Building versus buying

luckylucky

I'm seriously contemplating doing a major upgrade of my aging computer gear, basically all the major components like motherboard, new processor, new ram, new hard drive.

I don't need to change my graphics card/ cd/dvd player, computer chassis or power supply(maybe!).

I think I read before that it can be cheaper to buy a new pc over just buying the bits seperately yourself. So just wondering if I might be better off just buying a new pc?

Also any recommendations on a decent spec pc. I'm not up to date on what the latest stuff I should be looking out for. thanks for any help.

Sqaull20

Low to mid end pc's from Dell are so cheap its allmost impossible to compete, but at the higher end (€600 and up) it works out roughly the same price, but much higher build quality...

You can get a dell now with Core 2 Duo 2.2ghz,3gb ram,500gb hd,Vista Premium for €330, no way you build a similar system for that,are you interested in low to mid end/ what do you use the pc for?

Shouldnt cost you that much to uprade as you have the core parts...

Whats your budget, psu and graphics card?

Slippers

Sqaull20 wrote: »

You can get a dell now with Core 2 Duo 2.2ghz,3gb ram,500gb hd,Vista Premium for €330,...

Can you post a link for this, please? I can't find it on dell.ie.

luckylucky

Sqaull20 wrote: »

Low to mid end pc's from Dell are so cheap its allmost impossible to compete, but at the higher end (€600 and up) it works out roughly the same price, but much higher build quality...

You can get a dell now with Core 2 Duo 2.2ghz,3gb ram,500gb hd,Vista Premium for €330, no way you build a similar system for that,are you interested in low to mid end/ what do you use the pc for?

Shouldnt cost you that much to uprade as you have the core parts...

Whats your budget, psu and graphics card?

My budget is about €1K I suppose - that's not a strict budget though more of a guideline as to the max I'd prefer to spend, anyway my prime concern is speed.
I'm away from home for a few days. I can't exactly remember the psu brand - It's 450 Watts I think(I need to confirm this!), it's about 4 years old now but I have only recently started using it. My graphcis card I just bought a few months ago is a HD2600 Pro AGP 8.x. (I might be wrong but I think this can also be used as PCI Express) When I set it up it tries to set it up as both an AGP and a PCIE Card (I blocked as it might have been the cause of the installation not taking initially) .

Sqaull20

Slippers wrote: »

Can you post a link for this, please? I can't find it on dell.ie.

€350 now, was €330 something last week or the week before...

E Value

305-D032012

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b=&c=ie&cs=iebsdt1&kc=D4X20003&l=en&m_30=138820&oc=D032012&rbc=D032012&s=bsd

Sqaull20

luckylucky wrote: »

My budget is about €1K I suppose - that's not a strict budget though more of a guideline as to the max I'd prefer to spend, anyway my prime concern is speed.
I'm away from home for a few days. I can't exactly remember the psu brand - It's 450 Watts I think(I need to confirm this!), it's about 4 years old now but I have only recently started using it. My graphcis card I just bought a few months ago is a HD2600 Pro AGP 8.x. (I might be wrong but I think this can also be used as PCI Express) When I set it up it tries to set it up as both an AGP and a PCIE Card (I blocked as it might have been the cause of the installation not taking initially) .

Totally different connections, but your right it can be done, not sure which motherboards support this though...

luckylucky

Sqaull20 wrote: »

Totally different connections, but your right it can be done, not sure which motherboards support this though...

Cheers.

That's what confuses me. I mean if I bought a new motherboard, should I be looking for a motherboard that has an AGP slot or would I somehow be able to connect this to a PCIE slot, I wouldn't have thought so .

Slippers

Sqaull20 wrote: »

€350 now, was €330 something last week or the week before...

E Value

305-D032012

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b=&c=ie&cs=iebsdt1&kc=D4X20003&l=en&m_30=138820&oc=D032012&rbc=D032012&s=bsd

Thanks, I was looking in the home section. Are the office computers usually better value?

TerrorFirmer

luckylucky wrote: »

Cheers.

That's what confuses me. I mean if I bought a new motherboard, should I be looking for a motherboard that has an AGP slot or would I somehow be able to connect this to a PCIE slot, I wouldn't have thought so .

You can get boards supporting both PCI and AGP for transition users but at this stage, it's so outdated that there is far more to loose in the long run by choosing this option.

luckylucky

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

You can get boards supporting both PCI and AGP for transition users but at this stage, it's so outdated that there is far more to loose in the long run by choosing this option.

Cheers.
Yeah I was beginning to think that. I'm inclined to think I might just buy a new hard drive and hold off for another year or 2 before doing a major upgrade.

Does anyone know if a Sata 2 Drive will work on the earlier Sata motherboards(mine is P4C800-E deluxe)?

TerrorFirmer

Yes, it's backwards compatible.

Also, my above comment was obviously meant to say AGP and PCI-E, rather then PCI...