The PC Building Thread

Bitter Rivals said:
Typical scan.

Emailed me to say they can't supply it at the pre order price and it will be £22 extra.

Original price was £351 for the gpu and 3 games.

Told them original price or no deal
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Do you post on AVForums? It's just that a couple of people on there are having the exact same problem with Scan.

I bought my 780 from them against plenty of warnings not to. Their customer service can be a bit shabby according to many at AVF. I decided the risk was worth taking as I bought an EVGA card - EVGA ask that you contact them directly should any problems arise with the card, not the retailer.
 
Yes I have.

I have had bad dealings with them recently over a faulty mechanical keyboard, posted about it on AVF

And at the price of 350 and 3 games for a high end 780 it was worth the risk but again they never cease to amaze me.

So still looking
 
Looks like 780 prices hit rock bottom a few days ago and have risen since then. You need around £400 or a bit more for a 780 now.

It might be worth keeping the order in at Scan but insist that you want the original price. They couldn't fulfill your order so they should honour the original price.
 
Jamezinho said:
Knowing Nvidia it's going to be a £500-600 card.

Any clue on pricing as yet?
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Not sure but I've read it's a Titan-beater and a lot cheaper. I imagine £500-£600 sounds about right though but that's a card that you'd imagine will last years.
 
DagsJT said:
Not sure but I've read it's a Titan-beater and a lot cheaper. I imagine £500-£600 sounds about right though but that's a card that you'd imagine will last years.
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Still think the 780 is a better buy at current prices. Very quick out-of-the-box and a Titan leveller/beater if you are prepared to overclock. To think some of these cards were going for around £350 is madness.

AMD have been royally fucked-over by Nvidia with these 780 price drops. It really took the attention away from their new 290/290X cards. It's AMD's fault entirely for a poor product launch and for keeping important details behind NDA for too long.
 
Jamezinho said:
Do you post on AVForums? It's just that a couple of people on there are having the exact same problem with Scan.

I bought my 780 from them against plenty of warnings not to. Their customer service can be a bit shabby according to many at AVF. I decided the risk was worth taking as I bought an EVGA card - EVGA ask that you contact them directly should any problems arise with the card, not the retailer.
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Yea i bough most stuff on scan and never had issues. Even rma stuff without a fuss. I must be lucky
 
Guys I am at a fork in the road, one path is PC the other is PS4. If I was going the PC route I would like to spend around £800 to build a small console like machine that is pretty future proof, but I am having trouble justifying paying double the cost of a PS4. I dont know much about PC gaming but it seems to me that I will just be playing console games that look a bit prettier and paying hugely for the small graphical advantage. Is there something about PC gaming I am missing here? Are there PC only titles that make the extra cost worth it? From my point of view I am struggling to see why anyone would go PC at this point when the new consoles are practically here. What keeps you guys upgrading your machines instead of going the much cheaper console route?
 
A Real Gentleman said:
Guys I am at a fork in the road, one path is PC the other is PS4. If I was going the PC route I would like to spend around £800 to build a small console like machine that is pretty future proof, but I am having trouble justifying paying double the cost of a PS4. I dont know much about PC gaming but it seems to me that I will just be playing console games that look a bit prettier and paying hugely for the small graphical advantage. Is there something about PC gaming I am missing here? Are there PC only titles that make the extra cost worth it? From my point of view I am struggling to see why anyone would go PC at this point when the new consoles are practically here. What keeps you guys upgrading your machines instead of going the much cheaper console route?
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Why im with pc:
1) Better framerate;
2) Better graphics;
3) Modding in games (Games like Portal2, Skyrim, Mount and Blade, Pes, Fifa REALLY benefit from it)
4) kb + mouse controls on fps games (most intuitive and immersive way to play fps games);
5) Freedom what software and os to use;
6) PC is much more than gaming machine you can make it as well a media center and work station along being gaming rig.
 
I go with pretty much what TheTud says, except he forgot to mention PC games are on average over half the price of console games.

I bought Batman last week for £9, it wont be that price on console new for about 2 years, also you get other advantages not mentioned, load times are about 1/4 of the time, more controller choices, much much better graphics.

Since becoming a PC player I would never ever go and play on a console which is completely inferior in every single aspect.
 
bsmaff said:
I go with pretty much what TheTud says, except he forgot to mention PC games are on average over half the price of console games.

