Building your own computer

About the anti-static wrist straps. Why is there such a great difference in prices, from £2 to £50? They all look pretty much the same as each other and even the cheap ones get good reviews.

Trucidation said:

Easy as pie. Labour charge isn't that much, probably what you spend on a lunch for a family of 4 or something like that. Well worth the hassle of not having to assemble everything yourself. I remember all too vividly the time I spent putting PCs together back in the 90s, swearing when something went wrong and playing the "guess which component is bad" game.

Building a PC these days is far easier than it used to be. Overall, parts are more standard and better labelled, with far fewer hassles and troubleshooting steps to take.

Trucidation said:

Screw that hassle. Or maybe I'm just getting old But seriously, there's little reason to do everything yourself. Prices are close to what you get from online stores, bar sales. This is the IT malls I'm talking about, not the retail shops selling ready-made PCs like your Walmart or CompUSA or whatever equivalent. Not unexpectedly, those do add hefty retail margins to the price tag; nobody buys from those guys.

I'd love to live where you do, because in the rest of the world, buying online is FAR cheaper. The stores have much more overhead and don't buy in volume that someone like Newegg does. On top of that, I can take a pile of boxes and turn it into a working computer in around 30 minutes, maybe adding another 10 minutes if I want to hide my wiring. Why pay anything for someone else to do that? Not only am I saving money on the parts, but I'm saving the labor costs as well...which means more money in my pocket, or more money devoted to better hardware. I've taught 25-30 people how to build computers, including my wife, and every single one of them has been amazed at how easy the process is.

I'll have to get a different make of power supply unit. What are Corsair like and any tips on models to go for?

Look for Seasonic, Corsair, or XFX.

Antec if none of those 3 are available.

Some Corsairs are better than others. Some of them are made by Seasonic, which is good.

Depending on your video card, you may not need more than 300 watts.

500 to 550 is enough for any single video card.

But concentrate on the brand name for now.

James7679 said:

the Seasonic isn't available?

The chap I'm buying from doesn't stock them. How's THIS one?

Chips said:

James7679 said:

the Seasonic isn't available?

The chap I'm buying from doesn't stock them. How's THIS one?

That's a good one--made by Seasonic.

But likely more power than you need.

Without having time to read all's reply here i will just say i've built 3 now. All have been easy. the first two exceptionally so... just put the parts together, install the OS and it worked.

The latest was somewhat more complicated as I built using the very latest parts. Therefore to get things to work properly i had to learn a few more things such as updating the BIOS, how to migrate an OS over to an SSD and new mobo, getting the peculiarities of an X79 mobo ironed out and the like.

Go for it, it is fun, and so much more staisfying than using a pre-built.

This sight, pcmechbegone, thevideoguys, and mysuperpc were my main resources for the 1st build.
The 2d build I didn't need anything.
3d build I made use of google, this website, and moboforums, and Asus main website until things were satisfactory.

edit---get a fully modular power supply--like one of the XFX platinum certified ones. Lots less cables floating aound in the case by going all modular.
FWIW on all 3 builds I used an antistatic wrist band.


Just swapped out a video card over the weekend tho and forgot all about the wrist band. No harm though.