PC, Build Or Buy?

That's been a good read after doing something similar myself recently. I started upgrading bits in my 10 year old PC, and it still wasn't where I wanted it to be, so decided I'd do my own build as well. I finished it a couple of days ago, and so far very impressed. Got the bits from various sources, wherever was cheapest, including Box, Novatech, CCS and Ebuyer. I did go for some dancy flashy LED's - but they can be turned off completely - or told to dance around crazily. I think I set a budget of £1k, and have gone over but not by much. I bought the bits with the mind that I don't want to change it again for another ten years! The last one has already been cleaned up and is now for sale on Marketplace. It'll be good to see yours when it's all up and running.

(One thing I learned is that the Windows 7 on my original machine, which I'd upgraded to Windows 10, was tied to the motherboard - so non-transferrable. Did you buy your Windows already installed on your last PC with the little sticker on the back? Or do you have original media? That was one of my unexpected costs - to get a copy of Windows 10 - and then upgrade for free to 11)
 
cymruchris said:
That's been a good read after doing something similar myself recently. I started upgrading bits in my 10 year old PC, and it still wasn't where I wanted it to be, so decided I'd do my own build as well. I finished it a couple of days ago, and so far very impressed. Got the bits from various sources, wherever was cheapest, including Box, Novatech, CCS and Ebuyer. I did go for some dancy flashy LED's - but they can be turned off completely - or told to dance around crazily. I think I set a budget of £1k, and have gone over but not by much. I bought the bits with the mind that I don't want to change it again for another ten years! The last one has already been cleaned up and is now for sale on Marketplace. It'll be good to see yours when it's all up and running.

(One thing I learned is that the Windows 7 on my original machine, which I'd upgraded to Windows 10, was tied to the motherboard - so non-transferrable. Did you buy your Windows already installed on your last PC with the little sticker on the back? Or do you have original media? That was one of my unexpected costs - to get a copy of Windows 10 - and then upgrade for free to 11)
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Cool, good to hear. I'm hoping the new build will last me 10 years plus too, it should be easier to upgrade than my current PC, which is a shop bought HP. Windows 8.1 was already installed, plus a ton of bloat.

I tried the upgrade to Windows 10 on this (old) PC a while ago. I had to dig into the PC to find the key, I forget where it was hiding, in 'System' somewhere. This PC would go through the whole process of upgarding to 10, then at the last moment, fail. I gave up in the end. I later found the Windows key underneath my machine.

The new build will have Windows 10 for now, I've not bought the OS yet, I will come to it when it's all built, probably a download direct from Microsoft.
 
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Dale. said:
Cool, good to hear. I'm hoping the new build will last me 10 years plus too, it should be easier to upgrade than my current PC, which is a shop bought HP. Windows 8.1 was already installed, plus a ton of bloat.

I tried the upgrade to Windows 10 on this (old) PC a while ago. I had to dig into the PC to find the key, I forget where it was hiding, in 'System' somewhere. This PC would go through the whole process of upgarding to 10, then at the last moment, fail. I gave up in the end. I later found the Windows key underneath my machine.

The new build will have Windows 10 for now, I've not bought the OS yet, I will come when it's all built, probably a download direct from Microsoft.
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I got mine on Amazon - not from a dodgy third party seller - the download there was £20 cheaper than Microsoft, and it's stored in your Amazon digital wallet. I think it was £99 from Amazon V £119 on Microsoft. There's a lot of 'cheap keys' out there - but I wouldn't trust them. Although many are legitimately sourced, they aren't being used for legitimate reasons (ie not for resale) so can be pulled at any time by Microsoft.

Amazon - Windows 10 - Download Key
 
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cymruchris said:
I got mine on Amazon - not from a dodgy third party seller - the download there was £20 cheaper than Microsoft, and it's stored in your Amazon digital wallet. I think it was £99 from Amazon V £119 on Microsoft. There's a lot of 'cheap keys' out there - but I wouldn't trust them. Although many are legitimately sourced, they aren't being used for legitimate reasons (ie not for resale) so can be pulled at any time by Microsoft.
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Thanks for the heads up.

Same here, it will be legit.
 
Dale. said:
Thanks for the heads up.

