I wanted a computer that used the latest technology and would be able to play all the current and future games on the market, however, after looking at various products I either couldn’t get what I wanted or it was far too expensive, so I decided to begin building my own.

Before even starting to look for components I had to set myself a price limit. Otherwise I feared spinning out of control and ending up with a 10k water cooled computer that had 7 graphics cards and 20gb of ram! So I set myself a target of between £900 to £1000 including a screen, peripherals and speakers.

Next I had to decide what I actually wanted the finished computer to do –

1. Start up quickly (I don’t want to be sitting around waiting)
2. Play the latest games properly (I want it to play doom 3 and battlefield 2 at maximum resolution as if it was solitaire)
3. Play and record TV. (So that I could put it on my PSP)
4. Be future proof (I’m thinking Windows Vista)

There are two main components that make up a computer (the processor and the motherboard) it is essential that these work efficiently together. These processor will be doing the bulk of the work no matter what you are doing on your computer so you want the best processor you can afford. Recently the new and frankly breathtaking Intel core 2’s came out so I was keen to see if I could get one of these for my system. There are basically 6 different versions of the processor ranging from the E4200 which had a clock speed of 1.6 with 2mb of L2 cache up to the X6800 which has a clock speed of 2.93 with 4mb of L2 cache. After looking up the price of the latter it became clear I wouldn’t be having that one (just under £700) so I looked at the 6 processors and saw that there was a big difference between the first and the second 3 in that the first only had 2MB L2 and the second 3 had 4MB so I decided to see how much it was for the E6600.

£234. Seemed an ok price for me so I decided on the E6600. I now had to find a suitable motherboard for it. I looked around the internet at various websites and after comparing prices I discovered Novatech which had great prices and I also discovered that they sold motherboard bundles where they have chosen a compatible motherboard, processor and ram and fitted it all together (including the processors heatsink and fan) as well as tested it to make sure it all worked. Very appealing. Although I had experience with fitting processors into motherboards that had only been with cheaper models and the thought that one badly placed fingerprint on the processor costing me £200 was not a very nice one!

I had a look at the bundles they offered and to my delight they offered the exact processor I wanted, it was in a bundle with 1GB of ram for £410 this sounded very reasonable for me especially as the motherboard was equipped with 7.1 audio which would go very nicely with some speakers.

Next for a case and power supply. I quite liked the look of a black case with a hinged door to cover the drives and a 550watt PSU the total of them both coming to about £70. However, while looking around the website I accidentally clicked a tab in the menu which brought up the barebone systems and so intrigued I decided to see if they had what I was already buying and how much I was saving fitting the motherboard and stuff into the case, but to my astonishment I found it only cost £10 more for almost the exact same set up (the only difference been a slightly smaller 400w PSU). So I thought “hang on a minute! I can pay £10 more for a barebone system that has exactly what I want and is tested so I know it is going to work and all the parts are going to work well with each other”. It was destiny!

Lets take a few step back, so far I have spent £493 leaving me with around £450 to buy everything else.

Next up, the hard drive, again faced with 100’s of different hard drives I had a tough choice to make. That choice was to be the Maxtor with 7200ron - perfect for keeping my system fast all for £46.
No matter how good the computer is its going to be pretty difficult to play any games without a disk drive. I definatly wanted a dvd-rw as it would allow me to burn my recorded TV to DVD so I looked for a dvd-rw that would be reliable and fast. I noticed that HP make one. (No really, they only make one, check the website!) I looked at the specs, it did everything I expected + - rw etc. The spec that sold it to me was the fact that it had lightscibe (direct disk labelling) all for £29.

I also wanted a separate DVD-ROM drive to use to play the games as it had a quicker disk access time and found and inexpensive one for £13.

Now to the two parts which will make a big difference to how my games look (a screen and a graphics card) I definatly wanted a 19inch screen however I saw prices range from £130 to over £200 however looking at the various models they all seemed to have the same specs so I decided to look at what other people who had bought them wrote about them in the review section to my surprise the cheapest ones (made by Novatech) had some of the best reviews however I could not decide between the two different ones they offered (a normal one and a widescreen one) £130 and £140 respectively so I have decided to wait until I order everything (after the bank holiday) and see what is in stock and what I think will suit me best. And so now onto the graphics card I needed a PCI express card and I defiantly wanted nVidea however they offered 54 cards ranging from £27 to £550 so I decided to look at the nVidea website to see what the best ones were for gaming and found that the GeForce 7 Series was highly regarded so I looked at prices and decided I could afford up to £100. As a result I decided to get a mid range 7600GT for £93.

Not much left now a keyboard – just a £18ish MS jobby.

However I still needed some speakers (7.1’s to go with the motherboard) now this is where Novatech let me down as I found the same speakers for £10ish less on DABS.com. So I decided I would get some Creative Inspire T7900 7.1 Speakers (creative in my opinion being a very respectable make).

All that is left is an analogue TV PCI card for about £40

Which brings the exact total to £1034 £916 (never was very good at maths!) - Perfect!

I now look forward to Tuesday when I will be placing my orders!

This is part 1 of 3!: Part 3 | Part 2 | Part 1