Flex Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 Thinking about replacing my laptop with a desktop and not used the PS4 for over 18 months so thought might as well go PC gaming for a while. Looking online at Overclockers site building your own or asking them to build one seems quite pricey vs a pre fab one on say amazon. Anyone got any suggestions where to start looking, are some built it for you sites better than others? Would like to build my own but if the price difference is negligible I'd rather someone else built it, save the faff. Thanks for reading Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paddy78 Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 I used to build PC's fairly regularly and although more expensive usually than pre-fabbed, you generally got a better spec. The prices for PC components nowadays, especially anything mentioning "Gaming", is just ridiculous. For me, it no longer represents good value for money building a gaming machine. When my PC finally becomes incapable of playing the latest games, I'll probably get a PS or XBox with a keyboard and mouse converter. This setup is now the price of a decent graphics card and is only slightly worse in terms of graphical performance. Why do you want a PC btw over the PS or XB? A decent machine that will play the latest PC games at full res / highest graphics settings will come in at around £1k... and that will be pretty middle of the road components. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wez370 Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 Hi mate, It depends on what your going for but build it yourself is 100% the way to go if your comfortable with the idea. pre built always looks like a good idea until you find out they skimped on something like the power supply 4 months down the line. If your serious about the pc gaming aspect have a look on steam today, they have a sale going until 6pm tonight that is 30-60% off almost everything in the store. I have a mate who got a pc from overclockers and overall seems quite good. I wouldn't be too worried about warranties because individual components come with very good warranties if you buy from a decent make. Corsair, EVGA, MSI and ASUS are right up there at the top when it comes to individual components. And there is the added benefit of if you build it yourself you know how it all goes together and it makes it very easy to work out hardware faults if they ever occur. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randy_Baton Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 (edited) Build it yourself, working out the quirks is half the fun. If you took all the components out of the pre-fab and priced it up I'm sure it would be cheaper to buy the parts yourself. What you'll find with cheap pre fabs is that the headline components may be decent but the rest of it will be cheap tat. Ebays very good for second had parts. I spent ~£900 on mine 2 years ago and can play most things on ultra and have a 7.8 rating out of 10 for VR. Edited November 29, 2016 by Randy_Baton 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StevoD Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 i have been looking at a pre fab one looking at getting this http://www.tesco.com/direct/cube-panther-gaming-pc-core-i7-quad-core-with-geforce-gtx-1050ti-graphics-card-intel-core-i7-seagate-1tb-sshd-with-8gb-ssd-windows-10-geforce-gtx-1050/271-3497.prd?skuId=271-3497 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flex Posted November 29, 2016 Author Share Posted November 29, 2016 I used to build PC's fairly regularly and although more expensive usually than pre-fabbed, you generally got a better spec. The prices for PC components nowadays, especially anything mentioning "Gaming", is just ridiculous. For me, it no longer represents good value for money building a gaming machine. When my PC finally becomes incapable of playing the latest games, I'll probably get a PS or XBox with a keyboard and mouse converter. This setup is now the price of a decent graphics card and is only slightly worse in terms of graphical performance. Why do you want a PC btw over the PS or XB? A decent machine that will play the latest PC games at full res / highest graphics settings will come in at around £1k... and that will be pretty middle of the road components. I want a decent machine to play some new games and office stuff really, I do find my office machine at the moment will seize up with all the programs I have open so want 32GB ram, and the latest graphics card that will last me a few years, although if VR takes off big time then I guess that might influence how long a card will last for. I see some GPU's have dedicated ram too, which complicates how much I need on the motherboard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wez370 Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 The GPU ram is only for use in video games and other high render situations, ideally the highest vram possible wll help if you want to be playing about 1080p such as 4k. If you are using a lot of programs on top of the ram certainly look at getting a decent sized ssd as your program drive and then a bigger hdd for file storage. this reduces load times and improves the speed of multiple programs massively. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flex Posted November 29, 2016 Author Share Posted November 29, 2016 Cheers yes SSD all the way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flex Posted November 29, 2016 Author Share Posted November 29, 2016 So anyone recommend any PC builders online?