[H]Computer parts and Work out EQ.

Yo guys, I'm looking to buy some computer parts and build a computer myself, but I don't really know which components to get. I have £1,500 to build one and need everything except monitor, including speakers and a copy of an OS. Could someone with experience in this matter help pick out parts specifically from www.ebuyer.com and link their suggestions? The idea of the computer will be for playing the latest and future games at high details etc, but must also have enough space etc for videos/music etc.

I'm also looking for some weights and other gym equipment to put in my garage so I can workout at home. I would like to work on my cardio and also weights/whatever for working out my legs, chest and arm muscles. My goal is to lose body fat and put on muscle and become more "lean" and fit in general. I don't have a budget for this but I assume I should just get a bench and some free weights for building muscle? Dunno what for cardio.. I mean I could go jogging in the street, but it's England and frequently rains so it would be nice if I had a treadmill or something else in my garage to use. Any suggestions?

If I decide to buy any of your suggestions I may ship you a whole $10 on stars~ ! ! !

Dumbells

Elliptical machine is good for cardio. I like better than treadmill because it is low impact.

I would find your cheapest local PC store and ask them to specifically order in the following and put it together for you because the website you linked seems really overpriced and most pcs there look trashy for gaming;


Intel Q660CPU - ~£170
Gigabyte 965P-DS3 Motherboard- ~£70
2gb OCZ PC-5400 RAM - ~£70
Nvidia 8800GTS 512mb GFX Card - ~£200
Seagate 500gb 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive - ~£80
Any PC Case you think looks good - ~£100
Benq 16x DVD-RW - ~£30
Cooler Master 550w PSU - ~£80
Decent CPU HSF - ~£70

Total: ~£900

^ That's really all you need to spend on the PC itself, anything more than that is overkill for gaming, you could think about getting a second Nvidia 8800GTS graphics card if you're playing high end games but you won't notice much of an increase in performance.

Anyway that leaves you with ~£600 to splash out on speakers, mouse, keyboard, I'd recommend the following


Logitech Z-5500 Speakers - ~£190 (seems pricey but they are amazing)
Logitech G15 Keyboard - ~£50
Logitech G5 Mouse - ~£60


Note: I don't come from UK so prices may be we off, I used www.pcworld.co.uk as a reference but the above really is the sweet spot value wise and performance wise for gaming/home use.

Anyways you can tell how bored I am at home :S I've built a shitload of computers here in Aus but pricing is very different, in Aus PC Hardware is a lot more expensive so if you have any troubles/questions just post here and I'll try to help

I didn't mean look at the pre built computers there, they are trashy for sure. I meant the individual components, for instance the intel Q6600 is £140 not £170 so it's even less than the price you said ;p

Wow, thats pretty sweet man, umm can you link me to a decent shop nearby you and I'll write something else up? I was just using pcworld as a rough guidance

I'm gonna order online anyway and intend on using www.ebuyer.com only as i've already registered there and it's the cheapest I know and is very reliable.

Ahh ok, well unless you really want to spend more that machine I wrote up will definetely do everything you want it to, with ease.
I forgot to put an OS in too, not sure if you wanted Vista or XP.
It's pretty crazy that even well-above-average computers are so cheap these days :/

I do want to spend more ^_^ I want a computer that will last longer. That computer you wrote up is probably great for today's games but I want one that'll run like the next generation of games. Also I don't need a mouse or keyboard so those can be excluded

"Gigabyte 965P-DS3 Motherboard- ~£70" That sounds like a bad choice... I think you should use a m/b with p35 chipset at least if you're going with intel. Either p35 or x48, p35 might be easier to overclock even if it is older

Yeah I was looking for a p35 board on that site but couldn't find one, got me thinking they might be euro/us boards only because of the power difference but maybe they just weren't on the site.

Gigabyte P35-DS3L will do the trick

Yeah Loco's post is spot on, but missing a motherboard:
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L iP35 Socket 775 8 channel audio ATX Motherboard - £51.29

oh, also remember if you're using 4gb of ram you'll need vista or xp 64bit because standard xp doesnt allow more than 2gb

He has a motherboard in there by XFX wow I am totally clueless about Nvidia chipsets

I would only suggest 1066MHz ram instead of 800, probably not much of a difference in price

oh wow, i didnt even know xfx made motherboards :o crazy, gl midian

Yeah 32 bit XP/Vista will only let you use a bit over 3GB of your 4GB of ram because it needs the rest to address video and other memory, but you should probably get vista 64 bit anyway if you want it to last

On May 01 2008 11:31 Breeze wrote: He has a motherboard in there by XFX wow I am totally clueless about Nvidia chipsets I would only suggest 1066MHz ram instead of 800, probably not much of a difference in price

I looked on his site and didn't find any kit of 2x2gb 1066mhz DDR2. Not much of a difference anyway.

