Ok so my Dell is pretty much on it's last legs and im going to try and build a PC myself, i do want to be able to run games on full graphics without a struggle and alot of memory, i don't really need it for that much but it would nice to be in a position where i can throws things at it if i had too if that makes sense? Like a fast road car i suppose.

I set about looking at things on ebuyer but theres really too much choice and i really don't know if i'd be spending too much on things that won't have an effect from what i use.

So far i've found the case i want though i probably will change my mind :\ http://www.ebuyer.com/product/240814 unless someone can come up with a case that looks just as good but with a cheaper price

That's about it really budget is around £800, will be buying all of it gradually so want to get a list of components together.

Help me please

I assume as you already have PC you don't need a new monitor, keyboard/mouse etc.

If you are sticking with the case leaves £690 for rest of the build so something like

Intel i5 processor
Nvidia GTX 470 graphics card
Corsair XMS3 4Gb RAM
Gigabyte Socket 1156 Motherboard
1TB HDD
750W PSU should run it with no problem

Above should be in the region of about £650 - £680

I'm going to get new ones but not including that into the build, will have a look at those, thanks.

I don't really know what i'm looking for but is there anything there i should spend a little more on or not? will it run comfortably? Need more opinions please, no offence to greboth

And what about dvd drives, sound cards etc??

No offence taken I am sure other people will come along with some more advice.

I am an AMD man really so don't know much to recommend on Intel motherboards, but a friend suggested the MSI P55A-G55 motherboard.

With regard to the i5 CPU, as long as you go for the 760 as true quad core cpu then and a high as you can afford graphics card you should be pretty much sorted for gaming.

Past that, you have chosen your case so pick hard drives you can, optical drives are cheap as chips these days, maybe even blu ray drives as only ~£50.

Sneakily robbed from thread on another forum - total is about £720 - £750

GeForce GTX 470 OC 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Intel Core i5 760 2.80GHz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156)
NZXT Phantom Enthusiast Full Tower Case
MSI P55A-G55 Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard
XFX 650W XXX Edition Modular Power Supply
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache
LG GH22LS50 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter Lightscribe Drive

Well what i want is something that will run lfs iracing etc on full graphics with good fps and some in my pocket, i don't think i'm going to be running crazy games on it. What i can afford is a difficult area, i don't want to spend over £250 on one but i don't want a cheap one i'll have to upgrade in a year, aslong as it does above i'll be happy with that.

Processor is going on my list for certain anyway, can't justify the extra £100 for the i7

first of all youll want to think about whether or not you need one right now as sandy bridge is right around the corner and itll be are fairly decent bump in performance over nehalem (and improve on a few key points such as proper pcie 2.0)
also 25nm ssds are going to come out in the next few weeks to months and theyll be worth waiting for as well (although i have to say having used 7 on a laptor without an ssd for a while now it appears a significant part of the performance bump i assumed to come form the ssd is actually 7s preloading of applications... still ssds are awesome)

anyway if you insist on buying right now id go with
i5-760
6850 or 6870 depending on how much you want to pay (or a 460 if you must have cuda)
any name brand motherboard (preferably one with a non sli 4+ lanes pcie slot (or alternatively an asus one with the plx bridged sata 6g and usb3))
4+gig of ram
a decent name brand 450-500w psu (the most silent one you can find)
intel postville ssd (preferably wait on that one for the next generation)
and the rest just buy the cheapest stuff you can find

Quote from pearcy_2k7 :

Well what i want is something that will run lfs iracing etc on full graphics with good fps

what resolution?

Quote :

Processor is going on my list for certain anyway, can't justify the extra £100 for the i7

there absolutely no point in buying an i7 (with the exception of socket 13whatever i7s if youre planning on going for some triple sli setup)

Well this is actually the first time i've ever really looked at PC components so bare with me a little

I don't have a clue about what you said at first I don't know how long this will take and i'm not exactly desperate for it i'm going to buy the bits that i can't see going out of date first like the case etc and im looking at getting a 24" LCD 1080p along with it. This is what i have so far, please point out stuff i can save money on or things i don't need/ entered twice. I need to do some research! Note that speakers, mouse, kb etc are included so its not really over my budget.

Quote from pearcy_2k7 :

bare with me

id rather not

Quote :

I don't know how long this will take

buying and building a pc? a week maybe allowing time for slightly delayed shipping and stuff like that
the point was more how desperate are you for a new pc and can you wait until january? if so waiting until about janauary and buying sandy bridge might well be worth it (also by then the 6 series ati prices will have stablised)

Quote :

im looking at getting a 24" LCD 1080p

for 1080 you really dont need that much graphics horse power

Quote :

please point out stuff i can save money on or things i don't need/ entered twice.

