How-To Geek

Hey everyone,

I've come to that time when I need a new computer. I have a budget of $2500 give or take, I'd prefer to keep it under this amount but if there's major advantages of spending more I can go slightly higher. I'm a bit of a noob but I've been reading about everything a lot for the past few months and I believe I'd be perfectly capable of building my own, it's just a matter of what parts I should pick. My main purpose for the computer will be college work, I'll be using programs such as Autodesk Autocad Civil 3D and I'd like to be able to open and close applications like this at speed. I'm not much of a gamer but I do enjoy games such as Modern Warfare or Black Ops from time to time. The only part I have picked at the moment is the Cooler Master Haf X case. I've read a lot of good stuff about it and will probably go with it. So basically I'm just asking would anyone be able to recommend a motherboard, RAM, SSD, cooling system, optical drive, power supply, CPU, monitor, keyboard and mouse. Also I'll probably build the computer now and wait for Windows 8 to come out before I buy an operating system. Any help would be much appreciated.

A good place to start and read is MAXIMUMPC. They do this regularly spec out everything and also have steps to do it. See this FOR INSTANCE ON A $2,000 USD machine. Here is an IVY BRIDGE that comes in a little less in cost.

I don't build anymore, but if I did, I'd at least look at what they build and 'tweak' as needed.

I'm also in the camp these days of buying systems, pre-built, tested, s/w I want usually installed, and warrantied, even if just for a year. You might want a boutique builder, like Dell's AURORA that they purchased, more towards what you might crave.

Irv S.

Try Using PC Part Picker (google it)

This is the best I could come up with so far

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/e3z6

If anyone has any input let me know, thanks :)

kylonewton,

Can you get components from Amazon UK ????

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=.....oards+1155

Rick P.

No sound either?

Irv S.

EDIT: Never mind, built-in on the motherboard, but no speakers?

Hey Rick,

Yup, I can get parts from Amazon UK no problem.

Oh sorry forgot to mention, I already have another hard drive from my old computer, 750gb western digital so that should do fine, I did forget about sound though, oops haha.

Your PC Part Picker Build was good, but is quite underbudet - about £1500

Personally, I'd still go with a 120GB SSD and a new 1TB drive for the same price as the 240GB SSD. Why? Because of two reasons :

1) My personal ways of segregating partitions. OS with ONLY OS stuff and things I want restored with the OS, like browser, e-mail client, backup program, etc., and if on an SSD, things that don't get written to every time the computer is used if possible (they go on another drive partition). 90GB's or more is sufficient in most cases for this. Now at least 2 data drives, and on two physical drives if possible. First one for data, you can cut it up into partitions if you wish. One for data you want to backup and the other for 'scratch' stuff, like downloads and temporary stuff you might put on your computer, or stuff you really don't care about losing. Last drive for backup storage so you can have more than one to return too if you need to do a restore of any drive letter.

2) Old drives have lost some life. Failure is sooner than later. Any drive past 4 years in my experience is possible to fail soon. Also, older drives are probably NOT SATA III. Your new system does support that, why not get the last ounce of speed out of it. There is little to no cost in getting a smaller SSD and a 1TB vs. a single larger SSD.

Irv S.

Advice taken on board Irv S. Thanks a million! I've switched to a 120gb SSD and a 1TB HDD, little or no increase in cost so makes perfect sense.