New PC help!

  • Thread starter Rob.Richards
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Rob.Richards

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I have a budget of £500 to replace my 8yr old laptop with a desktop, monitor and calibration. I dont need software (other than an operating system) but I am so out of touch with this stuff I need help! I had been looking at Arbico or Palicomp semi-custom built pc's but dont know. Advice would be great please!!
 
What sort of things are you hoping to do on it? Gaming? Photo editing? etc.

So you need everything except the editing software etc? (ie. you need a monitor, calibrating tool etc too?)
 
Yes primarily photo editing and will need a monitor and calibration device too! I have ms office pro plus and ps elements which are great for what I do!
 
ive just built a reasonalble spec intel quad core, 4gb box for sub £350. £170 will get you a dell 2209wa IPS panel refurb with warranty off ebay, spyder3 pro start at about £60.. so a smidge over budget.

whats your technical ability? would you be prepared to build your own? otherwise dell usually have a good line of reasonable bang for buck boxes..
 
I've just built a midi tower for my uncle with all parts coming from microdirect.
Total cost is £350.60 inc VAT and premium saturday delivery.
Here's the spec -

Akasa Internal System Fan 12cm clear +4 colour led(AK-174CC-4RAB) £7.69
WD 500GB hard disk drive Caviar SE16 SATA II 300 7200rpm 16MB £26.49
Core 2 Quad Q8300 Quad Core 2.50GHz 4M Cache 1333MHz LGA775 £92.99
Iris black midi case £14.77
CiT Internal Card Reader with SIM Slot £6.67
Samsung 22X SH-S223C/BEBE SATA black £11.34
Coolermaster PSU GX-550W £42.51
Hypertec 4GB DDR2 Kit (2x2GB) Hyperam 800MHz PC6400 DIMM £45.34
Gigabyte motherboard GA-G41M-COMBO LGA775 DDR2 DDR3 mATX £33.79
DELIVERY 16.79

Total Price Excluding VAT £298.38
VAT @ 17.5% £52.22
Total Price Including VAT £350.60

I did a smallish hard drive as my uncle already has external storage.
The motherboard will handle upto 8gb of DDR2 ram at 1066mhz or 4gb of DDR3 ram at 1333mhz so there is room for a future upgrade.

This machine is ultra quick and cost pennies to build.
I would never buy a pre built rig again and if anyone of my family or friends suggest they are going to buy a new computer I offer to build for a fraction of the store cost.
 
You might find the AMD route is cheaper for home build. How about

Motherboard/processor/2G memory: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/237052 £144
2G stick DDR3 1333: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/147903 £23
Corsair 500W PSU: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/240999 £48
1TB Hard drive: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/177466 £40
DVD rewriter: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/176026 £12
Computer case: (your choice), but around £15
Couple of 120mm case fans (I use xilence) £10
Couple of SATA cables (the drives won't come with cables): http://www.ebuyer.com/product/244327 £4

£296 inc vat and delivery (if you take the free delivery option). The processor is rated faster than the intel Quad core Q8200 if you look at this site: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

Don't forget the OS. Win7 64bit Home Premium is another £72.

I'd also want a separate graphics card as the integrated cards use shared memory to display graphics. Whilst this is quite neat, it uses both memory and bandwidth which would be better utilised by the processor. £30 will get you a cheap Nvidia 210 based one like this: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/176604

Soo... that would be £296+£30+£72 = £400

Don't forget mouse/keyboard/speakers say £30...

Add £170 for monitor (I'd say you need an IPS monitor for photo editing) £60 for calibration tool and you're at around £660 all in... You could cut corners, but I don't think it would be worth it TBH...
 
PS. I built my home server around the motherboard/processor combo (when I bought it, it didn't have any memory).
 
If you need a good seller, scan.co.uk have been pretty good. If you sign up to certain forums (e.g. Hexus) and get 25 post, you can get free postage.

1) I wouldn't go for last generation Q or E Intel processors.
2) As far as I know, very few photoshop actions actually support graphics processing or multi-threads.