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richf Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 (edited) The GPU ram is only for use in video games and other high render situations, ideally the highest vram possible wll help if you want to be playing about 1080p such as 4k. If you are using a lot of programs on top of the ram certainly look at getting a decent sized ssd as your program drive and then a bigger hdd for file storage. this reduces load times and improves the speed of multiple programs massively. Pretty much what i have , i bought mine from Dino pc where we also bought my sons gaming pc some years back , i have the OS on a SSD and then keep everything else on HDD's I have a GTX 980ti gpu in mine and can run most things on max settings unless they are poorly optimised , my son has a 1080 card in his but the difference at the moment isnt that much , in time I suspect it will become more apparent http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/home.asp Edited November 29, 2016 by Richf 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paddy78 Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 (edited) So anyone recommend any PC builders online?? Scan... if they build machines would be a good shout. Personally, I don't think I've bought any component over the years that wasn't from either Scan or Overclockers. They are always good for customer service, which is really what you want if anything ever goes wrong or needs to be returned. Edit: They do... https://www.scan.co....mputer-hardware Edited November 29, 2016 by Paddy78 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flex Posted November 29, 2016 Author Share Posted November 29, 2016 So anyone recommend any PC builders online?? Scan... if they build machines would be a good shout. Personally, I don't think I've bought any component over the years that wasn't from either Scan or Overclockers. They are always good for customer service, which is really what you want if anything ever goes wrong or needs to be returned. Edit: They do... https://www.scan.co....mputer-hardware Are they a bit funny of you try and return components if you're self building though, for example if you fry something accidently? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flex Posted November 29, 2016 Author Share Posted November 29, 2016 OK so, basically I guess what I need recommending is: Motherboard Graphics card - not too fussed about VR yet I guess as long as the above will be ready for a better graphics card in the future when VR porn really takes off. processor AMD or intel? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fluke Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 PC building is another of my many hobbies. Overclockers used to be a regular haunt for me and they build some great systems, but their parts can be expensive. If you know what you want and shop around it can be done quite cheaply. I though I would share pictures of my latest build using the following. Thermaltake Core P5 - powder coated white with custom decals. Intel 6700k processor MSI Z170A Gaming Motherboard 32Gb Vengence memory 2x MSI GTX980ti 3x 500gb Intel SSD drives 950 Pro 512GB M.2 PCI-e 3.0 x 4 NVMe SSD Samsung blu ray drive EK waterblocks for motherboard, processor, memory and GPU's with a 480mm Monster rad, TT fans and Mayhems 16mm glass tubing. I still need to sort out my wiring. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fluke Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 It doesn't have to be a huge case either, here is smaller system I built previously. The board is micro ATX and the case had a small foot print. The benefits of building your own is that you get exactly what you want, providing you know what you actually want to use the PC for. I built mine with gaming in mind and can run the Oculus Rift VR without a problem. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flex Posted November 29, 2016 Author Share Posted November 29, 2016 That's frickin awesome, loving that man cave!! I mean like, can I move in with you and have your babies? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fluke Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 My Man Cave is now a bit full. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Juggalo Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 Hands down build one. You'll get more bang for your buck, and you'll know your PC inside out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flex Posted November 29, 2016 Author Share Posted November 29, 2016 OK so, basically I guess what I need recommending is: Motherboard Graphics card - not too fussed about VR yet I guess as long as the above will be ready for a better graphics card in the future when VR porn really takes off. processor AMD or intel? So back on track to the above ^^^^ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willsy1980 Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 These guys are pretty good for components or prebuilt to your requirements https://www.scan.co.uk/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mondo 300 Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 PC building is another of my many hobbies. Overclockers used to be a regular haunt for me and they build some great systems, but their parts can be expensive. If you know what you want and shop around it can be done quite cheaply. I though I would share pictures of my latest build using the following. Thermaltake Core P5 - powder coated white with custom decals. Intel 6700k processor MSI Z170A Gaming Motherboard 32Gb Vengence memory 2x MSI GTX980ti 3x 500gb Intel SSD drives 950 Pro 512GB M.2 PCI-e 3.0 x 4 NVMe SSD Samsung blu ray drive EK waterblocks for motherboard, processor, memory and GPU's with a 480mm Monster rad, TT fans and Mayhems 16mm glass tubing. I still need to sort out my wiring. Holy good God... you've actually built a small nuclear power station and put it in your cave... You are Tony Stark and I claim my £5!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randy_Baton Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 (edited) For reference I've got GTX970 Ti FTW (EVGA) (mid range, last generation) and its perfectly fine for most games on ultra settings (1080p not 4k, but I think 4k is overkill) and VR works fine and probably will do for the next generation. The VR renders brilliantly when shown on my PC its just the pixel density of the headsets thats the issue. Edited November 29, 2016 by Randy_Baton 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ekona Posted November 29, 2016 Share Posted November 29, 2016 So anyone recommend any PC builders online?? PC Specialist. I wouldn't go anywhere else, and their customer service is excellent. Sod building your own, too much hassle. Yes I can do it and it's not hard, but I've better things to do with my time especially trying to chase down an error when you can't even get into the OS. I'd rather spend another £150 and get someone to do the leg work for me. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flex Posted November 29, 2016 Author Share Posted November 29, 2016 I agree and I think I said that in opening post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flex Posted November 29, 2016 Author Share Posted November 29, 2016 Not had much input really still not sure what options to go for, think I might have to go to a PC forum Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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