building homebrew computer from scratch, nooby help

[zenon]

Hello All!

Im planning on creating a home brew computer from scratch and this will be my first time doing so, i need a little help from someone knowledgeable as i need a list of parts i need to make the computer and maybe some links to where i can find the parts cheap in the UK. I currently own a Dell Dimension 3100 with a single core 3.06GHz processor and 1GB of RAM (lol). Heres the list of all the parts i have thought of off the top of my head and my preference of appearance etc...

Tower - slots for CD-RW and DVD drive etc and some spare, transparent side case or with coloured LEDs inside or attached to any fans
examples:
http://images03.olx.com/ui/2/25/91/40252491_1.jpg
http://c1.neweggimages.com/NeweggImage/productimage/11-208-009-22.jpg

Motherboard

Processor - Im looking for a quad core, of atleast 2GHz

Hard Drive - 150GB to 250GB would be perfect

Graphics Card - Im illogical on these, but im guessing a mid-range 512MB good quality one

RAM - 3 or 4GB would be perfect, although 2GB may be acceptable


Tell me what else i need, my operating system will be Win7 Home Premium.
I also have no clue on what brands are good or not, so suggestions on all parts that are of good price and quality to come together for a fast computer of running and opening programs smoothly, fast and efficiently etc will be much appreciated.

Cheers, Zenon.

 

[redfish]

What's your budget?

 

[zenon]

im looking to spend around £500 to £800 but i can spend more if i really have too

 

[redfish]

Sorry but I can't help with the specifics in terms of what to buy where, as I do all of my buying and build experimentation through Newegg. With a budget like that you don't need to worry- If 800 pounds is more than $1000, then you'd be in good shape even if you game.
If you want fast-loading apps and a five second boot-up time, then go with an SSD. I suggest a 32 or 64 GB SSD for windows, and another for programs if you have any money left over.
I'd go with a small, high-cache HDD such as a Caviar Blue 250GB 16MB cache. As an alternative to an SSD, you could get multiple of these and run RAID 0 or 10. An SSD is probably preferable, though.
With your budget you're looking at either AMD Phenom II x4 BE or Intel i5/7. 2GHz is slow, most of these are in the 2.6-3.6 GHz range.
If you go AMD, go with an 880/890 series chipset mobo. I don't know that much about intel mobos so I can't help you there.
For graphics cards, probably something like an HD 5800 series, HD 6800 series, or a GTX 460.
for RAM, 4gigs if you go AMD and 6gigs if you go intel.

 

[Muffin Man]

^ that currency is pounds not euros.

zenon, what will be some of your uses with this new system?

 

[zenon]

thankyou for the advice redfish, it has all been took onboard

muffin man, my uses for the computer will be general purpose, but i want fast start up and shut down speeds, the ability to run multiple programs at once without crashes or lag, a little game playing (thats why i wanted a graphics crad and a bigger hard drive for space), running the odd CDs and DVDs, music managing and having some space for next years gadgets and anything new to come. What do you suggest?

PS: 1 British pound = 1.14914163 Euros

 

[Muffin Man]

ok, so here's a build.

cpu
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Socket AM3 3.2 GHz.. | Ebuyer.com

motherboard
Asus M4A87TD/USB3 870 Socket AM3 8 Channel Audio ATX.. | Ebuyer.com

ram
Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz/PC3-12800 XMS3 i5.. | Ebuyer.com

gfx card
HIS HD 5670 IceQ 1GB GDDR5 DVI HDMI VGA PCI-E Graphics.. | Ebuyer.com

case
CM Storm Scout Case - 120mm and 2x 140mm Fans Included | Ebuyer.com

psu
Ocz Fatal1ty Series 550w Psu - Uk | Ebuyer.com

ssd
Corsair 60GB Force SSD 2.5" SATA-II Read.. | Ebuyer.com

hdd
Western Digital WD5001AALS 500GB Hard Drive SATAII.. | Ebuyer.com

optical drive
Samsung SH-S223 22x DVD±RW DL & RAM SATA.. | Ebuyer.com

cpu cooler
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2 Socket 775, 1156.. | Ebuyer.com

OS
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium - Licence and media.. | Ebuyer.com

totals about £695 before shipping.

if you want to spend a little less though, there's a couple things you could change. you could swap out the cpu for this one
AMD Athlon II X4 630 Socket AM3 2.8GHz 2MB L2 Cache.. | Ebuyer.com

you could swap out the secondary hdd for this one
Western Digital WD3200AAKS 320GB SATAII 7200rpm 16MB.. | Ebuyer.com
or drop the ssd completely but keep the 500gb caviar black drive.

the aftermarket cpu cooler isn't absolutely necessary so you could drop that to.

 

[zenon]

great, thanks ever so much muffin man, i'll look into buying all the parts