1st build, cant decide where to get components?

garvbox

Hey lads, trying to get a build underway but I cant figure out where is the best place to get a lot of components together, am I better off to stick with one retailer for the whole order or just pick whoever can get me the cheapest parts? money is a major issue in this build, I want the maximum bang for the buck, and a very upgradeable, futureproof machine too.
I have pretty much picked out all the components I need on 3 sites, elara, dabs and komplett.ie, each has slight advantages and disadvantages but, as expected dabs is by far the cheapest overall, with elara and komplett having better deals on one or two items. here is a list of the components I'm planning on using also:

MB: ASUS p5e3 deluxe, this seems to be the best value ddr3 X38 motherboard around, I think its pretty futureproof anyway

Processor: Intel E8400, great chip by all reviews, very overclockable hehe

Graphics: Nvidia 9800gtx, kinda expensive but I reckon its worth it for the newer gpu and good performance

Ram: 2GB DDR3 PC3-10666, I'm thinking of going with OCZ ram here, as anything else is just far too expensive, the price of ddr3 is ridiculous! at least I wont have to buy a new MB when DDR2 is redundant tho!

PSU: 600-700W should do me right? dabs have an excellent deal on their dabs value brand, a 650W psu for just €45!! here:http://www.dabs.ie/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=412M

HDD: I dont need much room so any 160Gb drive will do, however Komplett have a major deal for a 250Gb for just €44.00, worth it? http://www.komplett.ie:80/k/ki.aspx?sku=339186

Case: antec 900, very cool case, plenty of room, hopefully enough to fit that 9800gtx

CPU cooler: Zalman 9700, everyone seems to use these, so I guess It'll do the trick, it should have no bother keeping the e8400 cool.

Monitor: any reasonably good value 22" monitor, the price for these varies in a big way between the 3 sites, although dabs have a great deal on a 22" monitor but its their own dabs value brand http://www.dabs.ie/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=5295, any feedback on this brand? Nightmare stories I should be aware of?

Also a dvd+-rw drive, price for these is pretty much the same so it's not much of a concern really. Thats it for the components, when picking them out on each website I tried to get the best value for each part there but there wasnt much differences in each list, the price difference is nuts though:
With elara the total price ex shipping is:€1285+€200 for an E8400 that they didnt have!
With dabs:€1223.58
With Komplett:€1406

Thats a huge difference especially since elara didnt even have the processor I wanted so I left it out. I could save a few quid here and there and have fractionally better parts by splitting up the order between the retailers, but is it really worth all the extra hassle?

zilog_jones

hardwareversand.de?

garvbox

zilog_jones wrote: »

hardwareversand.de?

Just tried them there, total comes to €1252.28, with a better monitor and a few other bits, very very nice prices I must say!!! Only problem is that they gave me a proclamation of "order dat unknown" for the E8400, i can get one of those of dabs though, or I mite even wait until hardwareversand.de have it, I'm in no rush. I'll add the order list as soon as I figure out how to do it!!

Blowfish

garvbox wrote: »

Ram: 2GB DDR3 PC3-10666, I'm thinking of going with OCZ ram here, as anything else is just far too expensive, the price of ddr3 is ridiculous! at least I wont have to buy a new MB when DDR2 is redundant tho!

You will have still have to buy one in a while though, as Intel are changing socket at the end of the year.

You are better off going cheap with mobo/cpu/ram/gfx, and just replacing them in a year. The case/psu/hdd's/monitor/keyboard/mouse if decent will last you a few builds.

In general, stick with one retailer if you can, you'll save a fair amount only having to pay one set of shipping.

PogMoThoin

Bestselling items like E8400 won't be out of stock for long on hwv.de, I'm sure it'll be back in stock in a few days. Email them and ask them if your unsure. Btw, their pricelist is updated every friday. The monitor I ordered a few weeks ago on a thur was even cheaper (well only €3) the next day, all counts tho on a budget.

I highly recommend them. My original order was placed on a thur and I recieved it the following friday. Had a little problem in that a usb key i had ordered did not arrive, was down to Dhl damaging the packaging in transit. Hwv.de sent me a replacement after I signed a declaration & emailed it to them. Received it within a week.

Blowfish is correct, Nehalem which is due out later this year will be a completely new socket from Intel as it will have an on chip memory controller like AMD been doing for 3 years.