I have a £1000 budget

[John Doe]

... but no clue whatsoever.

My current one died last night, I was going to buy it on http://www.meshcomputers.com/ again, but don't know which is best value. Or best how to build one from scratch...

[Bolkonsky]

Don't buy pre-built. They're easy enough to build yourself, and you'll save a lot more money.

Also, define "died" since it's very possible that only a cheap component broke (like your power supply)

[Kamos]

A £1000 could get you a pretty good computer overall. Though I'd like to know a bit more about your desires.

Don't buy pre-built. They're easy enough to build yourself, and you'll save a lot more money.

Also, define "died" since it's very possible that only a cheap component broke (like your power supply)

Not hard sure but for someone who has no clue what so ever it may seem like rocket science. I remember the first time I built one what with all the ribbons and cables and slots. I somehow managed getting everything in but then it wouldn't start for more than a second. Turns out I never plugged in the motherboard of all things .

[Zerosliver]

Some questions to lay some ground work for the geniuses like Crazy:

1. Do you still have a monitor? If so, what is the native resolution of your monitor? (Or do you perhaps want a new one?)
3. What will the computer be used for? (No need spending all your budget when it's not needed to do so)

[Ybbon]

Some questions to lay some ground work for the geniuses like Crazy:

1. Do you still have a monitor? If so, what is the native resolution of your monitor? (Or do you perhaps want a new one?)
3. What will the computer be used for? (No need spending all your budget when it's not needed to do so)

And to define it further, what do you currently have, it's not all the components will have died, just some part so you may well want to look at reusing some parts, that way you can spend more on what you really need.

[John Doe]

Thanks, didn't think I'll get so many helpers.

Ok, for the PC, here are the symptoms:
Before I switch it on, the LEDs are working where ever I have a USB or server cable plugged in.
When I switch on, my screen stays on sleep mode, before it used to switch automattically.
after what seems like seconds, there is a beep that last 10 seconds, stop for 3, start again for 10 etc.....
I can open and close my DVD drive.
There isn't that small beep there used to be at the start (a friend told me it's the bios boot beep).
At this point I just switch off the power supply.

My PC was about 5 years old, but my graphic cards is 3 years old. From memory:
intel quad 2.4ghz
asus p5n32 something
4 G Ram at 1333Mhz (or 1033 I don't know)
sound blaster fidelity
HD Raddeon 4800 serie with 1G ram (don't know more info)
Hd is SATA 520G could be a 12 or 15 ms / something(I'd like to scavenge that one)
Samsung synchmaster 22" (if it works I'll keep it, max resolution is 1240*1024, I'm happy no need for higher)

Once on an older PC I changed my power supply and installed a voodoo graphic card accelerator. PC building looked very similar to lego building to me (minus the static electricity), what's worrying me is to put the CPU on the motherboard with the RAM. Also since I don't have internet at home anymore and I'm pretty sure the city library won't let me built it indoor, so I'll be "blind".

I'd like a pc that let me play shogun, may be not with all video options on max, but nearly and I'm using the PC for some video editing (I have lots of free time, so I just can help myself to another cup of tea while rendering). Also durability is to be considered, when I bought my pc 5 years ago it came with the geforce 8800 gtx pro, it was fantastic card but dying at 2 years old is disappointing (may be I was unlucky?)

So I have about £1000, I could stretch it a little if needed but not to much, I have my council tax in 11 days and my electricity bill in 3 weeks. I'm not so keen on building it myself, so if you know a good online shop and if some optional upgrads are worthwhile, I'll prefer that.

[Zerosliver]

Your components are all old, dont know for certain about the sound card though. Hard drive and disc drive are the only things you should keep, along with the monitor. Seeing as you intend on keeping the monitor, which has a fairly low resolution, your computer will not cost you 1000 pounds. You will only need a low-mid range gfx card, which is one of the most expensive components.

Id suggest waiting, if you can, till Ivy Bridge comes out and Nvidia releases new video cards(to drive prices down hopefully, if you want AMD).

[Kamos]

Well then in all honesty even amongst the cheapest of their computers in the 'Gaming PC' section of that site would do just fine. One of the £600 models would suit your needs easily and comfortably or in the AMD section there is a couple cheaper that would do.

[Bolkonsky]

Well then I'd just say go with the good old i5 2500k and GTX 560 448 Core edition combo. Insert 8 gigs of RAM for $50, or even 16 if you think you'd use it with all the video rendering, and someone else can refer the motherboard. It'd be under your budget, and let you max out Shogun 2.

EDIT: Here you go:

Full Specification
Cooler Master Elite 430 All Black ATX Case
Modular 650W Quite 80+ Dual Rail High Efficiency Power Supply
ASUS P8Z68-V LX, USB 3.0, SATA 6GB/s, Quad-GPU CrossFireX™
Intel® 2nd Generation Core™ i5-2500K Processor (6M Cache, 3.30 GHz)
16GB 1600MHz DDR3 Memory (4x4GB)
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready
1TB SATA III 6Gb/s, 7200rpm, 64Mb Cache, 8ms Hard Drive
22x SATA Dual Layer DVD-Rewritable Super Format ±R/±RW/RAM
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64 bit - inc DVD & Licence(R)
FREE Microsoft® Office 2010 Starter Edition
BullGuard Internet Security ver. 10 - 90 Day Trial (pre-installed OS required)
7.1 High Definition onboard sound card - for 8 Channel Cinema sound
Free 3 Years Gold Warranty - inc 3 Months Free Collect & Return

Definitely overpaying a bit, but that's what you get if you want prebuilt.

[Zerosliver]

I don't like prebuilds to be honest, for instance you won't know if you get the old or the new 560 ti. And the power supply? It's arguably the most important component not to skimp on.

[John Doe]

Thanks!!

I ordered it last wednesday, and on friday morning they phoned me to tell me I had to do a bank transfer because they won't accept my type of debit card (even though it's ok to order with it on the site). First time ever I was asked that when shopping on the net. So I cancelled my debit card and now I have to wait for a new card and find a new eshop. And to top it the computer system at my local librairy keeps being out of order, so I have hardly any web access.