Same here, it will be legit.
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I just updated my post with the direct link to the Amazon Media EU download page. Once you've got 10 you can upgrade to 11 for free once all your updates are done.
 
cymruchris said:
Once you've got 10 you can upgrade to 11 for free once all your updates are done.
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I bought a W10 laptop, not so long ago, each time it did an update, it installed W11 a bit at a time, bloody thing. 10 was bad enough,
11 is terrible :(
 
Cobra said:
I bought a W10 laptop, not so long ago, each time it did an update, it installed W11 a bit at a time, bloody thing. 10 was bad enough,
11 is terrible :(
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It used to be said that every other version of MS Windows software was a 'dog'

NT4 was good
2000 was a dog
XP was ok
Vista was poor
Windows 7 was probably one of the best
Windows 8 was another dog
Windows 10 almost as good as WIndows 7
Windows 11..........
 
broc said:
Windows 7 was probably one of the best
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Agreed although I quite liked XP as well, I never had the other inbetweeners



broc said:
Windows 10 almost as good as WIndows 7
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I was just getting used to 10 when the machine decided I needed 11
 
broc said:
It used to be said that every other version of MS Windows software was a 'dog'

NT4 was good
2000 was a dog
XP was ok
Vista was poor
Windows 7 was probably one of the best
Windows 8 was another dog
Windows 10 almost as good as WIndows 7
Windows 11..........
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NT4 was OK, but press Ctrl-Alt-Del to log in? I know why they did it, but they could have solved the problem another way.
2000 was more useable
XP was dreadful and leaked memory like a sieve making it fundamentally unstable and I never understood the attachment so many people had to it,
Vista finally re-wrote the driver model to be sane (ring 3 rather than ring 0) and should have been much more stable, but the other changes were so poorly implemented it was a disaster.
7 was the best NT kernel OS at that point
8, 8.1 were back to Vista levels of awfulness due to poor design decisions.
10 has been all round excellent having used it since just after launch, and IMO the best desktop / workstation Windows thus far.
I don't like the UI changes in 11 so only have it one VM.
 
My Win10 Pro came as one of those free W7 Pro 'digital license' upgrades.

I wonder (I have yet to research it) if I did a full new build will the current license be transferable?

NB any new build would mean retiring the current CPU & motherboard.
 
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onomatopoeia said:
NT4 was OK, but press Ctrl-Alt-Del to log in? I know why they did it, but they could have solved the problem another way.
2000 was more useable
XP was dreadful and leaked memory like a sieve making it fundamentally unstable and I never understood the attachment so many people had to it,
Vista finally re-wrote the driver model to be sane (ring 3 rather than ring 0) and should have been much more stable, but the other changes were so poorly implemented it was a disaster.
7 was the best NT kernel OS at that point
8, 8.1 were back to Vista levels of awfulness due to poor design decisions.
10 has been all round excellent having used it since just after launch, and IMO the best desktop / workstation Windows thus far.
I don't like the UI changes in 11 so only have it one VM.
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I managed a school network of several hundred systems for 10 years; NT4 was hard work to maintain, XP was a lot easier, we were able to support twice as many PCs with the same size support team moving to XP. Migrating to Windows 7 we were able to double the number of systems again without growing the team. I retired before Windows 10 came along although its what we mostly use at home now. I have one laptop running Windows 11, I am in no rush to migrate any others.
 
Box Brownie said:
My Win10 Pro came as one of those free W7 Pro 'digital license' upgrades.

I wonder (I have yet to research it) if I did a full new build will the current license be transferable?

NB any new build would mean retiring the current CPU & motherboard.
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If you're retaining the motherboard - it should be fine. It only matters if you're changing the motherboard, and the original windows 7 license was tied to the machine rather than bought as a separate piece of software.
 
cymruchris said:
If you're retaining the motherboard - it should be fine. It only matters if you're changing the motherboard, and the original windows 7 license was tied to the machine rather than bought as a separate piece of software.
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IIRC correctly I bought W7 Pro as a licensed install CD or DVD....(as was my W2k, W98 & W95 in order before that)....as the current old build was my own homebrew built one i.e. not a box supplied by a commercial builder who would have supplied W7 as pre-install version of W7

PS I am sure I have my old W7 retail box and it's license sticker/document filed away somewhere.
 
