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Has anyone ever bought from computerplanet before? I'm considering buying a custom build from them since they seem cheaper than other places and you can customise everything with a lot of options, and I certainly don't want to build it myself. I've built this so far for £753....can anyone see any major problems/improvements? I'm clueless when it comes to motherboards and power supply and stuff like that. Thanks!

Black ATX Tower Case
Intel Core i5 2400 (4x 3.1GHz)
Intel Heatsink and Fan (Low Noise)
Corsair 4GB RAM
1GB Zota nVidia GTX 460
Asus P8H67-M PRO (Intel H67) Motherboard
Edimax Wireless 300mbps PCI Card
OCZ 500W Stealth XStream Power Supply
1TB SATA-II Hard Drive
Samsung (SH-S223L) 24x DVD Re-Writer/Reader
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit
Original post by TShadow383
He's still going to need an operating system and an optical drive though, which is going to add ~£90-100


DVD+-RW ~£10
Win7 Pro ~£40 @ software4students
Original post by KissMyArtichoke
DVD+-RW ~£10
Win7 Pro ~£40 @ software4students


Only for an upgrade version - granted there are ways aroud that but they're not exactly legal and it's not exactly impossible for micro$oft to find out about it.
And where exactly would you find a decent, non-oem DVD drive for £10? You might find a cheap chinese OEM one for that, but you're going to need cables etc for it anyway and it'll be a noisy and unreliable beast...
Original post by *k.a.t.e*
Has anyone ever bought from computerplanet before? I'm considering buying a custom build from them since they seem cheaper than other places and you can customise everything with a lot of options, and I certainly don't want to build it myself. I've built this so far for £753....can anyone see any major problems/improvements? I'm clueless when it comes to motherboards and power supply and stuff like that. Thanks!

Black ATX Tower Case
Intel Core i5 2400 (4x 3.1GHz)
Intel Heatsink and Fan (Low Noise)
Corsair 4GB RAM
1GB Zota nVidia GTX 460
Asus P8H67-M PRO (Intel H67) Motherboard
Edimax Wireless 300mbps PCI Card
OCZ 500W Stealth XStream Power Supply
1TB SATA-II Hard Drive
Samsung (SH-S223L) 24x DVD Re-Writer/Reader
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit


That's a pretty awful motherboard.

Asides that, I'd be curious as to the sort of case (whether there's adequate cooling and space for upgradeability) and the make of hard drive. The PSU is fine.

One thing you might want to consider - the i5 2500k is what, maybe £40 more than that?
I always recommend with the newer intel processors that people get decent cooling, decent motherboards and unlockable chips. I've seen i5 2500k chips doing 5ghz+ on decent air cooling.
Now, you're probably talking an extra £100ish to do that, but you'd be getting 65% higher performance in CPU terms.

If you built the system yourself, you'd probably spend about £100 less than you're looking at paying there.
Original post by TShadow383
Only for an upgrade version - granted there are ways aroud that but they're not exactly legal and it's not exactly impossible for micro$oft to find out about it.
And where exactly would you find a decent, non-oem DVD drive for £10? You might find a cheap chinese OEM one for that, but you're going to need cables etc for it anyway and it'll be a noisy and unreliable beast...


http://www.scan.co.uk/products/samsung-sh-s222a-bebe-22x-dvdr-12x-dvddl-dvdplusrw-x8-rw-x6-dvd-ram-x12-ide-black-oem
It's OEM, but that's hardly a problem really.
If the person wanting to build this has ever owned a copy of windows on a previous computer which they no longer use, then there is no legal issue in using the double install method, (microsoft themselves admit this, although they disagree with the registry hack method).
To be strictly legal if you haven't owned a previous windows OS, you could always buy XP cheap and install over that. Completely pointless though, and I doubt many people are that scrupulous.
Original post by TShadow383
That's a pretty awful motherboard.

Asides that, I'd be curious as to the sort of case (whether there's adequate cooling and space for upgradeability) and the make of hard drive. The PSU is fine.

