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Build a killer DX10 PC for £576

Save a fortune, and still play the best games
Few pains are quite as distinctive as that of installing a game hot off the press, only to find that you're too busy being annoyed by the lurching framerate to actually enjoy it. But the answer isn't necessarily palming over a thousand notes for an off-the-peg PC.
Custom building your own PC is cheaper, and you get to choose the best parts for the job. And the latter is something that you can't guarantee from even an established system-builder, as their concerns are as often as much about shifting mass-purchased units as choosing the most effective ones.

If the thought of building a PC from scratch fills you with dread - or merely lethargy - then fear not. It's not really a complicated process: once you know what you're doing, you can do it in less than an hour. It's just a case of screwing the motherboard into the chassis, and making sure you have all the components, such as the CPU and RAM, plugged into the right sockets. We'll show you exactly how over the next few pages.

But the first part of the job is choosing components... which is the easy bit, as we've already selected ones that we've tested for effectiveness, and represent the best value for the performance they offer. Naturally they're well up to handling today's demanding games.

We went to Yoyotech for our parts (www.yoyotech.co.uk) as their prices are good, and they know their kit - something you won't find with a faceless larger business, so if you need to talk things over with them, you know you'll get an expert response.

Bear in mind that if you buy all of your kit in one place, you'll save on postage, too.

So without further ado, let's rip the wrapping off our components and get cracking. All you need is a Philips screwdriver, a clean, well-lit working area, an hour or two to spare, and a thirst for greater framerates (and take time out to read the 'Be Advised' column on the right of this page before proceeding)...

Buying Online?
Then make sure your PC is spyware clean. Use Spybot and Adaware to clean your system before you start typing-in your credit card details. Next, wonder why you never did this before.

Shipping
Many UK component vendors rely on professional couriers rather than Parcelforce to deliver your goods. If you're out when they deliver, your bits are stored overnight at the nearest depot, and they'll try again the next day. These depots are often out of town, and only near cities, so it can be a real pain to get hold of your stuff. If you're at work during the day and there's no one at home to take delivery, get them delivered to your workplace instead.

Memory Matters
Your motherboard will recognise the speed of your memory from the word go, so you shouldn't have to alter the timings in the BIOS at all - until you come to overclock it, that is. We recommend running your memory in dual-channel mode for a cheap speed-boost; simply install both sticks into the same coloured DIMM slots to achieve this.

BUY IT!

Motherboard £65.08 (Asus P5B)
Sporting Intel's excellent 965 chipset, the P5B ticks all the boxes for us, as it supports Core 2 Duo processors, dual-channel memory up to 800MHz, and of course, will take any PCI-Express graphics card we choose. In our experience, Asus boards are competent and reliable, and this model, with its 1066MHz FSB and decent overclocking headroom, is just the ticket for a fast rig.

Processor £103.11 (Intel Core 2 Duo E6320)
Chipzilla's legendary Core 2 architecture is at the heart of this dual-core chip, and the reason we've chosen the lowly 1.86GHz model is that its overclocking potential is massive, even using the bundled stock Intel heatsink. With a little bit of tweaking, you can wind this baby up so that it performs like a high-end Core 2 Duo processor worth £400.

Memory £65.54 (OCZ PC6400 800MHZ 5-5-5-12)
We just wouldn't bother playing a game on a rig with less than 2Gb memory these days, especially if Vista is involved. This 2Gb kit from OCZ fits the bill perfectly: it's fast, it boasts reasonable latencies, and its quite acceptably priced.

3D card £181.13 (XFX GeForce 8800GTS)
Simply put, there's never been such a performance-to-price sweetspot as that offered by the 320Mb iteration of nVidia's 8800 GTS design. If you need a yardstick to measure it by, then think of it like this: it offers 80% of the power of the fabled 8800GTX, for 60% of the price. It's a card that is DirectX 10-ready, and also runs DX9 games effortlessly.

Resolution-wise, its natural home is between 1280x1024 and 1680x1050 - any more than this is stretching its abilities to keep pace. Stock tends to be very low on these cards at most etailers as they sell like hot cakes, but any brand will do; stock cards are identical in performance, regardless of their brand.

Hard drive £63.98
Featuring half a terabyte of storage, the Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 is not only capacious for the ridiculously low asking price, but its speed credentials are impressive to boot. With 16Mb cache and its SATA300 interface, you can expect some pretty swift level-loading.

DVD-RW £19.35 (NEC AD-7170A-0B Multiwriter Black 18x DVDRW)
No frills here: this model from NEC plays and records DVDs, and that's all you really need, especially when the asking price is so low. Wootings!



Chassis £37.51 (Antec NSK6000)
While we could have gone for a pricier, sexier chassis, this baseline model from Antec fits our bill nicely. There's room enough for all our components, and the price is right. However, if you want your PC to look as good as it plays, feel free to shop around.


