PC & Laptop Building, Repairs, Upgrades

[robt100]

Hi everyone!
 

I'm Rob, and I currently run a small business building PCs. I've been building and repairing computers for the last 20 years, and can cater for any need.

 

For example, if you are looking for a new replacement PC for your office and want something fast, snappy, and that you can even maybe play some games on, it can be built from as little as £390. The best part being that from this 'basic' system you can fully update and upgrade at a later date, saving all the costs of starting from scratch. This price would also include windows 10 (RRP £120).

 

I also build completely custom PCs, whether that's workstations and HEDT, or 'full fat' gaming rigs. I can either build to a parts list you choose, or you can give me details of what the computer will be used for, plus a few wants/needs and I can do all the rest for you. As an example, I'm currently building a triple-montior sim-racing PC for a customer, built to a tight budget...well, for triple screens anyway, and also designed to last a few years whilst also being upgradeable in the near future if needed (and over £300 less than most custom shops online would charge!).

 

I will always use the best possible quality of parts available; Samsung SSDs, Corsair Power Supplies, only the highest rated AIB partners for components like graphics cards. Of the PCs I've built that I still know the customers, all of them are happily running on their original components 7 or 8 years later, my own PC included!

 

Depending on your location, I can also bring the new PC to you and set it up at your home.

 

All PCs will be covered by warranty, a minimum of 1 year on all components, and for components that have a longer warranty, we shall cover them for the length of this too (I'm looking at you Corsiar and your 10 year warranty!).

I'm also happy to upgrade your current PC, anything from another hard drive, to a cpu upgrade.

 

For Briskoda forum members I am also offering a 'find me' service for laptops and peripherals. So you want a new laptop, monitor, speakers or soundcard, know what you want it for, but have no idea what any of the numbers mean?? I can help! I can either point you in the right direction of where to buy from, or source the item for you and send it straight to your address.

 

If anyone is interested, wants to know more, or is ready to order a PC then just PM me on the forum and I shall get back to you as soon as I can.
 

Rob (RT Personal Computers)

Edited 22 January, 2020 by robt100

[robt100]

Thought I best update this with a little example of my work....

Here is some shots of a system I've just finished for a customer. He needed a new PC for sim-racing that would be powerful enough to run Triple Screens at over 100fps. But on the same time, wanted the most for his budget possible using high quality parts.
All the parts in the system were from high quality manufacturers and using models/brands with the highest ratings for quality and value for money/performance in each segment, As the PC was going to be living on the floor behind the Sim-rig, we didnt go for fancy LED lighting etc, much more of a stealth build.
AMD R5 3600 CPU, 16GB of DDR4 3200 CL16, a 256GB M2. SSD for windows (boots up in under 4 seconds!), and a large 2TB HDD for game storage. Plus a 5700XT to power the graphics to the 3 screens. If you wanted the same, then you would be looking at around £1200-1300 depending on Component prices at the time. (A comparable rig from the 'big brands' is around £1500 with lesser quality parts).

Edited 6 February, 2020 by robt100

[AdamJonezy]

Hi mate. 

 

 

Amazing work and thank you for offering your help to us all. 

 

I was just wondering if you could give me some advice on what PC I should buy for some light gaming. I want to be able to play games like GTA 5 etc. not to bothered about it running at full graphics, just want it to run without lagging. I would also like to spend as little as possible. I will also be using the PC for running programs like Photoshop, AutoCAD and Solidworks. 

 

Thanks in advance for any help. 

 

 

Thanks, Adam

[robt100]

5 hours ago, AdamJonezy said:

Hi mate. 

 

 

Amazing work and thank you for offering your help to us all. 

 

I was just wondering if you could give me some advice on what PC I should buy for some light gaming. I want to be able to play games like GTA 5 etc. not to bothered about it running at full graphics, just want it to run without lagging. I would also like to spend as little as possible. I will also be using the PC for running programs like Photoshop, AutoCAD and Solidworks. 

 

Thanks in advance for any help. 

 

 

Thanks, Adam

Hi Adam, Message incoming!!

[robt100]

For anyone who has been contemplating a new PC after seeing how slow theirs is being stuck on it during lockdown. I'm available to build anything from budget systems to gaming rigs. With the new Intel lineup just released, and also some new budget gaming CPUs from AMD coming out in the last few weeks theres some good deals to be had.
I also have a spare PC case the same as the one in the above photos, its worth upwards of £90, but will throw it in the next gaming build for half price!

