how much to build a computer

coolkid

if i wanted to build a pc from scratch that can take 4 gb of ram and a good processor what would i be roughly talking bout. i dont really want anything real fancy.i could spend maybe up 2 1000 euro. any thoughts would b appreciated.

thanks

mathias

Keeping it reasonable with high quality parts ( nothing top of the range but no rubbish either )

Then about 600- 700 euros with Monitor Keyboard and mouse , or about 500 if you already have a monitor keyboard and mouse that your happy with.

The big advantage to building your own is that all the parts are standard , so you can upgrade piece by piece instead of buying a whole new computer every time.

There are big savings to be made if you are building a top flight games machine , but around the budget mark , the machine will cost a little more than your average Dell , it wont however , have average Dell parts in it , which is a good thing.

dr.bollocko

Whoopsie, I thought u said 2100 euro. You said that you want to spend max 1000 euro? It depends on whether you want any (legal) software with that, maybe you want a kickass LCD too? For under the 1000 euro mark, it might be more expensive to build than to buy, depending on what kind of spec you have in mind. To be honest, you could live with 2gb ram initially, if it meant you could spend more on the base unit. Ram is something that you can buy later on as well. When you have a bit of cash, a few months after your purchase, pick up that ram for yourself. But dont go shelling out big money on great ram, if it means you have to compromise on parts that arent upgradeable like a MoBo or CPU, or a CPU that will never give you the performance you want. I would check out ankermann-pc. Or is it anckermann-pc? They have a nice compromise. it FEELS like you are building it, when in fact you pick the parts and they ship it built to you. They also have a ferrari-red PC case.
I'm not flash.

BostonB

mathias wrote: »

....it wont however , have average Dell parts in it , which is a good thing.

What do you mean? The only parts that Dell make are the Case/PSU and motherboard.

dr.bollocko

I think he means that essentially, HP, Compaq, Dell et al all use the same parts from the same manufacturers to build their machines. The advantage of this, however, is that you are working with a configuration that you know works well together and any unforeseen issues mean that you still have the MIGHTY Dell Tech support team at your disposal to tell you how to turn your computer off and on again. (As well as the glorious opportunity to google problems with your Dell and realise that, thank God, other people have gone through the same hell and can help you.)

TerrorFirmer

BostonB wrote: »

What do you mean? The only parts that Dell make are the Case/PSU and motherboard.

The most important parts!

mathias

What do you mean? The only parts that Dell make are the Case/PSU and motherboard.

Exactly , remember that ad from Dell that had a guy playing solitaire on this massive tower , and the line said , " With Dell , we wont sell you what you dont need " , Well thats true but also works the other way , a power supply thats just barely enough , and probably not standard ATX , a motherboard missing essential upgrade slots ,and non standard mounts , and a case that nothing else will fit into but the original parts ............Ive seen all this from them.

Way better to spend a little extra and build your own , Im talking budget PC's here now , if you want a performance machine building it yourself will save you money over a Dell , and were not talking small change either !

Have a look at these basic specs , they are a good starting point to get an idea on parts , Komplett are not the cheapest around but they list all the parts so you can compare with other sites ,

http://www.komplett.ie/k/cc.aspx?bn=10306

gamer

I GOT pci e graphics card, 4400 amdx2 mobo,2gig ram, psu, for 160 euro.adverts ie. i got cpu cooler 30euros ,in maplins, case cost me 40euro, total cost 230.WIN XP runs great on 2 gig ram.YOU can build a amdx2 4400 very cheap,then buy a graphics card 200euro approx.re games the graphics card is MUCH more important than the cpu,if you are a hardcore gamer get an 8800 graphics card.TRY AND get a standard pc case, with 2 usb, 2 sound connectors,line out at the front of it.Make sure mobo has 6 usb,4 sata ports,hidef sound.

BostonB

mathias wrote: »

Exactly , remember that ad from Dell that had a guy playing solitaire on this massive tower , and the line said , " With Dell , we wont sell you what you dont need " , Well thats true but also works the other way , a power supply thats just barely enough , and probably not standard ATX , a motherboard missing essential upgrade slots ,and non standard mounts , and a case that nothing else will fit into but the original parts ............Ive seen all this from them. ...

In fairness a lot of people buy the wrong machine. Theres nothing wrong with basic machines, or custom cases the vast majority of people don't need any more. If you want all these things you can get machines with them. You just need to do your research properly.

BostonB

HavoK wrote: »

The most important parts!

If your suggestion is that Dell's PSU's cases, and motherboards are unreliable it doesn't hold up. Reliability is much more important in the corporate sector, than for home users and gamers. If Dells were unreliable they wouldn't be so successful in business.

ntlbell

BostonB wrote: »

If your suggestion is that Dell's PSU's cases, and motherboards are unreliable it doesn't hold up. Reliability is much more important in the corporate sector, than for home users and gamers. If Dells were unreliable they wouldn't be so successful in business.

I think you'll find most business's who go down the Dell route also go down the optiplex route and pay through the nose for it.

Different parts, different ball game.

dr.bollocko

Optiplex and Latitude. And that's because of reliability and customer service. The corporate sector is most important to Dell. Home users make up a very small part of their profit.

BostonB

From many years of experience working with them. I haven't found a lot of difference between the the home machines and the business ranges to be honest. Sometimes they use different chipsets, and sometimes they need ECC ram. But overall they are very similar except they charge a lot more for one over the other. For example the Dual Xeon Workstation I have at work has the same chassis, psu as the XPS gaming machines for home users. You can use the parts of one range in another one. They ain't that much different.