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Dale. said:
I've well and truly blown the budget but at least my hard drive dilemma is sorted. :LOL:

Bought a WD 2 bay NAS with WD Red drives, 4TB each yesterday. That should keep me sorted space wise for a while and can be increased later if need be.

My plan now is to forget piggybacking a hard drive and just use the NAS for storage, so the PC itself will be free of big files and the SSD will just run things, as well as having any software on it.

It's turning into a bit of a monster but I think it's all sorted now, just waiting on the mobo, then to build it

Anything internet is much quicker with the ethernet cable (it's a Cat6) although I did have a few lock ups last night but I'm sure that's PC related.
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Okay, you've got the NAS for storage but what are you using for backup?
 
When I upgraded my computer to Windows11 apart from internal additional HDD and SSD storage I went and got a 4TB Seagate SSD extrnal drive as well powereed by USB connection, Now easily take any photos on it to show friends/relatives .
 
I might be wrong, but I would expect use of NAS as primary storage to be extremely slow compared to having a SSD primary store drive inside the case.
 
Snapsh0t said:
If the NAS is your primary storage as you've stated then it's not a backup. A backup is a separate copy that's not used for anything else.
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I currently have 2, standalone HDDs for back up, one at home, the other at a different location,

There are 2 drives in the NAS. I've concentrated so far on getting the things I need within the budget, NAS had always been out there as part of the eventual plan but I needed the PC sorted first. I like to have another drive at a different location as well just incase anything happens at home and that one will be upgraded too at a later date, probably in a month or so when finances allow as space is becoming an issue on that one.

The SSD in the new PC itself is 1TB, my plan is to keep that free of images but I can evaluate that later on if need be, once I find my feet with the new PC and a potential new workflow.

I'd considered a piggyback SSD for images in the PC case but I'm reluctant due to an SSD's potential to fail without warning, whereas HDD might give some warning of failure.

So in the near future I will have :-
the 1TB SSD in the tower (which I may use for images later on, we'll see),
the standalone back up HDD at home, (or revert back to a piggyback, as per my original plan),
the standalone back up HDD, at a separate location,
the NAS (which will also be used for family use, personal/family documents, video, etc),

The final details will have to wait for a little while now and I won't actually know these until I get used to things and bearing in mind, I've already gone over budget with the PC build.

Finding my feet with all that will give me time to save for the finishing touches and exactly what I need regarding back up drives.

ancient_mariner said:
I might be wrong, but I would expect use of NAS as primary storage to be extremely slow compared to having a SSD primary store drive inside the case.
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I'm not too worried about that to be honest (anything is faster than my current PC) as I'm concious that an SSD is more prone than HDD to fail without warning. Maybe that's catastrophising and also some way in the future too but I'd rather the little extra reassurance. I'm happy to be corrected, this is all new to me and everyday is a school day.


Checking e-mails last night before bed and there is another delay on the mobo, until the 28th February. Given my recent wait on the R7 (4 months) I've decided to change the mobo and gone for one without WiFi, as I'm using a cable now anyway. WiFi would've been nice to have but it's now just that and might not ever get used. My components should now be here tomorrow, by 12pm.

This bad boy will hopefully be up and running by the end of next week.
 
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It's a long time since I've used a desktop in anger but the other day I decided to upgrade my laptop Acer Travelmate's storage from a hard disk to a solid state disk.

The only real problem was undoing the sixteen or so screws in the bottom of the shell without losing them - lucky for me that I still have my magnetic bowl to drop them into. Swapping the disk was easy: just slide out the internal cradle; swap the SSD for the HDD; slide the cradle back in; replace all sixteen screws while making sure that the shell remains aligned top and bottom. :naughty:

Time to do the job: around 30 miutes. The Acer is now something like 8 to 10 times faster; as well as doubling its storage from 1TB to 2TB!

Acer Travelmate N15Q1 circuit board hard disk and SSD P1240181.jpg
 
I have always built my own PC for the last 15 years and I believe it is slightly easier now than 15 years ago.
I would use M.2 for operating system ( Windows ), SSD for programs and Apps, and spinning disk 4TB or bigger for storage. If the budget can stretch to a 2nd 4TB hard drive for back ups.