[GrowlingDog]

I wish I had seen this post a few weeks ago.  Just taken delivery of a new PC for video editing from PC Specialist, I bet you could have built it cheaper.

[robt100]

44 minutes ago, GrowlingDog said:

I wish I had seen this post a few weeks ago.  Just taken delivery of a new PC for video editing from PC Specialist, I bet you could have built it cheaper.

Sorry you missed it, theres still the distance selling regulations for a refund🤣
What did they send you? AMD based I presume for that kind of work?

Edited 25 May, 2020 by robt100

[GrowlingDog]

I specced it myself so had Intel i7, 32Gb RAM, basic 4Gb graphics card and lots of SSD space.   It runs Adobe Prem Pro well so good enough for me.

 

 

[robt100]

Thought I'd give a small update on here to give some more 'solid' pricing. At the moment due to CoVid-19 prices of the hardware have increased, though this is hopefully going down over the next month or so, as such I shall update the prices accordingly. But as an example:

Gaming PC for 1080p 60FPS high/ultra quality settings
AMD Ryzen 3600 6c/12t CPU
16GB DDR4 3200 RAM
B450 Motherboard
Nvidia 1660 Super GPU
250GB Samsung SSD
1TB Seagate HDD
500W power supply
Fractal Design Meshify C case (as pictured in 2nd post)
Windows 10 Home 64bit included

Price at time of writing: £900 (give or take a few pounds for market fluctuation)

Matching specification PC (apart from them using slower ram) from overclockers.co.uk is £1170, and £1160 from computer planet (again with similar parts) and £1000 from PC world for something vaguely similar but with lower quality/older parts.

We can also do higher performance systems, for example, switching to higher performance components including Pcie4 compatability and M2 boot drives, we can make a VR ready, 1440p 144hz capable machine for just £550 extra

AMD Ryzen 3600 6c/12t CPU
240mm High Performance Water cooling system
16GB DDR4 3600CL17 RAM
X570 Motherboard
Nvidia 2070 Super GPU
250GB Samsung 970 Evo Plus M.2 SSD
1TB Seagate HDD
700W power supply
Fractal Design Meshify C case (as pictured in 2nd post)
Windows 10 Home 64bit included

Price £1450

Equivalent from overclockers is £1838🤪 and £1759 at computerplanet.

We can also send these out pre-overclocked if preferred.
If you are interested (or anyone you know who is on the lookout) just contact me on here.

For those of a less 'gamey' nature, we can also build office PCs from as little as £380 (at present, this should go down!)

[robt100]

It looks like some new product releases are just around the corner!
We also offer an upgrade service as well as 'new builds'. Either we can source the part to fit, or you can bring the part to us and we install it for you.
Once new releases are out we will also update our prices for the gaming builds.

[Lady Elanore]

Maybe in a year or two if you are still offering this service I will give you a shout  I see PCIe 4 is coming as well as new 30xx Nvidia cards and new Intel i7 and presumably i9 chips. I've never had an AMD PC but I keep reading good reviews about them.

 

I bought my PC without really knowing much about them and only after upgrading a couple of HDDs to SATA SSD and adding a couple more hybrid HDDs have I realised I have nowhere to go. RAM maxed out (32GB) and not particularly fast RAM either :( and I only have one decent PCIe slot anyway. I made the mistake of not investing enough on a PC with a better motherboard, which is something I would at least be wise to now. I do a bit of photography and Lightroom can chew thorough memory when you have a huge number of files in an edit session and also do a bit of video editing, so the CPU gets a good workout (the video edit progs don't seem to utilise the GFX card as much as I hoped, even after alleged 'optimisation' by the edit prog)

 

Your prices look really good btw  

[robt100]

On 07/10/2020 at 01:40, Lady Elanore said:

Maybe in a year or two if you are still offering this service I will give you a shout  I see PCIe 4 is coming as well as new 30xx Nvidia cards and new Intel i7 and presumably i9 chips. I've never had an AMD PC but I keep reading good reviews about them.

