Pricing up a new PC (UK prices)

Community Forums/General Help/Pricing up a new PC (UK prices)

Gabriel(Posted 2011) [#1]
I'm pricing up a new PC as the current one is getting on a bit and some of my work could really benefit from more ram and a better videocard.

I'm currently looking at something like this:

Socket 1155 Intel H67-based Motherboard (any good brand)
Intel Core i7 2600 CPU
600W Silent PSU
8 GB RAM
Nvidia GTX 560 TI (any good pre-Overclocked model)
2 x 500 GB SATA HDDs in RAID.
DVD Writer
Blu-Ray Reader
Decent full sized gaming tower and a few fans.

That's coming in just under £850 without an OS. I'll probably add Windows 7 Ultimate for another £150 on top. Does that sound reasonable for UK prices? (No US/wherever price comparisons please as they don't do anything for me.) I'm not reusing any old components either.


GfK(Posted 2011) [#2]
Make sure to check http://www.cclonline.com


Shambler(Posted 2011) [#3]
I can recommend NovaTech, check out the last barebones system on this page... http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/barebones.html


JBR(Posted 2011) [#4]
Have a look at www.pcspecialist.co.uk

They seem to be good value and have a forum which is great if you have any problems or questions.


Gabriel(Posted 2011) [#5]
It is actually Novatech prices. They're just down the road from me.

Half of the CCL site seems to be broken, but pricing the components individually, they come out about the same. PCSpecialist comes out about £50 more and I can't have the pre-OC graphics card.

So it looks like I'm in the right ballpark for figures. As soon as the new lease comes through, I can hopefully get that ordered.

Thanks for the links, guys.


big10p(Posted 2011) [#6]
Scan do 'Today only' bundle deals which might be worth keeping an eye on.


xlsior(Posted 2011) [#7]
some other things to consider: Read up on some of the reviews for the bluray player, whatever brand you're getting... Some manufacturers are really bad about releasing on-going firmware updates for their older drives, which is bad for bluray because without those you won't be able to play the latest movies before long. (See here for more info on that: http://www.tvpredictions.com/2008/10/why-some-blu-ray-movies-cant-play.html )

So while always a bit of a crap-shoot, I'd recommend to at least try to pick a manufacturer that's at least somewhat responsible in that area.

Also, keep in mind that in order to play many bluray movies, you'll also need a HDCP-compliant video card AND a HDCP-compliant monitor -- without those, a bluray disc publisher can enforce an automatic downgrade to DVD-resolution instead of HD, -or- they can choose to black out the screen altogether. (Just bringing it up since you didn't mention what monitor you have. HDCP = content protection, where both the video card and the monitor receive the encrypted signal, and it's the monitor that does the actual decryption)

Finally: price difference between 500Gb and 1TB is very, very small these days. You may want to consider bumping them up a notch.

(I know that US prices don't do you much good, but just for arguments sake: when I look at newegg.com, a 500GB Samsung drive sells for $59.99. A 1TB samsung is $54.99 (yes, it's actually cheaper), a 1.5TB is $64.99, and a 2TB on sale for $69.99 after you enter their promo code.

And note that while the RPM may be lower on some of the larger drives, that does not necessarily mean that they are slower: higher data densities mean that more bytes pass under the read/write heads per second anyway, regardless of the lower rotation speed. If you're concerned about speed, look at some actual benchmarks to compare)

Lastly, when it comes to power supplies, stick with a well-known brand. It's often under-valued, but crappy power means a crappy computer. Antec, Seasonic, Thermaltake etc. are vastly preferable about over some no-name knock-off, even if all the specs appear similar.


Ross C(Posted 2011) [#8]
Remember www.ebuyer.com too!

That's sounds a pretty decent price though.


stanrol(Posted 2011) [#9]
buy an iMac since then you dont need a tower on the floor, good GPU's, plenty RAM.


xlsior(Posted 2011) [#10]
buy an iMac since then you dont need a tower on the floor


...At the cost of a much higher hardware price, and next to no upgradability. There's (much cheaper) all-in-one PC's as well, if you like the form-factor, though.


Gabriel(Posted 2011) [#11]
buy an iMac since then you dont need a tower on the floor, good GPU's, plenty RAM.

I already have an iMac.

@Xlsior: I'm not really interested in watching movies on Blu-Ray. The drives are just very cheap and I thought I might need one for software at some point.

The PSU is an OCZ StealthXStream 2. I normally tend towards Thermaltake, but the OCZs seem to get a lot of good reviews.

With regard to the hard drives, the ones I'm looking at are SATA 3 6GB/S drives. None of the UK stores have 1TB varieties at particularly cheap prices relative to the 500GB flavours. UK prices can sometimes be a bit behind the US, so perhaps that's why.


xlsior(Posted 2011) [#12]
The 6GB/s is pretty much irrelevant for mechanical drives, since they are incapable of saturating even the older 3GB/s SATA2 bus. With SSD's it may make a difference, but those are still $$$ for larger sizes.