PSU £40.89 (EZ-Cool PS900Tornado 700W)
700W is enough juice on tap for today - and indeed tomorrow, should you decide to change your mobo for an SLI model, and whack in a second graphics card. This model from EZ-Cool is also perfectly quiet, and rather pleasing in its shiny black. There are much higher specification PSUs available - up to around 1200w - but that would be overkill for our system. If we were running an 8800 Ultra, or maybe a pair, plus a quad-core processor and a bunch of drives, we'd consider it. As it stands, 700w is quite enough.


BUILD IT!

The CPU and Heatsink
Raise the lever beside the socket, and carefully seat the CPU: it only fits one way. Lock the arm back into place. Place the heatsink/fan block over the CPU slot, ensuring that its power cable can reach the power pins on the mobo. With a flathead screwdriver carefully press on the leg-locks to seat each of the heatsink's legs into its hole in the motherboard, locking them with a 90 degree twist.

The RAM
Open two of the DIMM sockets on the mobo, just below the CPU socket. Use identically coloured ones, as you want your memory running in dual-channel mode - by popping down the clips at either end. Orient the RAM stick so the cutaway on the bottom matches a tooth in the slot. Press firmly but carefully on each end of the stick, until the retention clips spring back into place.

The Motherboard
Replace the flimsy metal backplate in your case with the one that came with your mobo. Place the motherboard into the case, so that the rear ports of the motherboard (USB, etc), match up with the backplate holes. Screw the board into the chassis using the hex-head screws. Plug the fiddly wires for the various case switches and LEDs into the motherboard, and any USB ports.

The Hard Drive
Locate the lower drive-cage in the chassis, and slide the drive into place, with the power and SATA cable terminals facing back into the chassis, and the screw-holes on the drive visible. Now screw it into place using two of the round-headed screws that came with your motherboard. Take the right-hand side panel of the chassis off, and do the same the other side.

The DVD-RW
Reaching into the top drive-bay at the front of the chassis, pop out one of the optical-drive-bay covers on the front panel. (You may also have to remove a partially punched-out disposable metal panel in the case itself.) Now slide the DVD-RW in from the front until the front bezel is neatly lined up with the rest of the drive-bay covers. Now just as you did with the hard drive, take four round-head screws and screw two into each side to secure it to the drive bay.

The Graphics Card
Locate the PCI-Express slot on your motherboard: this is where that lovely 8800GTS is going to sit. Now hover the card over the slot, as this will help you work out which of the backplates you need to remove to fit the card. When you've popped these out, take the card and slide it into the slot until it clicks into place (there's a retention bracket at the far end of the PCI-E slot). Using a pair of hex-head screws, fasten the card's backplate to the chassis backplate.

Hook It All Up
Run down this list, and place the correct power-blocks from the PSU into their respective component sockets:

Motherboard: long 24-pin ATX block and four-pin CPU power block

DVD-RW: 4-pin flat Molex block and IDE ribbon cable to motherboard IDE socket

Hard drive: flat SATA power block and SATA data cable to any available SATA port on motherboard

Graphics card: Six-pin PCI-Express power block

Shut Up Shop
A tidy case means better airflow means better cooling, so you might like to fasten adjacent wires together with plastic cable-ties.

In fact, we don't care whether you might like to do it or not: just do it. It'll keep your cables away from spinning fans, and keep things tidy for when you next delve inside.

Now all your components are securely in place and hooked up to the PSU, replace the side panels of your case. Pat yourself on the back: you've just built a PC, and saved yourself about £200.

PC Gamer Magazine
// Interactive
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Read all 18 commentsPost a Comment
I think it might be more worthwhile to get a somewhat simpler Chassis (compucase?) and 500W power supply (and maybe even a 250GB HD, depending on your usage) and use the money to buy:
1) a P35 MoBo or
2) a dedicated sound card to take some load off od your CPU


Any thoughts?
zipdrive on 24 Oct '07
I doubt this PC will kill any DX10 game!
Maccsta on 24 Oct '07
May we ask pcgamer who advised them to get that PSU?

An EZ PSU!! I ask you have you gone bonkers? For around £40 you could have had your choice of 4 proven power supplies from well know manufactures who actually back up their specification by publishing it on their own web sites.

Instead you have a almost unknown make who’s pricing (500W and 400w versions are sub £20 /£10) suggests it has the same attention to design and reliability as other sub £20 supplies.

You are seriously misleading your readers into thinking that this is a good budget choice as many will procure the whole system without second thought.
Without a serious hardware review as to the capabilities of this unit, we are at a lost to understand why you have chosen it. You don't write about a game without an in depth review so why should your hardware be any different. There are serious doubts over the real power that similarly priced PSUs can supply without overheating or shutting down or burning out!


We have a thriving technical section here with people who have talent and experience for choosing good hardware at good prices and its clear you could use a little help.

So don’t be surprised if disgruntled readers start sending you small burntout toasters for Christmas.
Tintin on 24 Oct '07
Shens & Giggles!

The 6320 might be a decent overclocker but it's still a low performing chip - I built a workmate a PC with that chip a few weeks ago and it performs very poorly on XP. The stock cooler is also not that great for overclocking.

With that budget (£576) I have come to the conclusion that this (Novatech)...

...Wipes floor with this
mrk on 24 Oct '07
No P35?
Appalling PSU...