 

I bought my PC without really knowing much about them and only after upgrading a couple of HDDs to SATA SSD and adding a couple more hybrid HDDs have I realised I have nowhere to go. RAM maxed out (32GB) and not particularly fast RAM either :( and I only have one decent PCIe slot anyway. I made the mistake of not investing enough on a PC with a better motherboard, which is something I would at least be wise to now. I do a bit of photography and Lightroom can chew thorough memory when you have a huge number of files in an edit session and also do a bit of video editing, so the CPU gets a good workout (the video edit progs don't seem to utilise the GFX card as much as I hoped, even after alleged 'optimisation' by the edit prog)

 

Your prices look really good btw  

PCIe4 is already here, well on AMD anyway

Sounds like you need a more workstation based PC with lightroom and video editing. Yes I should be still doing this in a couple of years I hope! This month is a very busy month for tech releases, so by the end of the year the above builds will probably change somewhat (AMD are announcing all their new CPUs today and GPUs in about 3 weeks).
The Graphics card not seeming to do much work when you are doing editing could be down to the GPU/CPU combo you are using, seems it can be a bit hit and miss as to what combo works. When you say 'only 1 decent pcie slot', does this mean you normally run SLi/Crossfire? As it seems unless you get the (crazily priced) 3090 Sli is pretty much officially dead. Though depending on the age of your PC just the upgrade in speed from new hardware may mean you dont need it anymore anyway!

[Lady Elanore]

I was thinking more of I only had a single x16 slot and the other 2 slots are for lego or similar low channel peripherals (Maybe I shouldn't have tried to ram lego into the slot  ....only kidding.....or am I?) 

 

I kept reading that GFX cards would be more and more utilised by media type programs and take advantage of their number crunching abilities, just have seen it yet. I often have a look at the task manager to see how much work is being done by the GFX card and it's surprising little, at least going by the amount of real estate the programs advertise they can use the gfx card. Mind you it's a few years old now, so the card isn't exactly cutting edge (Nvidia 1070).

I can't remember what the motherboard is, but it only supports pretty slow RAM by today's standards, but it was ever thus with technology. My 'future proofed' TV which was an early LG OLED (only a few years old) does not support 4K 60fps on it's HDMI I/Ps, so if you were to use something like Apple TV then you would only get the 1080 stream as they refuse to show 30fps at 4K. Technology eh....who needs it 

 

But as I said, if I knew much about computers, I would build one myself  I can barely remember an Amazon locker code between reading it in the car and pressing the buttons at the lockers 

[robt100]

GPus already dont really utilize PCIe 3x16, let alone PCIe 4x16, so it shouldnt be too much of a problem.
A lot of the GFX card 'bonus' speed is usually for things like encoding, for example Nvidias NVenc codec. And I believe some intel chips can use the iGPU (onboard gfx chip) to speed up some processes.

With the latest AMD announcements today, I think November/December there will be quite a jump on the PC market. And to be honest, unless you're planning to build a new PC/upgrade parts only once every 7-10 years, theres no point in futureproofing, as most things will be discontinued so there would be no upgrade path. Ram speed is pretty vital with AMD systems, maybe less so with the latest chips coming out, but for the work you do, high RAM capacity on the GPU and the PC is probably a must. But yes, when you do decide its time for a change, let me know

[Lady Elanore]

Thanks. I find it interesting to look at the task manager and see how much effort various parts of the system are putting into the operation. I ran an edit and export with the GFX utilised/alledgedly-optimised/not utilised. There was a slight difference and the card was definitely doing something, but it rarely did more that 10% of its max potential and I guessed it was roughly where there were things like a crossfade and text overlay that it was busiest. I imagine that a secondhand Cray wouldn't be enough for my efforts as I am pretty clueless as to the most efficient way to work (I imagine that a Cray probably wouldn't run on Windows 10  )

[john999boy]

2 hours ago, Lady Elanore said:

I imagine that a secondhand Cray wouldn't be enough for my efforts as I am pretty clueless as to the most efficient way to work (I imagine that a Cray probably wouldn't run on Windows 10  )

Don’t forget the house upgrade to allow it to fit! 

[Lady Elanore]

Maybe I could just move into a Cray Computer and sell the house? 

[robt100]

Right, all the new components are now released..........but trying to find one available for MSRP is a bit like expecting to walk into buckingham palace to have a cuppa with the queen....

So I shall update the builds and pricing once things calm down a bit!