One thing you might want to consider - the i5 2500k is what, maybe £40 more than that?
I always recommend with the newer intel processors that people get decent cooling, decent motherboards and unlockable chips. I've seen i5 2500k chips doing 5ghz+ on decent air cooling.
Now, you're probably talking an extra £100ish to do that, but you'd be getting 65% higher performance in CPU terms.

If you built the system yourself, you'd probably spend about £100 less than you're looking at paying there.


I'm not sure what make the hard drive is, but this is it's full description if that helps:

1 TB (1000 GB) SATA-II HDD UDMA 300 7200 32MB

As for motherboards, these are all the options, which one would you suggest?

Gigabyte GA-H67M-UD2H (Intel H67) VGA
Asus P8H67-M (Intel H67) VGA
Asus P8H67-M PRO (Intel H67) VGA
Asus P8H67-M EVO (Intel H67) VGA
Asus P8P67 LE (Intel P67)
Asus P8P67-M PRO (Intel P67)
Gigabyte GA-H67A-UD3H (Intel H67) VGA

And the case is 433mm(H) 498mm(D) 198mm(W), it has 7 full size expansion slots.
Original post by *k.a.t.e*
I'm not sure what make the hard drive is, but this is it's full description if that helps:

1 TB (1000 GB) SATA-II HDD UDMA 300 7200 32MB

As for motherboards, these are all the options, which one would you suggest?

Gigabyte GA-H67M-UD2H (Intel H67) VGA
Asus P8H67-M (Intel H67) VGA
Asus P8H67-M PRO (Intel H67) VGA
Asus P8H67-M EVO (Intel H67) VGA
Asus P8P67 LE (Intel P67)
Asus P8P67-M PRO (Intel P67)
Gigabyte GA-H67A-UD3H (Intel H67) VGA

And the case is 433mm(H) 498mm(D) 198mm(W), it has 7 full size expansion slots.


Okay - a few observations:
-If those are external dimensions of the case, it's actually not that big at all, what's the cooling like?

Of those boards, the LE is the only remotely decent one.

If I were you, I'd build your own.
This, for example, would be much, much quicker than the spec you've posted:
http://i55.tinypic.com/spd7ye.png
Original post by TShadow383
Okay - a few observations:
-If those are external dimensions of the case, it's actually not that big at all, what's the cooling like?

Of those boards, the LE is the only remotely decent one.

If I were you, I'd build your own.
This, for example, would be much, much quicker than the spec you've posted:
http://i55.tinypic.com/spd7ye.png


I definetely definetely do not want to build my own - I want something that comes ready with windows installed. I can only imagine the amount of things that could go wrong and I wouldn't have a clue how to fix them!

I looked at the details of the case but it doesn't mention anything about cooling, the next one up (which is only £6 more) is the ASUS TA-K51 if that helps at all. After that is the Cooler Master Elite 330. I don't want some horrendous looking gaming case! Just something plain looking. :smile:
(edited 13 years ago)
Reply 4848
Avatar for Zorg
Zorg
18
Original post by TShadow383
Okay - a few observations:
-If those are external dimensions of the case, it's actually not that big at all, what's the cooling like?

Of those boards, the LE is the only remotely decent one.

If I were you, I'd build your own.
This, for example, would be much, much quicker than the spec you've posted:
http://i55.tinypic.com/spd7ye.png


The LE is only half decent because it's a P67. The UD3H isn't a bad H67 board. There's also a P67 Gigabyte UD5 there I believe.

Also might I suggest not being so pushy with the whole build your own. In the nicest way possible it isn't for everyone and she seems pretty set against it. At the level she's paying, she doesn't need the extra horsepower and would probably benefit more from paying the extra for peace of mind.

Original post by *k.a.t.e*
I definetely definetely do not want to build my own - I want something that comes ready with windows installed. I can only imagine the amount of things that could go wrong and I wouldn't have a clue how to fix them!

I looked at the details of the case but it doesn't mention anything about cooling, the next one up (which is only £6 more) is the ASUS TA-K51 if that helps at all. After that is the Cooler Master Elite 330. I don't want some horrendous looking gaming case! Just something plain looking. :smile:


One thing you can do even if you're not building your own is to buy a prebuild/have some one build it and install windows 7 yourself by sourcing the upgrade disk from software4students and saving yourself £30 odd.

