If your a member of avfourms you get free delivery at scan http://www.avforums.com/forums/scan_offer.php you have to be a member for about 2 weeks min spend 50 quid

ive just recently upgraded to an I7 with SSD etc bluray writer Motherboard and memory all for 700 quid so my system back upto date (no graphics card though)

If its just gaming the I5 will be fine if your editing videos/encoding etc go with the I7

 

one piece of advice not mentioned yet -- Postage !!

with u buying from internet, postage can mount up

I have just built my own gaming pc and tried to find retailers offering free postage
ebuyer/dabs/amazon are good for this..

my suggestions - go for an i5 over i7 (i5 3570k) and, given yr budget, a gtx670 video card

 

Thanks for all the advice but as I know nothing about building pc's or have the time for that matter I'll be buying an off the shelf system.

It would be nice to get one for £200

All things considered, Alienware might just fit the bill, especially if it has playground cred.

Thanks

Nik.

[/B]

 

Alienware are great, I have one, but they are rather overpriced.

Best bet is to get a custom built PC from a website. So they build it for you.

TonyBurns has given some great advice but I also feel that an i7 is slightly overkill.

Something like this would fit the bill;

http://3xs.scan.co.uk/ShowSystem.asp?SystemID=1468

Also for that budget, make sure you include an SSD.

 

Alienware they're expensive and still i'm not convinced with their price tag

Custom build PC is way to go,you will save nice money or some pre-built are good too

You can have look on those PC's

http://www.yoyotech.co.uk/listing-pr...s&category=253

http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/sy..._Thunder_1000/


Jura

 

I couldn't agree more.

Ive owned 2 Alienware computers in the past, an M17X R3 laptop and an Aurora R4 ALX, both developed faults and blue screened quite a lot.

They arn't very upgradeable, Alienware/Dell have made sure of that. You can change the basics like hard drives, processor, RAM and optical drives etc etc but you can't upgrade the motherboard as the Alienware FX lighting system won't work and you'll have issues if you try.

The motherboard and its components are cheap compared to more high end motherboards like Gigabyte and Asus etc which use solid Japanese capacitors.

If you get a problem you think its fine as your Alienware is covered by an at home warranty where they will repair it, the only problem with that is Alienware/Dell don't send out their own technicians, they sub contract the work to other people.

I had one guy come out to change a part on my Aurora R4 ALX, he took out the graphics card, CPU cooler to get at the part he needed to change.

Anyway, he put it all back together and booted it up and all seemed fine. After he left i switched it on and the CPU fan was going mental, what he'd forgot to do is to change the thermal paste as he just put back on the CPU cooler with the seal on the paste now broken.

That was an £800 CPU as it was an i7 Extreme Sandybridge processor, if i hadn't have been clued up the processor would have fried.

Having now built my own ive got a similar performance desktop, new monitor, new keyboard and a few other bits and bobs for the same price that the Alienware cost with money left over.

 

Nik ring ben and chillblast, ive built many a pc in my time, and in my current role was tasked in my tea break to build a desktop server for virtual testing etc, i was like a dog with a bone, and went off to the likes of overclickers scan and priced up a 64gig core i7, on doing this task i quickly relised that building your own isnt actually much cheaper then buying it.

I rang chillblast and spoke to ben and told him my needs
, hes very very good and he sent me a right beast for 1k

Now with what your looking at 400 to 600 i reakon, plus benifits from chillblast are

2 year warrenty
Overclocker free of charge

Its whe my money would go anyway.

My son got a core i5 clocked to 3.6 (3 yearl old now ) and he easily play world of warcraft, call of duty, if anything i need to upgrade his vga card to a ati 7000 range and add some more mem

If you need a hand shout

Ted

 

Chillblast end. They take the latest rig, overclock it to the max (keepin it stable) and at a decent price. Their build quality is great too. I have an i5 sandy o/c to 4.6ghz from them, £525. It's been faultless.

 

So my son's choice of chillblast was OK then bioforger ? As usual he gets his info from his mates at school LOL

Shaun

 

haha of course