I bought Batman last week for £9, it wont be that price on console new for about 2 years, also you get other advantages not mentioned, load times are about 1/4 of the time, more controller choices, much much better graphics.

Since becoming a PC player I would never ever go and play on a console which is completely inferior in every single aspect.
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Apart from when all your mates have consoles and you want to play with them online.
 
Scutch said:
Apart from when all your mates have consoles and you want to play with them online.
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Yeah, that is the main problem if your moving across to a new platform which your friends don't have.
As at the end of the day that is the thing which will ultimately decide what next gen console people will get.
 
A Real Gentleman said:
What keeps you guys upgrading your machines instead of going the much cheaper console route?
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The main draw for me is the variety of games on the PC. The consoles make sense if all you want to play are the big triple-A franchises, but to me the PC offers all that and more. I like strategy games and simulations, two genres that aren't served at all well on consoles. It was actually my love of racing simulations that spurred me on to return to PC gaming about 18 months ago.

As others have said, visuals are another reason to stick with the PC. Having flexibility on screen resolution and frame rates is a big plus for me, as are all the graphical settings that allow the gamer to tailor the experience towards eye-candy, performance, or both if the GPU is capable.

Other benefits include:
- the modding scene
- controller support (particularly racing wheels and flight sticks)
- cheaper games
- well implemented and fairly priced digital distribution services
- upgrade-able hardware

The higher cost of buying/building a PC is worth paying for a more interesting, open experience. Also, with a PC you are getting more than a gaming machine. It can do anything you want.
 
Yeah jamez. It has been fantastic +/- 7 years for me to play this Flight Simulation X and still continue. The modding scene is immense. It was 10 years a go since I bought my first gpu, ATI 9800 Pro.

@A real gentleman.
It is even an advantage to have NG consoles that are considered more or less like a PC now. With £800 I am sure you can build two level more powerful than NG consoles (bsmaff suggested a good one here £800 pc. So you can start ahead from NG console, having better graphic until its life cycle is over. You don't necessarily have to upgrade by then.

In my opinion, when we already have powerful PC, upgrading is more like curiousity or desire, rather than imperative.
 
Modding is an incredible plus for PC gaming, Portal 2's community test chambers give that game so, so much more longevity and you can always find a new level to play that's challenging/inventive. The story/co-op levels in Portal are great, but the PC only community levels are the real meat of the game imo.
 
Backwards compatibility, if you're into that sort of stuff, is also a big plus compared to consoles that are usually only compatible with the previous generation or not compatible at all.
 
Anyway, this is top ten.. GPU for steam players.

image.jpg


No wonder some next gen version of game is not available on PC yet.
 
Jamezinho said:
You just have to look at this site. The editing section is always one of the busiest parts of Evo-Web and much of it is PC mods. It's incredible how PES can be transformed on the PC. Gameplay tweaks, new cameras, perfectly recreated kits, add-on stadia, new teams and leagues, balls, faces........I couldn't play console PES again unless it became the only option.
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Damn right, although I've only played PES/FIFA on console recently, I used to play PES4-6 on PC back in the day... It was absolutely class.

Kitserver/LODmixer made the game look fantastic at the time, with fully HD textures for kits/faces/balls which retained their detail even in the Wide camera. The community also made hundreds of stadiums, some in great detail with variations for CL/league/cup HD adboards with crisp and lush pitch textures.
Also the menus, TV overlays/scoreboards, chants etc made it feel so much better.
When going to my friends houses to play PES on their PS2s it was such a jarring difference, such bland colours, crudely in-game edited kits, lack of stadia etc.

I imagine that sort of difference applies to the majority of multiplatform titles that are on PC and consoles... Seeing BF3 on ultra at 1080p with a smooth 60fps compared to how the 360/PS3 just about churn out 20-25 fps with motion blur at a shitty resolution with less than half the players in the match... That same difference is going to appear a few years into the "next-gen" consoles lifespan...

