So, my hard drive has completely died a death and I've likely made data recovery far more difficult/expensive by following poor advice in opening it up to try and look for a mechanical fault. My current PC is around 5/6 years old anyway so I'm now thinking just sell it off for parts and just get something new. I want something powerful and fast, that can play games to a reasonable standard, and am willing to spend up to around £800. I got my previous one from DinoPC, but I'm wondering if anyone has any other recommendations? Cheers.
Was probably me that recommended them. Mine is still going strong 7 years old now. All my files are on NAS though. Can you not canibalise the parts you want to keep and upgrade?
Buy second hand, the enviroment will thank you. You can get decent spec 2 or 3 year old pcs that you can still upgrade.
If it's just the HD and otherwise the computer is fine then just get some new HDs. Small SSD for the operating system. largeish conventional internal HD for program installation. RAID NAS for saved files documents etc. The NAS protects itself. The SSD gives you lightning loading and operation and the internal HD if it goes pop you can just reinstall on a replacement.
I used a company called PC Specialist a few years ago. Not sure what they are like now but I'd have recommended them back then
Only downside to this is that if anything goes t1t$-up with the hardware you can then get hit with the "...not professionally installed..." shtick which will void any warranty... I'm quite a fan of http://www.ebuyer.com for piece of mind.
I used Dino PC for my latest desktop. Very good. I’m pretty sure someone on here recommended them to me ages back.
Actually decent if you have a specific peripheral or laptop to get that's on sale because instant availability but unless you know exactly what you want without requiring advice, avoid. Monitors are cheap there.
I have had three desktops built to order from Chillblast. They were high end and I have never had a problem with them. I eventually migrated from one to the other to make use of newer chips, GPUs. graphics cards, coolers, motherboards and so on and so forth. They build for all budgets starting with a basic case which you then customize to your needs. https://www.chillblast.com/
CCL Computers look the best to me currently! Am I right in thinking a genuine copy of Windows 10 can be picked up super cheap? All of these computer places charge about £100 extra to install it, but a quick Google search brings up plenty of offers from £10-20? The websites seem genuine too.
Stand alone Windows is £100 or so. Anyone discounting from that will be at best offering a free upgrade from a previous version of windows, or more likely something dodgy. If it's your chosen operating system then I would suggest getting a proper bona fide copy. Savings cheeping out via other methods, just are not worth the risk.
I went for: AMD Ryzen 5 3600X CPU 16GB 3200mhz RAM GeForce RTX 2060 GPU 1TB SSD Comes with Borderlands 3 and COD: Modern Warfare as well.
Had absolute disasters with the computer being damaged TWICE by DPD obviously not looking after it properly, but it finally arrived working today. I also took the opportunity from the delays and problems to add some further upgrades, some of which were free due to the issues I've had. So, it's now a bit of a beast: - MSI Gaming Edge WiFi X570 motherboard - AMD Ryzen 7 3700X CPU - 16GB HyperX FURY 3200mhz RAM - Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER - 512GB M2.2280 SSD - 1TB M2.2280 SSD - CoolerMaster RGB Liquid CPU Cooler - Windows 10 Pro (paid £1.85 for an activation key from eBay and it worked perfectly!) I'm officially a gaming PC nerd.