I forgot to add Windows Vista 64-bit to the build. And possibly change the samsung spinpoint for a seagate 1tb.

On May 01 2008 11:33 Breeze wrote: Yeah 32 bit XP/Vista will only let you use a bit over 3GB of your 4GB of ram because it needs the rest to address video and other memory, but you should probably get vista 64 bit anyway if you want it to last

good post.

dont know if the nvidia chipset based motherboards have gotten better lately, but I remember reading a lot of people having problems with them. I'd go with the p35 as suggested eariler

On May 01 2008 11:22 Loco wrote:

Get a Q9450 instead of a Q9650, or more realistically just grab a Q6600/E8400. The price/performance curve is incredibly terrible once you get past the Q6600, even if you don't care much for money.

That was my plan at first too, but they aren't on the site. And Midian is way too baller for an older quad or a dual core processor. One thing you are also forgetting is that Midian is not going to overclock, so his Q6600 wouldn't be very good.

He should go all out and get a QX9770 then, holla.

I was gonna suggest elliptical machine as well for the cardio, treadmill sucks
A bench and barbell + the internet and you can do pretty much everything

This is the desktop parts list I have that I'm going to be changing around etc until I get it in 2-3 months time, keep in mind I'm not playing any hardcore games and really only poker and some dota until sc2 comes out at which point i'll just get a new gfx card.....but the point is it's aimed at trying to build a silent pc that can cope with my dust problems..

CASE Antec P182 195
PSU Corsair HX620 165
CPU Core 2 Duo E8400 264
MOBO Gigabyte P35-DS4 185
RAM 4GB A-DATA DDR2 800 95
GFX 512M Generic X2600Pro 72
HDD WD 640GB SATAII 125
DVD ASUS Lightscribe 20x SATA 35
KB Logitech G15 89
MOUSE Razer Deathadder + Exactmat 112
LCD 22" Samsung 2253BW x2 596

Acousti Pack Deluxe v2 99
Nexus 120mm Real Silent Fans x6 103
Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme 79
120mm Filters x3 30


edit: not trying to derail, just posting to give midian some ideas..

On May 01 2008 15:31 bigbb33 wrote: He should go all out and get a QX9770 then, holla.

+£300 for 0.2ghz? no thanks

isnt ur current pc pretty good? you may as well wait until a new batch of hardware comes out and then buy that if you are looking to future proof urself.

if ur pc runs everything currently then no point upgrading now, since even if you buy the best, its not gunna be the best in 6 months time ¬_¬

my pc is not bad, but i want better ^_^ hasn't a new batch of hardware just come out anyway?

£600 for the CPU seems so overkill lol

I like kantoiki's list. I have the Antec P182, it's a very nice case. I agree with the choice of Corsair power supply. Quad core would probably me more in line with your choice Midian (htough

For the harddrive, I suggest you get a small Western Digital Raptor 74 Gb 10000 RPM (they don't seem to have it on ebuyer) for the OS and the hands databases, and a big fat one for storage (1Tb seagate or samsung). The harddrive is a big bottleneck, you'll see a big performance improvement by taking a fast one for applications and critical data (if you want to go all out, make a RAID array of two of these, for about twice the performance ^^).

E8400 > Q6600 for everything other than audio/video encoding

just noticed someone else rec'd the p35-ds4 and i'll 2nd that, its a very good mobo for overclocking

On May 02 2008 05:57 Catul wrote: £600 for the CPU seems so overkill lol I like kantoiki's list. I have the Antec P182, it's a very nice case. I agree with the choice of Corsair power supply. Quad core would probably me more in line with your choice Midian (htough For the harddrive, I suggest you get a small Western Digital Raptor 74 Gb 10000 RPM (they don't seem to have it on ebuyer) for the OS and the hands databases, and a big fat one for storage (1Tb seagate or samsung). The harddrive is a big bottleneck, you'll see a big performance improvement by taking a fast one for applications and critical data (if you want to go all out, make a RAID array of two of these, for about twice the performance ^^).

I agree with corsair power supply, I personally love them. But for the beast that I was building him i'm not sure if a 620 watts would be ok. There's the new 750w in there though that would probably be perfect.

I also added the raptor 150gb at first but it made him over budget(which he told me later he didn't mind). The thing is, the new 1tb hard drives with 32mb cache are making the raptors less worth it now.

On May 02 2008 08:55 SKoT wrote: E8400 > Q6600 for everything other than audio/video encoding just noticed someone else rec'd the p35-ds4 and i'll 2nd that, its a very good mobo for overclocking

?? he's not overclocking and wants a very expensive, top of the line PC.

Talking about hard drives, I would get the new 300GB VelociRaptor, interestingly they made it 2.5 inch and it's faster/quieter than the old Raptors.

I'm not sure if it's selling yet, too lazy to read this again:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/HDD-SATA-VelociRaptor,1914.html