Otherwise it's fair for the price!
goatmms on 25 Oct '07
Bought it, built it. Only changes I made were the substitution of a Corsair 520w psu at the recommendation of yoyo who did not have the PCGamer recommended psu in stock plus a different case (Apevia X-Cruiser ). First pc built and booted first time. Very fast compared to 4 year old Dell I had previously. No complaints here and just mulling over the overclocking article in this months mag.Well done PC Gamer.
SteveDecker1 on 25 Oct '07
Bought it, built it. Only changes I made were the substitution of a Corsair 520w psu at the recommendation of yoyo who did not have the PCGamer recommended psu in stock plus a different case (Apevia X-Cruiser ). First pc built and booted first time. Very fast compared to 4 year old Dell I had previously. No complaints here and just mulling over the overclocking article in this months mag.Well done PC Gamer.
SteveDecker1 on 25 Oct '07
So good you said it twice.
Tintin on 26 Oct '07
How did you get on?
tribaljo on 30 Oct '07
Now, of course, assuming no supply problems, you should exchange the 8800GTS with a 8800GT, which should be both faster and cheaper!
zipdrive on 3 Nov '07
LOL u guys never tested that pc cos it fried when u tried Twisted Evil

u guys forgot to mention about the mounting screws between the motherboard & case...so u dont short & blow-up ur motherboard, cpu, ram & graphics card!

It's really worth mentioning cos ive had customers bring in there home built pc's & forgot the mounting screws!
noobs! lol
Higgerz on 3 Nov '07
You also forgot to mention about TIM on the CPU. Yes it comes prepared on the stock cooler, but some may want to get a 3rd-party cooler, to squeeze more out of the overclock.

And I could post this in coherent English, as opposed to our friend above.
invunerable_pig on 4 Nov '07
This message is not being displayed because the poster is banned.
humorguy on 5 Nov '07
Ok first surprised a the motherboard choice. Asus are a good board but with a 800 mhz bus surely you are limiting he upgrade possibility of putting in a better chip when the price comes down. Secondly I cant see any PC newbies doing a project like this so most will have some parts they can get from there old system, eg DVD drive, case and possibly a PSU even a hard drive.
Bowieboots on 29 Nov '07
wouldn't this be a better article to write in say January when AMD's offerings are released and prices come down slightly. The price/ performance could be improved considerably with a good valued quad core ...
darthmelly on 30 Nov '07
This message is not being displayed because the poster is banned.
humorguy on 30 Nov '07
After following the advice on building a new PC, I find that my copy of Vista won't work, due to the corrupt money grabbing bastards at Microsoft demanding that I purchase a new copy of the OS. You can't transfer an OEM copy of Vista between computers, you see. Just changing a faulty mobo is enough to bork Vista. If, like me, you build your own computer to save money, the purchase of an OEM copy of an OS from your local hardware retailer is, according to Microsoft, illegal unless you are a 'licenced system builder'. What a f*****g con. Evil or Very Mad
ian.mogano on 11 Dec '07
I was interested in upgrading and this article at least gave some indication as to what constitutes an attempt at a decent rig. It's not until now that I've decided to actually go for it, using the article as a starting point.

First up, the OCZ 2GB SOE from YoYo I got for £42.58. Next, I've grabbed an OcUK ATI Radeon HD 3850 Pro 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express)for £115.14.

I already have a Suntek blue tower case and plan on cannibalising my existing PC for other bits but I'm left with the issue of the motherboard and I'm relying on general opinion here, instead of the mag, as to what would be the better option within a budget of up to 150 quid. Ideally, I'd be looking - at least for now, to transplant my existing HD into the new rig, if possible.

Any sensible comments?
nexusdog on 11 Jan '08
Read all 18 commentsPost a Comment
// Screenshots
PreviousNext16 / 16 Screenshots
// BE ADVISED...
We're about to build your PC. It's a piece of cake, but before you start bear the following points in mind:

Earth yourself. Many chips can be damaged by a simple static discharge. Touch the copper pipe at the base of a radiator, or any other earthed object, before you handle items. Avoid cats.

Gently does it. Hold components such as 3D cards by the edges of the circuit-board, not by the onboard chips. And when you're plugging things together, don't force them. If firm, manly pressure isn't enough, you're probably doing something wrong.

Be warm and dry. Build your new PC in a dry, dust-free place - such as your living room, for example. When objects go from cold to warm environments, condensation can form, so don't build your PC in your garage, just because that's where you keep all your tools.

Talking of tools, get the right ones for the job. You'll need Philips and flat-head screwdrivers, and some recommended extras are needle-nose pliers and a head-lamp (you can get one at Millets for £5.99). DO NOT use tools with magnetic heads. Magnetically induced current can damage sensitive chips.

Don't screw it up. Your case should come with specific screws for every job. If a screw doesn't seem to be going in smoothly, don't take this as a challenge to your manhood. Unscrew it, check it's the right one.

Don't die. Don't plug your PC into the mains until you're ready to go, and if you ever need to open it up again and fiddle around, unplug the power cable first.
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