First time thinking of building a new PC

Let me reinforce what bobkn and the others say:

- get a "good brand" PSU - Corsair, Antec, Silverstore, Seasonic, XFX all make excellent power supplies. I would get 500-550W, but not more than that for your current needs. The PSU is the heart of your system - do not scrimp here!

- you don't mention your monitor's resolution? The graphics card you need will change (read: get more expensive) as the resolution goes up. Based on that, we could give you a better recommendation.

- get the Core i5-2500 and a socket 1155 motherboard. Cheaper than your current choice and faster in many applications, including games. If you are not planning to overclock, you can get the base i5-2500 (not the i5-2500k) and save a few more pounds. Also might be able to get a cheaper motherboard then.

- if you can, get an 80GB or 120GB SSD as your main boot drive. Your system will speed up immensely. All the big brands (Intel, Corsair, OCZ, Crucial) are good, get the cheapest one. If you do get an SSD, you may want to get a "green" HDD (one that spins at 5400 rpm), it will be quieter.

Hope this helps!

Hi all, thanks for all your advice.

TBH, most of this is WAY over my head.

I have Asperger's Syndrome, and I don't have an online bank account (I normally get my brother to order things for me with his account - and I pay him back when I get the chance), so it'd be a bit of a fuss for my brother to have him order all these parts from all the various places.

I also wouldn't know where to get all these parts for the best deals anyway. As bobkn said, I live in the UK, so I can't use NewEgg.

We don't have that much time, money, or patience to spend so much time trying to put a PC together. I'm trying to go for the simplest and easiest approach possible.

I should've said this at the beginning really, so sorry about that.


Besides, I'm hopefully going to send my [current] computer in to Currys (my dad's a salesman there) to see if they can sort out my graphics card problem. I've printed out everything that went wrong with it, right from installing that new 2GB RAM to now.

If you want to buy a pre-assembled system, at least provide us with the web site of your possible suppliers so we can root through their hardware and possibly find you the best deal on those specific websites--separating the wheat from the chaff.

I assume you will NOT be overclocking??

What will be the primary uses of this computer?

It's entirely possible you may not need a lot of power--a low level Sandy Bridge PC may be just fine.

More details please, and some web sites.

I just configured a reasonable system at PCSpecialist.co.uk for 492 pounds, including VAT.

Windows 7 Home premium, Intel Sandy Bridge 2100, no monitor, 4 gb ram, 650 watt Corsair PSU, integrated video and audio, 500 GB drive. Asus H67 chipset motherboard, micro ATX.

The only reason I chose the Corsair 650 watt PSU was because that was the cheapest option for which I could choose a name brand. The cheaper options were "no-name" brands of unknown quality.

includes Office Starter edition.

I don't think it includes keyboard or mouse?

No antivirus.

The point is, you can do pretty good at that supplier if you know what to look for.

Gaz1701:

I see from your original post that you already have Windows and that you will be gaming at some mid level.

So you should delete Windows from the configuration I made and add back in the video card you had chosen.

You should still be under 600 pounds somewhere.

The point is to avoid the 900 series of processors from Intel. Nothing wrong with them, but they are outperformed by the more recent 2000 series.

Set your budget peak and then refer to my configuration. Move your processor up from the 2100 until you hit your budget maximum. Going to a 2500 rather than 2100 might add 50 or 75 pounds. I did not check on that.

Post a revised configuration and also provide the web site of any other sources you may have.

You can acquire decent anti-virus and anti-malware applications at no charge.

You might consider adding in another hard drive for backup purposes, probably an external unit.

Most of your chosen parts are OK--the exceptions being (in my opinion), the motherboard and processor.

Someone else may be better able to comment on your choice of video card as I do not game.