Good afternoon!

I've been looking to replace my 5-6 year old system since it was a 3-4 year old system, and following the fan failure and resulting graphics card meltdown on Friday night I've decided that it's finally time to bite the bullet!

My budget is somewhere around the £700 mark, although I might be willing to spend up to £1,000 for a system that represents significantly better value.

I'm ideally looking for something which would make a decent gaming system - although I don't play a lot of games, so I'm not overly fussed about being able to play crysis on high settings etc.

I already have Vista, a monitor, keyboard & mouse but I could do with a new sound card and would like some 2.1 speakers to replace my current cheap, 10 year old crap-job.

Thanks in advance for any advice .

First question - self build or pre-built?

Quote from Jakg :

First question - self build or pre-built?

Preferably pre-built, but if it's going to save me a good amount (£30+) I can probably deal with building it myself, as I've done so once or twice in the past. I've no experience when it comes to sticking heat sinks to the CPU and that sort of thing. If you're able to drive Jak (I think I'm near you), maybe I could pay you to assemble it?

Edit: Just noticed you're actually in Suffolk, that probably wouldn't be practical then.

Well you wouldn't really "save" much money, but you'd have a hell of a lot more control as to what went into your PC (i.e. slow RAM, fast RAM, Overclocking Mobo etc), and also prebuilt's usually have shockingly shit gfx cards (Q6600 with onboard graphics?!).

EDIT - This + Vista x64 would be very good actually - they are probably the only pre-builts I would recommend.

Quote from joshdifabio :

I've no experience when it comes to sticking heat sinks to the CPU and that sort of thing.

You don't stick anything to anything.

You put a layer of thermal paste onto the CPU then mount the heat sink. If you buy a retail CPU (one with a heat sink and fan) the heat sink would normally be pre-applied with thermal paste so you'd not have to worry about it.

The rest is just plugging cables into things, pretty easy but daunting if you've never done it.

The main benefit that comes from building it yourself is that you can put whatever bits you want in there and tailor it exactly to your price range and needs.

Quote from garph :

You don't stick anything to anything.

You put a layer of thermal paste onto the CPU then mount the heat sink. If you buy a retail CPU (one with a heat sink and fan) the heat sink would normally be pre-applied with thermal paste so you'd not have to worry about it.

Well I think you've highlighted the fact that I need some help .

I do see the benefits in building a system myself, which is why I've done that in the past. The main problem I have is that I don't actually know which components (brand and model) I should be getting! I don't know about the reliability and performance of the various video cards, CPUs etc. on offer, and in the past I don't think I've made the best decisions about what to go for.

That pre-built machine that Jakg posted looks a good enough deal unless you want to go to the bother of spending hours, in my case days emm make that weeks trolling through websites, reviews etc figuring out all the components that you want.

I recently built my very first ever pc from scratch and it is not that scary really. I ended up buying stuff from all over including second hand GFX card (8800GTS) and CPU (E6750) from ebay. At the end of the day I am proud of myself that I've done it although my shiny 'special edition' Antec P182 case is just bloody awful to look at, no idea what I was thinking there a head up my own bottom kinda moment.

Probably saved myself a couple of hundred quid doing the home build and actually learned lots in the process.

Unless your stinkin rich I really don't see the point of the new ultra high end components, my average system runs GTRevo, iRacing etc on full graphics no probs.
I'm not sure about other mobos but the Abit IP35pro XE board that I got is quality manufactured, easy to install and set up and also easy to overclock from windows using Abits software.

Anyway good luck on whatever you decide to do

For pre-built machines, take a look at http://www.meshcomputers.com

Their machines are excellent and after sales is good too!

Oops, I totally didn't notice Jak's second post! Sorry about that, mate.

If you guys think it's a good system and a fair price I might just buy it. I don't have a lot of time to piss around because I've got some work to be doing in the next couple of weeks.

Is it likely to be worth my while looking around for better prices (and self-building)?

Edit: Any idea how quick OcUK are at getting their systems out? The system that Jak linked shows 10+ in stock.

Also, can anyone recommend a decent 2.1 speaker system? I'm not an audiophile looking to spend £1k on a bose or something.

£700 is (for me, at least) 2 months wages - I'd spend at least an hour or two looking at making sure i'm getting the best for my money!

(I never get why people walk in and out in about 45 minutes at work - is it really such a good idea to spend money so quickly and carefreely?)

StableX - from what I can see, the systems on meshcomputers.com all come with Vista. I don't really want to pay for that as I've already got a copy of ultimate. I'm struggling to find detailed info on the components as well such as the memory brand.

Jak - what do you think of this system, with the 4gb memory upgrade?

You are right to say that I should look around for a few hours. I have actually been doing this every now and then for several months - the trouble really is that I know very little about which components are worth getting. I've been looking at various benchmarks and comparisons this afternoon, and I think I've now got some idea of the relative performance of the latest mid-range ATI and nVidia cards, and the performance of Q6600 vs. E8400.