When my 360 bites the dust I'll put together a PC - part of me wishes it would just stop working ASAP to give me the excuse :LOL:. I find it funny actually that some people think it's difficult to build a PC and that you need bundles of prerequisite knowledge and a passion for computing... Completely not true, I did 2 weeks work experience when I was in Year 10 at school (15 years old) at a computer sales/repair shop, and after the health and safety stuff they had to go through, I was shown a PC being put together from start to finish, given the manuals for the parts for reference if needed and then they had me building the PCs for customers all day... A 15 year old without much previous knowledge of PC hardware, first day on the job with a few minutes training and instruction manuals I had no problem with it. It really is not difficult, yet many people are scared of trying it.
 
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One thing I thinks important that I sort of messed up when building my current PC was cable management... my case allows it, yet I fucked it up anyway. Inside is a mess :(
 
You can always go back and make it tidier. Depends how much of a perfectionist you want to be but as long as you are getting decent airflow through your case then I wouldn't worry too much.

I've seen pictures of some stunning builds where hardly a cable is in sight, but those are often in expensive cases using quality aftermarket cables.

The only issue I had with mine was the CPU power cable wasn't long enough to run behind the motherboard, so I bought a cheap extension cable for that and now it looks much neater.
 
I'm still thinking of getting a PC but money is a problem with the low wage here in Israel and the expense of electrical stuff here (and tax getting stuff abroad) I mentioned this all before, but I just wanted to get peoples opinions.

I want to start buying a piece of the pc every month or two months. What pieces should I buy first and what ones should I wait until the last months to get?

For instance, I guess the graphics card should be one of the last things, as they are releasing new ones and price changes etc?

If anybody has suggestions that would be good :))

I need to do it this way, because I will never be able to save the money and then buy it all together.....my wife will end up spending it on shoes or something.
 
Scutch said:
I like this build but would like the GPU to be able to run games like BF4 on Ultra at a decent frame rate, so are we talking the 760/780?

My query originally was would a 780 fit this motherboard?
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To run BF4 on ultra would require a 680 or above, a 780 will have no problem fitting the motherboard it is just a matter if it will fit inside the case.

The PC's built a few pages back are probably also a couple of months out of date and need slightly updating with more current prices and slight spec changes.

At present PC's are in a phase of do you or don't you. The new Haswell CPU's are the current Intel Tock, so it is actually a good time to upgrade your motherboard and processor, but in regards to GPU's at present the new AMD's are really good but run very hot and probably sound like a small jet when under load, so a custom fan will be a must.
Nvidia is also due to release new GPU's in the spring and if what they are claiming is going to be true then it might be worth holding out for one of them, but again these will be £450+. At present the 780 has recently gone up in price again compared to a week ago when a couple of sites were selling them for £350. The 680 is a pretty good purchase but only if you don't mind buying a 2nd hand one from eBay.

The main thing though is no matter what you buy now it will easily last the so called "Next Generation" as the PS4 and Xbone are both severely underpowered for 2013, let alone 2018.
 
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Scutch said:
I like this build but would like the GPU to be able to run games like BF4 on Ultra at a decent frame rate, so are we talking the 760/780?

My query originally was would a 780 fit this motherboard?
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Yes, the 780 will fit any motherboard. Just make sure you have enough space in your case (shouldn't be a problem).

I'm not sure about AMD CPUs so bsmaff would be your man to ask. I would go Intel myself, something like this:

http://www.ebuyer.com/467647-cpu-co...ium=products&gclid=CPHIlOPZ0roCFS_KtAodalQAXA

http://www.ebuyer.com/507050-gigabyte-ga-b85-hd3-socket-1150-motherboard-ga-b85-hd3

You spend a bit more on the CPU but you don't need an expensive motherboard and can save there. The cheaper motherboards only have one full speed slot for graphics cards, which is fine if you don't ever intend to run dual graphics cards. That's exactly what I did and my motherboard only cost about £80.

So you could get yourself an Intel CPU + mobo for about £250.

BobbyBox said:
I want to start buying a piece of the pc every month or two months. What pieces should I buy first and what ones should I wait until the last months to get?

If anybody has suggestions that would be good :))
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I would start with things like media storage (HDD/SSD), power supply and your case and any case fans - the stuff that will last years and won't need upgrading any time soon. You could get some RAM next. Don't get a motherboard until you know what CPU you will be using. Same with a CPU cooler if you want an aftermarket one.

Leave the GPU till the end as that is where you will get the most benefit when gaming. That way you can get the best card for your money when the time comes.
 
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