1) the case is rather expensive... unless you really want that one because you like the looks of it a 20-30€ (ill use euros for this mostly because i dont have the pound sign on my keyboard and the conversian rate currently wont change prices and more importantly price ranges all that much) case will do the same job just as well
2) unless you really want one of those gaming keyboard id rather not buy it... also personally i dont like the keystroke feel on logitech keyboards
ultimately a 10-20€ cherry keyboard is perfeclty fine (personally i ilke the evolution stream since i generally prefer the feel of notebook type keyboards and its decently close to how a thinkpad keyboard feels)
3) the motherboard seems decent enought but im not sure precicely how the sata 6g and usb3 controllers are connected... you might be bottlenecked by the (effectively) pice 1.0 interface intel uses on the p55
4) ive never heard of powercool and generally the psu seems way too cheap for 850w (also you really dont need that much)
5) the bluray drive seems a bit expensive in that shop... also personally id probably build any pc from now that isnt a htpc without any optical drives at all
6) the gtx470 is nice and all but also fairly loud and porbably a bit oversized for 1080
id save money with a 6850 and invest that in a much faster mainsteam card 2 years down the road instead
7) the memory seems way too expensive... the cpu doesnt require more than ddr3-1333 anyway and you can get a decent set of those for 50ish€

Regarding the graphics card, I agree with shotglass, the GTX470 is overkill if you are just going to be playing things like lfs, iracing etc. I haven't tried iracing but lfs on my 470 at 1080 with everything on max and every high res texture I can find still looking at about 160 - 180 fps at the back of full grids which is far to excessive. Unless you are going to be playing some of the graphics heavy games, crysis being the overused example, I would think about a lower spec graphics card to save some money.

I would shop around as some of those prices seem a little high. Try checking out Overclockers UK as prices are usually competitive, also might be worth checking out Amazon as I have seen some nice prices on there at times.

Powersupply, Agree with shotglass again. Go with a well known branded one as. They are more expensive but generally are more accurate on their supply and generally more effecient.

Cases, keyboard, mouse etc - Again agree, you don't need gaming high spec ones but you are the one who is going to have to look at it and use it for next x number of years so worth buying what you want if your budget allows.

Ok, thanks for the help guys, will be buying the case and a few bits next week on paypday hopefully.

I could never bring myself to spending 80 quid on a keyboard, thats madness.

An 850W PSU is complete overkill aswell, unless you're running dual xeons with 4 cards in SLI/Crossfire, you do not need that much, or anywhere near it.

Quote from DeKo :

I could never bring myself to spending 80 quid on a keyboard, thats madness.

An 850W PSU is complete overkill aswell, unless you're running dual xeons with 4 cards in SLI/Crossfire, you do not need that much, or anywhere near it.

Greboth said 750 so thought more was better so just put 850 on there and like i said before, the kb etc will probably change when it comes to actually paying for it.

Graphics card and overkill should never be used together in the same sentence! Get the best g-card you can afford and the best power supply you can. You will need them at some point.

Ditch the gaming mouse and keyboard. Also a pretty case is nice but its not the important thing, no one else will see it and you'll forget about it in a few months anyway.

How about getting the AMD Radeon HD 6870 as that is a little bit cheaper as well

Are there any good forums/websites where i can see other builds and look at some guides?

http://www.buildyourown.org.uk/

Quote from pearcy_2k7 :

Are there any good forums/websites where i can see other builds and look at some guides?

The Post Your Rig thread?

Just had a look at the overclockers guide which was pretty helpful and im quitely confident now

@Jak - It's not very active and alot of people just post specs.

I suppose i'd have to buy Windows 7 too?

Ya?

120 quid for the case? Surely you can find something around the 50-60 mark just as nice.

I like this one, if i can find one that i like that's cheaper obviously i will get it.

Quote from Luke.S :

120 quid for the case? Surely you can find something around the 50-60 mark just as nice.

I agree - can understand spending loads on a case, but not on an NXZT!

Why what's wrong with it? Everything i've read about them has been pretty positive. Though i am going to try and see one in a build before buying. Does the rest seem ok though?

From my (limited) experience NZXT were always cheap crappy cases - nothing wrong with that, but certainly wouldn't want to blow triple digits for it.

If you are willing to pay over 100 pounds for a case, get an Antec P183. If not, get one for 20.