Which All-In-One PC is best out of these?

A

andy15star

New Member
I've currently got an Advent T9317, Intel Core 2 Duo E6300, 1.5GB DDR2 RAM, GeForce 7300SE. It's 5 years old and getting a bit sluggish and i think it's time for an upgrade.

I've set my mind on an all-in-one type, because i like the way i can drag n drop, similar to the ipad.

I will be using it for web browsing, email, light gaming (Flight Sim 2004 mainly), basic photo editing (which my old PC can handle), HD Video Editing in Windows Live MovieMaker (which my old PC can't handle too well), and that's about it. nothing too demanding.

I have earmarked a few different ones and just wanted your opinion as to which would be the best for me. I didn't really want to pay the extra to get i5 or i7 if an i3 (or AMD x2, intel dual core etc) would suffice.

Would like (essential): At least 3GB RAM, Touchscreen,
Would like (but not essential): Full HD screen, HDMi output, Dedicated graphics card, larger Hard Drive (500gb or over)

The ones i have earmarked are listed below, just wanting to know a) if they would be faster than my current 5 yr old pc, and b) Which of them would work for what i want out of them.

a) •Intel Pentium dual core E5500.
•Processor speed 3GHz.
•3GB DDR2 RAM.
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produ...19111|All-in-one+touchscreen+PCs|25973783.htm

b) Dual-core AMD Athlon™ II X2 245e processor
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64 bit
Memory: 3GB
Hard drive: 500GB
http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/hp-touchsmart-310-1205uk-20-all-in-one-pc-black-10509042-pdt.html

c) AMD Dual-Core Processor E-350
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64 bit
Memory: 3GB
Hard drive: 500GB
http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/packard-bell-onetwo-s-a4226-uk-20-all-in-one-pc-09885824-pdt.html

d) Core Processor: core processor
Processor: AMD Athlon II X2
Processor model number: 220
Processor speed: 2.8 GHz
http://www.comet.co.uk/p/All-In-One...01-220-All-In-One-Computers-Apple-iMac/676748

e) Core Processor: core processor
Processor: Intel Pentium Dual Core
Processor model number: G620
http://www.comet.co.uk/p/All-In-One...-D4126-All-In-One-Computers-Apple-iMac/721620

f) Core Processor: core processor
Processor: Intel Core i3
Processor model number: I3-550
Processor speed: 3.2 GHz
http://www.comet.co.uk/p/All-In-One...5450UK-All-In-One-Computers-Apple-iMac/739693

g) Core Processor: core processor
Processor: Intel Core i3
Processor model number: i3-2100
Processor speed: 3.1
http://www.comet.co.uk/p/All-In-One...-L6526-All-In-One-Computers-Apple-iMac/717800


Basically, what is the general opinion, AMD II x2, Intel Dual Core or i3 ??


Sorry, i know it's a lot to ask, but i know there will be someone on here with the technical knowledge who will know at a glance which one is the better.

If AMD II x2 is pretty much equivalent to i3 then i'd go for whichever was the cheapest. £500 was my budget, but i'd go to £600 if the extra £100 bought me something worth the extra money.

Best Regards,
Andy
 
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I do agree, but i really want the touch screen facility and that's where the extra price comes into play. So would you say i3 is MUCH better than Athlon II x2 ?

Regards,
Andy
 
The i3-2100 yes. The i3-550, Probably a little, but not by much. And you are right. A bulk of the price goes not only into the touch screen, but the fact that it has a built in screen at all. All in one PC's are not meant to be a power house. Not right now at least.
 
Entirely agree Troncoso, i could go for a £300 base unit with the same specs (and might end up doing that!), but do really fancy the touch type.

It's a toss up between these 2 now:
http://www.comet.co.uk/p/All-In-One...-L6526-All-In-One-Computers-Apple-iMac/717800

and

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/packard-bell-onetwo-l-i6227-23-all-in-one-pc-10508914-pdt.html

Both Packard Bell, both i3-2100. But the comet one has 4GB RAM (but only 500GB HD), and a nVidia GF G405 512 MB graphics card.

The Currys one has only 3GB RAM (but a 1Tb HD) and a Intel HD Graphics 2000 graphics card......

Hmmmm, decisions!. Not sure whether to go for the extra 1GB RAM, or the extra 500GB HD. Might all come down to graphics card now (basic gaming, HD video). Which is the better graphics card, the Intel HD Graphics 2000, or the nVidia GF G405 512 MB in your opinion ? (i'm presuming they are both dedicated graphics cards, rather than shared?)
Best Regards,
Andy
 
well actually the hd2000 is on the i3 so both have it, one just has an actual dedicated card or possibly a chip on the mobo, but i doubt theyed spend the money to add in a card worse than the hd one and the hd2000 isn't a bad thing, not good but not bad, will play full 1080p no prob. i would say the 3gb and 1tb if you think you'll need the storage, although if not then the 4gb's will offer a slight advantage, and you can always pick up one of the usb backup drives, they're only like 50 usd for like a 500gb.

but again, a non-all-in-one will give you wayyyyyy better value and performance, wonder if they make touch-screen add-on cards or something.
 