I always use ASUS motherboards and intel CPU's and on my current PC I have a water cooled CPU which means I can overclock the bad boy and it stays very cool ! ! ! !
Graphic cards, well that will be what ever you can afford, though bear in mind LightRoom & PhotoShop do not take advantage of graphic cards as all the rendering is performed by the CPU and & RAM.
 
Dale. said:
I'm not too worried about that to be honest (anything is faster than my current PC)
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FWIW I have OS, applications and images on my 2 TB nvme drive, and they open MUCH faster than pictures off the internal 6TB HDD.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
It's a long time since I've used a desktop in anger but the other day I decided to upgrade my laptop Acer Travelmate's storage from a hard disk to a solid state disk.

The only real problem was undoing the sixteen or so screws in the bottom of the shell without losing them - lucky for me that I still have my magnetic bowl to drop them into. Swapping the disk was easy: just slide out the internal cradle; swap the SSD for the HDD; slide the cradle back in; replace all sixteen screws while making sure that the shell remains aligned top and bottom. :naughty:

Time to do the job: around 30 miutes. The Acer is now something like 8 to 10 times faster; as well as doubling its storage from 1TB to 2TB!
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You were lucky you only needed to remove the screws to get the back off. On many current laptops you also have to work round with a spudger to pop the catches under the lid. :mad:
 
ancient_mariner said:
I might be wrong, but I would expect use of NAS as primary storage to be extremely slow compared to having a SSD primary store drive inside the case.
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Depends on ones network and the NAS. With a 10Gbps LAN and a 6-drive NAS, things are remarkably fast......
2.5Gbps is now becoming standard on new mobos and all but the lowest-end NAS from Asustor & QNAP although Synology is grimly hanging on to 1Gbps for most of its range. Many NAS can now also take a couple of NVMe SSDs in addition to the HDDs and these can be used as either cache or primary storage.
 
Snapsh0t said:
You were lucky you only needed to remove the screws to get the back off.
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Not so lucky as all that.

I had to use a soft blade to seperate the two parts of the shell. Then, when I refitted it, I had to wedge one side of the shell in order to force the catches on the other side into the correct alignment. Those designers will do anything to make us pay them... :naughty:
 
Snapsh0t said:
Depends on ones network and the NAS. With a 10Gbps LAN and a 6-drive NAS, things are remarkably fast......
2.5Gbps is now becoming standard on new mobos and all but the lowest-end NAS from Asustor & QNAP although Synology is grimly hanging on to 1Gbps for most of its range. Many NAS can now also take a couple of NVMe SSDs in addition to the HDDs and these can be used as either cache or primary storage.
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How cheap is that level of kit? ;)
 
SFTPhotography said:
You're not wrong. NAS is fine for back up but it seems a slow and convoluted way to access day to day files.
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It's not any slower than a standard HDD (compared to SSD) though?

Like I say, this is new to me, it's been some learning curve.
 
Dale. said:
It's not any slower than a standard HDD (compared to SSD) though?

Like I say, this is new to me, it's been some learning curve.
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Well, yes it is, if not by that much. SATA 3 is up to 600MBps, a SATA SSD will read at up to 500MBps and a SATA HDD tops out at 160MBps. The link to the NAS will probably be 1Gbps which is roughly 108MBps.
 
I wouldn't want to regularly work on files from a NAS drive, but lesser used files, such as your older images should be fine on a NAS - providing that the NAS is also backed up (and no, RAID is not a backup).
 
ancient_mariner said:
How cheap is that level of kit? ;)
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Not very. The Ethernet switch is a big lump of the cost. 2.5Gbps switches are not too bad now (less than 10x the price of a 1Gb switch bit 8-port switch :rolleyes: ) but one with more than two 10Gbps ports is still around £350 and upwards. A 10GBps PC card is under £100 and one for the NAS isn't much more if not built-in, assuming one has selected a NAS with an expansion slot, of course.
 
Snapsh0t said:
Not very. The Ethernet switch is a big lump of the cost. 2.5Gbps switches are not too bad now (less than 10x the price of a 1Gb switch bit 8-port switch :rolleyes: ) but one with more than two 10Gbps ports is still around £350 and upwards. A 10GBps PC card is under £100 and one for the NAS isn't much more if not built-in, assuming one has selected a NAS with an expansion slot, of course.
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So a 4TB SSD (either SATA or NVME) inside the case would be no more expensive and come with distinct speed benefits.
 
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