10+ years since last built my own Base Unit !!

[Mobileman]

Alreet lads,

im looking to build my own base unit for use in home/office & media server use not really for games as the last pc games i played were doom,heretic, simcity possibly quake

Anyway things have moved on since my IDE days of my first pentium chip unit so have a budget of between £500 - £600 max. I will need about 2tb storage, not worried about OS but it will more than likely have win 7 on it. Will be using it on my 28" Samsung lcd

Can anyone comment on the spec below improve / remove some of the items, i can possibly get cheaper prices but just used ebuyer as a bench mark, I know need to add mouse and keyboard and not sure about the onboard sound and graphics ??


Casecom 6788 Black Mid Tower Case with Full Black Interior/Exterior 120mm Blue LED Front Fan - No PSU 172779 396 in stock £29.91 £25.45 £29.91 £25.45

Xilence Red Wing 120mm Quiet Fan - 3&4pin connection 138586 160 in stock £4.99 £4.24 £4.99 £4.24

Arctic Power 700W PSU - With PCI-E, 4x SATA, 20+4, ATX12V, 8pin +12V Connectors - Retail Boxed 124927 115 in stock £41.98 £35.72 £41.98 £35.72

Intel Core i3 540 3.06GHz Socket 1156 4MB L3 Cache Retail Box Processor 185939 9 in stock £118.70 £101.02 £118.70 £101.02

Gigabyte GA-H55M-S2H H55 Socket 1156 onboard HDMI VGA DVI 7.1 Channel audio mATX Motherboard 189295 11 in stock £64.98 £55.30 £64.98 £55.30

Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1066MHz i5 Memory Kit 1.5V CL7 142085 17 in stock £90.00 £76.59 £90.00 £76.59

Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache - OEM 173804 931 in stock £49.93 £42.49 £99.86 £84.98

Plexus SATA 2.0 to right angle SATA 7-pin Cable (Red) 46cm / 18" 151963 500 in stock £1.84 £1.56 £3.67 £3.12

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 Socket 775, 1156, 1366, AM2, AM3 Heatpipe CPU Cooler 176157 46 in stock £17.95 £15.27 £17.95 £15.27

Sony AD7241S 24x DVD±RW DL & RAM with LightScribe SATA - OEM Black 165168 23 in stock £17.79 £15.14 £17.79£15.14

Cart total inc vat: £489.83

[beerman]

If you are just using it as an office pc and a media server on board graphics and sound will be fine. If you wanted to use it to display films on your TV I'd look at a graphics card as I doubt the on board one would cut it. Also if you have an amp the you may want a sound card with an optical out.

[Mobileman]

If you are just using it as an office pc and a media server on board graphics and sound will be fine. If you wanted to use it to display films on your TV I'd look at a graphics card as I doubt the on board one would cut it. Also if you have an amp the you may want a sound card with an optical out.

Think the board has optical out, as this will be in loft in office i might watch the odd movie on it but more than likely it would be streamed to main TV in lounge would using another tv out and some sort of remote control be better for this ?

[beerman]

What are you streaming it to or are you hoping to run a long cable from your loft to your lounge?

[Mobileman]

Either Beerman not decided either way yet i guess both will have pros and cons, suppose i could even just unplug base unit

[flik]

You could always buy some Homeplugs !

[greens117]

Or buy an xbox and stream it through that.

[Mobileman]

You could always buy some Homeplugs !

Or buy an xbox and stream it through that.

Got homeplugs and could always stream to laptop or MBA even ps3 maybe, more importantly is there any better deals or kit missing on my list

[{{909}}]

The CPU should handle all the video rendering if you wanted to use it as a media centre, I had a much older/slower pc with very basic gfx which managed it, so this should be fine. I cant see any major problems with the kit, apart from the siny dvdr, i have a sony branded one and it sucks

You may find misco, or other pc stores work out cheaper if you have quidco.

[Mobileman]

The CPU should handle all the video rendering if you wanted to use it as a media centre, I had a much older/slower pc with very basic gfx which managed it, so this should be fine. I cant see any major problems with the kit, apart from the siny dvdr, i have a sony branded one and it sucks

You may find misco, or other pc stores work out cheaper if you have quidco.

thanks any suggestions on the DVDR ?

[bignes_420]

I would go with pioneer http://www.ebuyer.com/product/177398

Got 4 of these over 2 machines, theyve been hammered (printed off 100 cds this week alone, not considering xbox games, dvds etc) still going strong without any problems

I'd also double the ram to 8gb and you might want to consider this for a tower

http://www.google.co.uk/products/cat...ed=0CD8Q8wIwDA#

Thermal Take shark full tower, 6 hard drive bays, 4 cd bays, with removable motherboard holder and enough space so that everything runs nice and smooth (got 2 of these aswell)

[{{909}}]

I would agree on the Pioneer, but I dont know why you would need 8gig of ram, I use photoshop very heavily on my XP machine and it remains fast (most of the time) with just 2 gig in.

[bignes_420]

I use Vista only works smooth on 4gb plus

[{{909}}]

i would definetly choose a different case than that casecom one, not sure on the one bignes recomends, but id certainly spend 10 to 15 quid more on a coolermaster one, they generally have much more aluminium/steel and usually have all the fans preinstalled too

[bignes_420]

And you might want to consider a differant power supply
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/147112

The power cables are detachble meaning theres no hordes of loose wires clogging up your machine

[B.I.G.]

Wouldn't the cpu gurry is selling in bst be better for the price or is it a different socket?

[{{909}}]

looking at Gurry's sale, I think he has some good prices there, apart from the ram, its not much more new.

[Over Carl]

I was gonna say the same thing, gurry's i5-750 would be a nice touch for this.

[Mule]

You'll get more GB per £ by buying a 1.5TB hd or even 2TB.

You could get this 1.5TB HD for 64.99 then a smaller faster drive for the OS.

[gurry]

Thanks for pointing in the direction of the thread. I can do a deal on the parts if necessary mobileman.

I'll look at the reducing the ram based on comments here....