The case is guaranteed to be incredible poor at cooling and tight for space. Choose a decent case, will make upgrades in the future easier and tends to be less noisy as you don't need extra loud fans to cool the leviathan. The CM 335 isn't too bad, the Antec Three Hundred is a great budget buy.

I'm sorry, I've lost track of your broken posts, what are your uses and budget? (Can't be bothered to trawl through the thread again :smile: )
Original post by Zorg
I'm sorry, I've lost track of your broken posts, what are your uses and budget? (Can't be bothered to trawl through the thread again :smile: )


It's ok! Preferably I would like to spend between £600-750 without the monitor. Uses will be playing light games, nothing like Crysis or COD, just Sims 3 and various simulation type games - after looking at graphics cards I think I want an nVidia GTX 400-500 ish. Other than that, i've just bought a new camera, so it'll be doing a bit of photoshopping and the usual internet browsing and maybe watching DVDs.

Would I be able to consider an AMD processor? I know they didn't use to be as good as Intels but I don't know if they've improved or not and if one would be suitable for what I want, since they seem to be a bit cheaper.
(edited 13 years ago)
Reply 4850
Avatar for Zorg
Zorg
18
Original post by *k.a.t.e*
It's ok! Preferably I would like to spend between £600-750 without the monitor. Uses will be playing light games, nothing like Crysis or COD, just Sims 3 and various simulation type games - after looking at graphics cards I think I want an nVidia GTX 400-500 ish. Other than that, i've just bought a new camera, so it'll be doing a bit of photoshopping and the usual internet browsing and maybe watching DVDs.


Eerie, just logged on and you just replied...I spend far too much time procrastinating.

Ok, I reckon you should aim for around the 5770/5750 mark. The GTX 460 is a great card, but it still holding it's price fairly well and only really excels if you're willing to overclock it. The 5770 will do you more than fine. When you say simulation games, I'm assuming these aren't FSX or the ilk..?

For light photoshopping look towards getting a i5 2500k top end. I say get the k because even if you don't overclock the resale value for it will be much higher for the chip itself. Plus it's only a difference of ~£10 currently.

If you're getting a dedicated card, there's little point in getting a H67 board. Go with a decent P67 board and leave yourself the option to overclock later on if you get curious. NOTE: there are currently issues with the SATA ports on the 6 series boards (both H67 and P67) in that they can fail. Motherboard manufacturers are working with intel to get a fix soon, they estimate at March time. Think closer to May and most likely well in to May before you can get your hands on a replacement. The manufacturers are doing exchanges for faulty motherboards at no cost to you, however you will be computer less for a couple of weeks when you send yours and they manage to check it and send out a new one (that's assuming there isn't a back log...)

Even though I've said leave yourself the option to overclock I'd stick with the stock heatsink as prices for current aftermarket coolers will drop by the time you'll want to overclock or there'll be better equipment.

Now this should all be powered by a decent 500W/600W PSU. With a PSU you never want to skimp out on it, it supplies power to your system; it blows up, your system blows up. Decent brands to look for are Corsair, Seasonic, XFX, Enermax, FSP, Antec and OCZ. My personal favourites are the first four. OCZ is usually a good budget buy.

About building your own, you've had the lecture from Shadow, but might I add that the hardest part is selecting parts (forgive the pun). When it comes to building a computer you literally plug stuff in and that's it. It's pretty difficult to plug stuff in the wrong places as everything has it's own type of socket. This is a decent video, bar his annoying voice. Give it a watch, he manages to plug everything in pretty quick. For your first build I'd say it'd take you about 1.5/2 hours to put together and the rest to install windows.

The pros to building would be

•

Increased component selection and control. You choose what you want and what you need

•

Become more independent with your items. You'll start to learn to troubleshoot and not have to pay £50 to some guy to look at your computer.

•

Save yourself ~£100 maybe more depending on what companies you look at.



The cons:

•

Takes a little more time and effort

•

Can seem daunting (there are however lots and lots of sites like this with people who help for no other reason than to help)



That wasn't to nag at you, merely to make sure you know how you're spending your money and to make sure you know how it could also be spent.