Thanks!, yeah the RAM would be more useful to me. The PC i have now is 320GB and i've still got 120GB left after 5 years (and that's with all my pics and videos on!), so there's no way i'd ever use the 1Tb !.

Just a little confused over the graphics card though, when you say they BOTH have the Intel HD Graphics 2000 card, the other one just says it's a nVidia GF G405 512 MB graphics card. Is the HD Graphics 2000 a shared card and the nVidia GF G405 512 a dedicated one ??

Actually i'm toying whether to ditch the touch screen and just get on i3/i5 with 4GB RAM and only pay half the price of a touch screen. I know the specs aren't to a gaming level, but i'm sure they would be fine for me where the most CPU-intensive thing i'd be doing is HD Video editing or the kids playing Flight Sim 2004 (which my old pc plays at 25-30fps!)

Do you think i'd notice a great deal of difference between my current PC (Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 1.86GHz, 1.5GB DDR2 RAM), http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/advent/pc/t9317.htm and an i3 at 3 or 4 GB RAM ??. If not then i might just stick with this heap of junk until it breaks !

In a nutshell, am i right in thinking i3 is the way forward as long as it's i3-2100 ?. And better than AMD II x 2/3/4/6 or Intel dual core ?

Regards,
Andy
 
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the hd2000 is made on the cpu, it will always be there, the company just decided to add in the gpu for a little better performance, idk why as the other will do anything, but i mean if you're going to have kids using it, i really think a touch screen is a bad idea with their little dirty hands smudging and smearing all over the thing, i mean it's bad enough without touch screens when they point at something and poke the pixels, just bugs me.
 
haha!, no they'll be banned from touching the screen, they'll use the mouse!.

But now just having second thoughts and might go for a base unit only. I have a 23" monitor and it's practically new.

I keep seeing i3, then AMD II x2 x3 x4 and x6, then Intel Dual Core. Now i know the Intel Dual Core is probably the worse of the three. But i'm never too sure which is the better of the i3 or the AMD Athlon II x2 x3 x4 / x6.

In rank of best, would you say:

i3-2xxx (best), then
AMD Ath II x6
AMD Ath II x4
AMD Ath II x3
AMD Ath II x2

??

I'm pretty good with pc's, but all this is so confusing. The staff in our electrical shops know nothing!. They just try to sell you whatever they've got in at the time. They are biased.

Best Regards,
Andy
 
well it really depends on what you're doing, for what you want the best might be the phenom (amd) x6 or x4 as it will do video en and decoding much faster, but for most other things the i3 will be faster, really everyone here is biast to the best option of building, which will get you something way better for the same or less almost every time.
 
I'm not too confident to building my own pc, i know of a few local shops which can build them, and they are probably the way forward for me i suppose. I'd need some kind of warranty though. But i guess they'd give one anyway.

I do light video editing (live movie maker, hd files, simple edits, nothing too advanced like sony vegas etc), little bit of flight sim 2004 which is just simple gaming which this pc can do anyway. Other than that it would be web browsing, music, watching hd videos, email etc.

So, i know it's not an exact science, but for me i'm guessing the best would be:

AMD II x6
AMD II x4
i3-2xxx
AMD II x3
AMD II x2
(and as high RAM as possible)

??

And then there's an AMD Phenom, my laptop is AMD Phenom x3. Are they better than Athlon ?

Complicated stuff eh !


Andy
 
the phenom has a level 3 cache, all the athlons only have l1 and l2, the l3 just helps with most programs, but i'd say to go down to your local shop and get a quote something like this,

a phenom x4 (955/965 or higher) on an am3+ 900 series chipset, or an i3-2100 on a p67 or a z68 chipset

with either i'd say to ask for either an hd 5450 or 6450 graphics card, they are like the cheapest current ones

about 4gb's of ddr3 1600 preferable, 1333mhz will be fine too

about 500gb's hdd at 7200rpm

obviously a win7 64-bit install

and then a quality antec/corsair/xfx power supply

and a nice little case.

also you can look at these, they don't have the best parts selection but they aren't bad.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=43&catid=1951
 
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Brilliant Jonny!, good food for thought there. I'll pop into a couple of local ones and if it's still going to be a lot then i'll see what the difference is between them and a highstreet shop. If similar then i'll go with the highstreet. If a much better price then i'll go local build.

Thanks for the help, much appreciated !

Regards,
Andy
 
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