Looking for a new desktop - Need Advice/Recommendations

P

Parky-RFC

New Member
Hi guys.

I'm in the process of looking for a new PC. My 6 year old Dell Dimension 4600 seems to be tiring and is frustrating the life out of me with the constant lagg. The processor just doesn't have enough power to perform how I would like it to.

My budget is around £1,000. I will be using this PC for gaming, general internet browsing and I will be using my Hauppauge HD PVR to record. Therefore I will be watching lots of HD videos. At the moment my current PC struggles to play 480p videos on Youtube while I've got a few extra tabs open! So I'm assuming I will need a high level processor to watch these HD videos extremely smoothly.

Ideally I would love to be able to be playing the likes of Football Manger, minimize it and still have multiple firefox tabs open, watching videos ect without too much fuss. I just want a machine which will be powerful enough to perform smoothly under multiple tasks.

Now are there any brands I should be avoiding such as HP or Dell? I must say though my current Dell hasn't let me down, it's just got old and slow for today's modern ways.

I've been told before I'd be better buying all the parts separately and building it up myself, problem is I wouldn't no where to start and I'm not sure how much it would cost to get someone else to do it!

Does anyone have good PC websites, for good deals, or a site where I can manually select each part I want my PC to contain?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, cheers.
 
Many people here will try and talk you into building one...with good reason of course. Most people here have built more than one. You do get more for your money of course. And...you learn how to assemble a computer. The best part is, it is yours and there not another one like it:D

I do understand people that do not want to take the time and possible headache of building one. It is easy just ordering it, the thing gets dropped off at your front door and you have a computer with a good warranty. Pretty easy really:)

If you do choose to buy one...I like Dell myself. They are priced ok and have decent options for customizing it. My daughter has a Dell XPS 400 that used to be mine...5 years and running like a champ;) Dell you can select a few options for graphics cards upgrades, RAM upgrades and others.

Look at the Dell Studio XPS 8100...Intel Core i5 / ATI 5770 / 6GB DDR3 RAM / 24" Dell screen / for less than 1000 pounds. That's really not a bad deal.
http://configure.euro.dell.com/dell...en&m_30=322642&oc=D00X8103&rbc=D00X8103&s=dhs
 
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ScOuT said:
If you do choose to buy one...I like Dell myself. They are priced ok and have decent options for customizing it. My daughter has a Dell XPS 400 that used to be mine...5 years and running like a champ;) Dell you can select a few options for graphics cards upgrades, RAM upgrades and others.

Look at the Dell Studio XPS 8100...Intel Core i5 / ATI 5770 / 6GB DDR3 RAM / 24" Dell screen / for less than 1000 pounds. That's really not a bad deal.
http://configure.euro.dell.com/dell...en&m_30=322642&oc=D00X8103&rbc=D00X8103&s=dhs
Click to expand...

Though I love building machines the specs he is giving you are not bad. The issues to watch for on big name machines are low end parts like the power supply and you cannot adjust the bios. But to be honnest most people don't really need to adjust the bios anyways.

A 5770 card is great and will play most any game decently. Videos will be no problem.
 
If i were you, i'd buy that dell there and change out the powersupply, and then there's no problem.
 
Thanks for your responses guys.

Sorry for being ignorant but what is up with the power supply? Could you give an explanation?

I really don't have the knowledge so any more advice is welcome.
 
It's most likely an underpowered cheapie, not capable of many future upgrades, Let alone what it has got in in it at the moment.
 
^that

As long as the Dell is under warranty, there's no reason to change it. After the warranty is up, however, I definitely would.
 
Dell power supplies are just fine for the machines they build. There is no reason to change the power supply. If it goes out during warranty...cool, they ship you a new one. If it goes out afterward then just get a new one.
 
Thanks for all your advice.

I went into my local computer store today and was told that it would cost around £25 to build my PC from scratch.

So I'm thinking that's not a bad deal if I can custom select specific parts for a decent price then It might be the way to go.

Anyone recommend a good set-up? My budget is still around 1k but could probs go over by £300 max.

You could use these sites if your interested:

http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/Home-Office-PCs-c95.htm?expandable=0

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/index.php
 
A whole other path you can go. Look at my signature, I bought it prebuilt from Ibuypower.com for $1650 + shipping, came with free liquid cooling on CPU also. I also added some extra things like headphones, keyboard/mouse and better speakers. So if you want it could be aroudn $1550 without those extras
 
Skorax said:
A whole other path you can go. Look at my signature, I bought it prebuilt from Ibuypower.com for $1650 + shipping, came with free liquid cooling on CPU also. I also added some extra things like headphones, keyboard/mouse and better speakers. So if you want it could be aroudn $1550 without those extras
Click to expand...

Cheers for that, will have a look at that site. Only problem is I'm in the UK so really, shipping from the US will probably more expensive and not worth the hassle.

Fatal1tyXx said:
So you order the parts from newegg, bring them into the store and they will do it for $25, correct?

Intel core i7 930 2.8ghz - $295

Asus P6T - $230

CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W - $79 (after $20 rebate)

COOLER MASTER CM690 II - $100

Saphire 5770 - $159 (after $10 rebate)

G-skill Trident 6gb (3x2) ddr3 2000mhz - $210

Windows 7 Home Premium - $110

Total - $1200
Click to expand...

That looks pretty good actually. Again though, I'm going to have to purchase from a UK site such as http://www.overclockers.co.uk/.

What would be the top brands for the likes of Graphics card, RAM and Motherboard as I feel these are most important in terms of performance. I will be going with one of the Intel i7 series although I'm not sure exactly which one.

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks.
 
The build above is very nice. The MOBO, PSU, CPU, are all great. I know I am a one man broken record but when I see someone spend this much I have to tell them to go with a 5850 GPU which is 50% faster than the 5770 for $100-150 (depending on where bought). Even if you wont use it most of the time why not have it. The 5770 will blow away u-tube and any movie use needs. If you get into modern games the 5850 will show its merrit.

You will also need an optical drive, HDD, and maybe a card reader?
 
Gabe63 said:
The build above is very nice. The MOBO, PSU, CPU, are all great. I know I am a one man broken record but when I see someone spend this much I have to tell them to go with a 5850 GPU which is 50% faster than the 5770 for $100-150 (depending on where bought). Even if you wont use it most of the time why not have it. The 5770 will blow away u-tube and any movie use needs. If you get into modern games the 5850 will show its merrit.

You will also need an optical drive, HDD, and maybe a card reader?
Click to expand...

Thanks for that.

Yeah, any decent optical drives about for maybe $200? Regarding the HDD I was thinking of buying a small maybe, 64GB SSD drive and basically just use that for running my OS on? Is that a good idea, is it practical?

I've got a 320GB drive in my current PC but I'm not sure whether it would be compatible with the new setup. I've also got a 1.5TB Seagate external which I use to store my data. Could do with another one to back it all up!

What do you think?
 
A good optical drive with light scrive will cost $25-40, non-blu-ray.

I have been thinking about SSD for a while but the cost and performance issues are making me wait. This is very new tech any I suspect the price and performance will improve very quickly. Once they do i will clone an SSD drive into the system.

If I did it over again I would do this, buy a 10k RPM 74G raptor for under $100
http://www.frys.com/search?search_type=regular&sqxts=1&query_string=10,000RPM&cat=0
This is a very fast HDD, it would let me know if I could live with the size etc. Then I would clone in an SSD in when the prices get to the right level.

If you old drive has a big ribbon cable dont even think about it.
 
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