I will also mention some computer shops will build for you if you have the parts sometimes at a tiny charge sometimes for free. If you have one nearby going in and asking if they would and how much they'd charge is always a good idea. Will save you a bit of money and require little effort on your part, just a little more waiting.

Sorry for the long post, needed a break from this essay...
(edited 13 years ago)
as above, building is a lot of fun, you'll learn how to fix/ tweak/ upgrade stuff, and you save money too.
Reply 4852
Avatar for Mikl6969
Mikl6969
Hey
Im Looking for a Desktop around 600-700 with a Blu Ray Player
I dont really want to build one myself

From some quick browsing ive come across

http://www.next.co.uk/shopping/electrical-event/carryover/103/1?extra=sch&n=electric&utm_source=google&utm_medium=product_search&utm_campaign=googleps

and

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/minicat/new/upsell/inspiron-580-d005829-deals?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs

Are they any good, or can you recommend another better PC ?
Reply 4853
Avatar for Mikl6969
Mikl6969
Internet Browsing,Using Microsoft Office, Managing my website,Java Programming and Watching Blu Ray Films
Original post by Mikl6969
Internet Browsing,Using Microsoft Office, Managing my website,Java Programming and Watching Blu Ray Films


For your needs, go with that MSI.
Reply 4855
Avatar for Mikl6969
Mikl6969
Original post by TShadow383
For your needs, go with that MSI.


thanks

Ive not heard of MSI before,are they a reliable brand ?

and any particular reason why that particular PC is better than the Dell one ?
Original post by Mikl6969
thanks

Ive not heard of MSI before,are they a reliable brand ?

and any particular reason why that particular PC is better than the Dell one ?


On specs, it's not really better, but the build quality of MSI products is leagues ahead of dell, and for what you want it for it'll be more powerful than you need by far.
Hey, I plan on building a new computer (for gaming) soon and I'm having a bit of trouble when it comes to what exactly im looking for.

What sort of things should I be looking for in a motherboard/ram/GPU?

The CPU I have chosen is the AMD Phenom II x6,
I plan on buying it from: http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/CPUs+%2F+Processors/AMD+Phenom+II/AMD+Phenom+II+X6+1090T+3.20GHz+Black+Edition+%28Socket+AM3%29+Processor+-+Retail+?productId=40096&rqcType=r#rqc

What sort of things would a motherboard need to support that?

Help would be greatly appreciated :smile:

Quick note, I don't plan on changing the CPU I have chosen because this is 6 cores of epic beastlyness.
Original post by Darkphilosopher
Hey, I plan on building a new computer (for gaming) soon and I'm having a bit of trouble when it comes to what exactly im looking for.

What sort of things should I be looking for in a motherboard/ram/GPU?

The CPU I have chosen is the AMD Phenom II x6,
I plan on buying it from: http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/CPUs+%2F+Processors/AMD+Phenom+II/AMD+Phenom+II+X6+1090T+3.20GHz+Black+Edition+%28Socket+AM3%29+Processor+-+Retail+?productId=40096&rqcType=r#rqc

What sort of things would a motherboard need to support that?

Help would be greatly appreciated :smile:

Quick note, I don't plan on changing the CPU I have chosen because this is 6 cores of epic beastlyness.


For the price, you'd be much, MUCH better off with an i5-2500k.

Even on multi-threaded benchmarks, the 2500k can do more with four cores than that x6 does with 6.
Then there's the tremendous overclocking ability (5ghz is easy with these chips).

What's your budget?
Original post by TShadow383
For the price, you'd be much, MUCH better off with an i5-2500k.

Even on multi-threaded benchmarks, the 2500k can do more with four cores than that x6 does with 6.
Then there's the tremendous overclocking ability (5ghz is easy with these chips).

What's your budget?


I have a budget of around £850 for the entire rig.
Im not too keen on overclocking because of voiding the warranty. I don't want to build a computer just to have the CPU break then not be able to replace it because its been overclocked.

edit: not to mention, to overclock it I would probably have to also buy aftermarket cooling.
(edited 13 years ago)

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