with a cheaper motherboard. The current PCZone budget recommendation is a ConroeXfire-ESATA2 for £60. £30 saved.

So with those changes the cost would be reduced to ~£650

There are other changes you could make, like getting a slower processor (PCZone budget recommends an Core 2 Duo E6300) or a lesser graphics card (PCZ BR 2600XT). Maybe you can do with only 2gb of memory (save £35).

Search around on Google. There are a lot of good websites out there that offer comparisons on different products. They should make it easy for you to decide how much performance you’re willing to pay for. I recommend Tom’s Hardware to start with. It certainly helped me.