Anti

BostonB wrote: »

From many years of experience working with them. I haven't found a lot of difference between the the home machines and the business ranges to be honest. Sometimes they use different chipsets, and sometimes they need ECC ram. But overall they are very similar except they charge a lot more for one over the other. For example the Dual Xeon Workstation I have at work has the same chassis, psu as the XPS gaming machines for home users. You can use the parts of one range in another one. They ain't that much different.

Not really a good analagy there. As the xps is a top of the range home system built for multimedia/entertainment.

The standard dell system you see in most peoples home have pretty poor quality components, compared to the workstations/xps.

For what dell charge you can get top doller component all for less then some of the builds. Granted you will need to for out for a operating system.

We used to have dell's in work, but we found them poor and unreliable. Constant motherboard failures, blown psu's etc etc. We now use ibm/lenovo workstations and hardly ever have a problem that isnt pebkac !

TerrorFirmer

BostonB wrote: »

If your suggestion is that Dell's PSU's cases, and motherboards are unreliable it doesn't hold up. Reliability is much more important in the corporate sector, than for home users and gamers. If Dells were unreliable they wouldn't be so successful in business.

My suggestion was that they are nowhere near the quality of decent parts bought separately. Even if the power supply's are replaceable with standard atx, you often have to mod your case to make a new one fit. The motherboards don't have a great range of connectors for a range of purposes, nor do they have a high standard of compatibility - or the quality either, now that you mention it. It's not an issue of reliability - it's features.

I have never had any problems with Dell computers, but I would never try and claim they used top class components. they don't. They use cheap, generic parts. Unless you're buying an XPS, in which case, you're paying over the odds for it anyway more often then not.

BostonB

Any Dell I've opened (thats a few hundred if not thousand at this stage) had branded parts, HD, CDROMs, GFX card, RAM, Dell makes none of that, it buys if off the shelf. Their motherboard are mostly standard Intel Reference Boards. Which are well known for quality and reliability. A 10k Raptor in a Dell is the same one you'll buy for the PC yourself. There are Dells that take standard ATX if you do your homework and most only require a little adapter. Theres a couple of wire swapped but that about it. Most use BTX now anyway. But as for the parts just because a seagate drive is in a dell doesn't mean its less reliable then if you have it in a PC you build yourself.

The only points that are really valid are, if you buy a machine of the shelf you don't get to pick components in the same detail as if you built it youself. The other point you can make is that once you move away from the basic machines, Dells are not always cheap. So if you don't do any research on how much things cost, you can spend too much on a Dell.

Incidentally I've swapped parts on Dimensions and other ranges. its not just the higher end XPS that have standard parts. We have a load of IBM dual Zeon IntelliStation® Z Pro in our office alongside the Dell workstations and the IBM's have had their own problems.

TerrorFirmer

Of course we know Dell use the same components available to buy in the shop, the thing being, they buy cheap ones. Anytime I got a PC, the parts, whilst perfectly reliable, were about the cheapest parts you could get. The boards have locked or modified bios. Again, it's not a question of reliability. It's quality.

Of course, quality is subjective here to who's using it. But you know what I mean

TheThreeDegrees

the way I see it all the components whether off the shelf or in an OEM box are made in the same part of the World..and that is not here!

At least the Dell is assembled here and wait for it....creating Irish jobs.

Thats my tupence worth;)

BostonB

HavoK wrote: »

Of course we know Dell use the same components available to buy in the shop, the thing being, they buy cheap ones. Anytime I got a PC, the parts, whilst perfectly reliable, were about the cheapest parts you could get. The boards have locked or modified bios. Again, it's not a question of reliability. It's quality.

Of course, quality is subjective here to who's using it. But you know what I mean

So if your building a PC for say your Dad to do word processing you'd buy him the most expensive hard disk and Blueray drive and a watercooled Quad Core Xeon. Or build it with a motherboard which has a overclocking options in the bios. Etc?

Conar

^ Did you hear what he called your ma?

Getting back to the OP's question though......is this going to be a gaming PC?
Will you want a good graphics card?
Do you need a monitor?

Komplett Intel Gamer with 4GB's of memory, E6750, 19 inch widescreen and a reasonable GPU:

AKASA Zen Black case with 2 Silent 12cm
Corsair Powersupply 550W Bulk, black,
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3, P35, Socket-775,
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.67GHz 1333Mhz
OCZ Platinum DDR2 PC6400 2048MB KIT,
OCZ Platinum DDR2 PC6400 2048MB KIT,
EVGA GeForce 8600GT 256MB Superclocked,
Western Digital Caviar SE16 500GB SATA2
NEC DVD±RW burner AD-7200A, IDE,
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Eng
Acer 19" LCD AL1916WAs TCO99 Monitor,

That comes to just under €1014.
If you didn't need a monitor then you could get an 8800GT maybe.

TerrorFirmer

BostonB wrote: »

So if your building a PC for say your Dad to do word processing you'd buy him the most expensive hard disk and Blueray drive and a watercooled Quad Core Xeon. Or build it with a motherboard which has a overclocking options in the bios. Etc?

This user is looking for 4gb of ram and a 'good' processor to match. Unless the latest incarnation of Office is more resource intensive then I think, it's safe to assume his intended uses go slightly beyond word processing.

BostonB

Thats a great price in fairness...