New Gaming PC

[Deleted]

Hi all,

My first post here so I apologise in advance if there is a better place for this kind of request. I am looking to get a new PC. Whilst I have no knowledge of putting them together myself, I do have a good friend who is willing to do this for me. I understand this would be far superior in terms of value for money.

My budget is maximum of £1200. I already have a top quality gaming mouse (using a laptop currently which is being sold). This PC will be *purely* for gaming and as such, I only care about things that will affect performance in that respect (no printer etc.) I play on a wireless network (100mb).

Could anyone be so kind as to assist me with the following questions:

a) Exactly what parts do I need to buy? (Yep, i'm that much of a scrub. I normally just buy an Alienware pre-made, but am trying to do it properly )
b) Have you got reccomendations of specific parts? Or even a complete build?
c) If you do have suggestions, what are some good sites to purchase the parts that would be willing to deliver to the UK.

If you require any information, please don't hesitate to ask. If you can assist in all or any of the above questions, I would really appreciate it.

Thank you

Kyndo

[Zamfix]

Assuming from scratch:

A case
A power supply
A CPU
A motherboard (one that has the same socket type as the CPU you choose)
RAM
A video card
SSD or HDD
Some kind of non-stock cooling option for your CPU (depending on CPU and if you overclock)
Optical drive (optional)
Monitor (if you don't have one)
Keyboard
You'll probably want to get some extra case fans to properly cool and ventilate your case as well.
And since you play on a wireless network, I'd suggest an external USB wireless antenna. My apartment's configuration forces me to play on wireless, so I have a great antenna with a magnetic base I stick to the side of my desk and get wired speeds with very little latency.

If I'm forgetting anything obvious it's because it's early.

[Jakexe]

Motherboard: ASUS Z68-V several different options
CPU: i5 2500k
GPU: GTX 560ti, wide variety of manufactures, i reccommend eVGA
RAM: g-skill or corsair, 8GB (2x 4GB sticks) is enough
PSU: 550W is enough, any well knwon company is fine, i recommend corsiar
Aftermarket cooler: Basically any, on a budget coolermaster hyper 212
Case: Anything in the thermaltake HAX series
HDD: western digital cavier black

[seersage]

" This laptop will be *purely* for gaming and as such" Custom built laptop ? its hard to custom build a laptop... it would have cooling problems.
If your looking for a Tower you might want to wait a couple of days for new chips from Intel.

[googz]

Try checking the stickies here... lots of info there.

Building a computer isn't as hard as you would think. Do some research and at least look into it before completely blowing off the idea.

[Zamfix]

Wait you're building a laptop? You can't really custom build a laptop in any meaningful way, you just buy it from a company like Alienware, so basically what you've been doing.

[Deleted]

Sorry for any confusion. I am selling my laptop to replace it with a PC. As I am inexperienced in building them, but have a willing friend, he is going to teach me how whilst building this one on my behalf.

Thanks a lot for the replies so far. I'm fairly overwhelmed by the number of responses in such a short time! You guys rock.

[Woa]

Not sure of the conversion rate between our monies but I recently built a cheap gaming rig for $500 us dollars. Which included:

fx 4100 cpu
asrock 890fx deluxe4
4 gig gskill ram
radeon 6870 gpu
620W antec psu

It's not hard to do. I would suggest finding the graphics card you'd like and build around that since it's likely going to be the most expensive part. Your CPU isn't a giant factor in your gaming rig. Most games today are not CPU limited but limited by what your graphics card is capable of. I can run WoW and Skyrim on ultra with my 105$ fx 4100. There are a lot of haters of the bulldozer cpus lately but they're still a great bang for buck cpu. I got mine to OC to 4.4 ghz stable very easily. I can get it to 5 GHZ but i felt that was overkill and I wanted it to last a while.

Firstly, look to articles on graphics cards and cpu comparisons and decide what you want. Then go to pcpartpicker.com and you can find a list of hardware and prices. It's a fantastic tool for mocking up your computer builds.

Building a computer is so very simple. The only things you really have to keep in mind is to BE GENTLE and GROUND YOURSELF. If you have a little static charge built up and you touch your motherboard you may fry something. It's easy to get around this though, just find some metal stuff around you that's likely grounded and touch it every once in a while, and dont drag your feet on the carpet :P