Thetownend.com

Hi guys,

Its about time I got a new computer seeing as I've had my laptop for three years, and now I want to get a decent desktop. I'm a web designer by trade, so have some specific requirements. Somebody has suggested that I build my own. At first, the thought scared the hell out of me, but on doing some research it seems its no so hard as I first thought.

It will need to be able to cope easily with the Adobe web creative suite, and anything else I can throw at it, so I'd like a pretty powerful machine.

I have a budget of around £800, so hopefully this is enough to get myself a top-spec machine.

Would anybody be able to give me some useful resoruces on exactly how to build the computer (I've found some, not sure how good they are yet) and also maybe spec me some components? I'm happy to get all I need from overclockers :)

I've been recommended a Lian Li case, not sure if this is good or bad, but there we go.

Any help is very much appreciated

Cheers

Have a look on the overclockers.co.uk forum if you haven't already. Tons of info on there and plenty of helpful people who know what they are talking about!

Actually, I have.

Just wanted to know what the STFC masseev had to say.

£800 will easily get you a very decent machine.

IMO the E series Intel CPU's give you the most bang for your buck. Something like this E8400 (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/139971) would be more than enough for what you want.

2GB RAM, semi-decent graphics card. If you just search products by popularity on ebuyer and then read the reviews you'll get a good idea.

As for putting the PC together, it's mostly a piece of piss, the only difficulties you may run into is knowing where to connect everything on the motherboard.

ZX81 - You need a 16k Ram Pack though!

Thanks for that Samuel. Any online tutorials for telling me how to do the motherboard shizz?

Also, is getting 4gb RAM being greedy?

Always put as much ram as possible in, its dirt cheap at the mo, and you can never have too much particularly with Vista.

If you're using 32 bit Vista, then might be worth reading this if you're thinking of getting 4GB of RAM. (http://www.vistaclues.com/reader-question-maximum-memory-in-32-bit-windows-vista/)

If you want a decent monitor, be prepared to budget in another £200-250.

An E7200 is a great overclocker if you're looking to do that.

4gb of RAM is not greedy for Vista. It needs 700mb just running idle (or so I've read). You'll have to look at what Sam posted though.

Lian Li are nice cases but really expensive. Probably better off getting a cheaper Coolermaster and using your budget elsewhere.

Motherboard wise I'd get one with an Intel P35 chipset. It overclocks well and uses cheaper DDR2 RAM, which performs just as well as DDR3 RAM at the moment.

On another note is it possible to upgrade processors in Laptops?

Yes, but you'd have to get one that matches the chipset of your motherboard.

I have a broken Toshiba satellite with 2Gb RAM, and a new Dell with 2Gb RAM. What are the chances of the mempry from my broken laptop being compaible with my new purchase, and how easy is that sort of thing to do?

Laptops tend to only have one RAM slot, if so then even if RAM in the Tosh is the same type as in the Dell you won't be able to have both in one machine.

If your laptop does have two and the RAM stick fits then try it, it won't cause any lasting damage. If it doesn't boot up then you know the RAM isn't compatible.

Sweet. I'll give that a bash then.

So upgrading a Celeron to a normal Intel processor is probably out of the question then?

What's the make and model of your laptop?

Its an Advent 7211 with an Intel Celeron 2ghz Processor.

It had 1gb of RAM originally but i have since upgraded that to 2gb.

Well Magic....for £800 either building it yourself or getting your friendly local nerd to build it for about £30 (which is what I charge friends) you can have a bloody good machine that can play Crysis etc at near maxed levels (pretty much the benchmark all new PC's are aiming at).

Even if you need a decent 21" monitor in there you can still get a bloody quick machine.

If you do not play games then save money on a grpahics card and get more bang per buck processor and quick overclockable memory, but you can still have that too easily in your price range.

As SiPie says the E7200 is a great overclocker but a quad core is not a vast amount more and with good cooling can go just as fast but with better multicore threading capability.

Such as the Q6700 or Q9400 or even a Q9450 quad core all can reach 3.66 to 4ghz with the right mobo and cooling solution.

The Asus P5k Premium Wifi is a fantastic mobo, and that with the above chip, 4gb of PC1066 memory, a 1TB Samsung Spinpoint hard drive and a 4850 ATI Graphics is an option I would recommend, along with a case of your choice (as long as it has good fan positioning) and a half decent PSU and that can easily be had for £600 leaving you £200 for a good monitor.

Easy!

Something like this......changing a part or two if desired, this is including a 22" monitor but if you dont need that then all the more PC for your money!

[url width=800 height=642]http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g171/jjedmunds/new.jpg[/url]

Ive found a laptop spares site, however how would i know if the processor would work etc etc?

You have to match the socket of your motherboard to that of the processor. Also, you need to make sure the bus speed of the motherboard is the same as the processor.

I changed the processor in my Dell laptop the literally the other day. Gone from a 2.2Ghz Celery to a P4 2.8Ghz which is the quickest I can get in that laptop unfortunately.

I'll have a look later on tonight at your laptop specs for you Tans, but laptops aren't as easy as desktops for upgrading processors. The major issue I had was that the processor was stuck solid to the heatsink (the thing that distributes the heat). Took a very patient and delicate operation to get the two apart, so I could put the heatsink on my new processor.

Also, it is more than likely you will have to buy 2nd hand off ebay as they don't make old compatible processors anymore.

Cheers if you could have a look thatll be spot on.

The Celeron M 450 2000MHz is the fastest of that class of Processor.

Its the top spec chip for the Socket M 533FSB at 1.3v so I am 99.9% certain that its impossible to upgrade as it uses the maximum bus speed available to your motherboard.

Yeah I had a look and edmunds is right.

It's got a fairly decent sized cache and the speed is ok. Probably not worth an upgrade if you're running XP. Depends on the reason you want to upgrade.

Its running Vista, and some gameplay is shite and slow.

You've got integrated graphics which are rubbish for the more modern games. You should look to purchase a desktop if you want a pc capable of playing games (you could do this for as little as £300 with a monitor), or pay over a grand for a decent gaming laptop.