My suggestion:
* Core i3-560 (saves you a graphics card) ~£100-110 (the 540 or 530 is another £20 or so cheaper)
* Intel DH55TC ~£60-70
* 2x2GB of DDR3-1333 (=PC3-10600) ~£50
* Samsung or WD 1TB drive ~£40
Depends on how quiet you'd like your computer. The high spindle-speed HD vibrate vigorously, causing the case to resonate. Best option would be an SSD bootdrive and a slower suspended storage drive. I believe Sharkoon produces elastic suspension drives cages, or you could DIY (works a treat).
* Quality power supply, with the lowest wattage you can find. For example Enermax.
* Case: my recommendation is an Antec Solo, but these retail for more than £70 here, but has drive suspension built in. Any case will probably do, but it might be more difficult to keep your components quiet.
* CPU cooler ~£30, for example Scythe Ninja or Mugen. These are very efficient and come with an excellent fan
* Another Scythe Slipstream fan as main exhaust ~£10
* DVD/Bluray
* If you're a student, you can buy Windows 7 (Home or Professional) for about £30.

Alas, Intel has not properly implemented USB3 in their current line-up. The motherboards usually have less feature than equally priced AMD pendants.

For AMD, you could chose a Phenom II X2 555 and for example the Asus M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 instead.
 
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WOw its all a bit technical!!!

Someone has suggested to me elsewhere looking at AOC monitors from pc world - are they worth it?
 
TN is fine for office apps like word & excel and we have samsung 2443bw as our "standard issue" screens at work, but I would not want to photo edit on one as they are only 6 bit colour and don't give anything like the colour fidelity of even budget IPS screens.
 
I have no idea what you just said there?!? I am completely lost looking at all of this! I just want something I can edit my pics on and produce DVD's!!!

What is a TN who are IPS?
 
The problem is that IPS has not really "taken off" in the consumer market as most typical punters who go into somewhere like PC world or Comet etc will only really care about size and price, so almost every screen on display will be TN panel.

The only IPS screen you will typically see in such a store will be an imac 21.5 or imac 27 unfortunately.
 
I have looked about and read up on this now (you learn something new everyday!) and there are a couple of good monitors out there the Dell U2311H which is e-IPS and an HP LP2275W which is a VA monitor. Realistically I think both will be out of my reach within my budget and technical know how! What I quite like from PC world is the opportunity to pay monthly issues. data recovery etc and accidental damage (2 young kids in the house!)

I wonder if I bought any desktop, a monitor and Spyder 3 Pro would I be getting better results from my aging and about to die laptop and then maybe upgrade in a year or so...

Any thoughts on that?
 
PCWorld should sell you the basic machine only (i.e. without monitor). Do you research before you go (use PCWs website to understand which processor is in which bundle they are offering and ask here if anything is unclear). Make sure you get 4Gbytes and Win 7 64 bit though as the OS.

Then go and buy a decent monitor. It makes all the difference.
 
For fear of being shot down in flames, I have always found PC World horrendously overpriced. This from Ebuyer, with OS. Just realised, no monitor but worth a look?
 
tramp92 said:
For fear of being shot down in flames, I have always found PC World horrendously overpriced.
Click to expand...
Yes, they are more pricey than ebuyer, but if you want a store to walk into as you find all this talk of homebuild daunting, they are as good (or bad) as anyone else really - especially if the OP is after pay monthly (although watch the interest rates).

IMHO, you really should get Win7 x 64 and 4G as a minimum for photo processing (especially if dealing with RAW files) with preferably a separate graphics card.
 
PS. Dell may be better value and I think you can pay monthly there too...
 
I strongly recommend building your own PC from components. Anyone who can handle a screw-driver, read internet tutorials and is capable of earthing oneself on the radiator should be able to get through with it. It is usually cheaper and you get better parts.

PC World and Curry's are terribly expensive.

Re screens: there used to be some really good TN panels displays around. The Samsung 226BW was such a gem. It always depends on how well the colour filters are fitted and how good the factory calibration was done.

There are some really horrendous IPS screens about as well. I'm pretty sure a software calibrated TN panel will be better. When I bought my last PC, I went for a ViewSonic Optiquest, as it received good reviews. Get down to browsing and pick your value for money winner.
 
arad85 said:
Yes, they are more pricey than ebuyer, but if you want a store to walk into as you find all this talk of homebuild daunting, they are as good (or bad) as anyone else really
Click to expand...

Only scary thing with PC world is that you find that after you have done five minutes research on the net, you know more than the person attempting to serve you! (The absolute waffle I was given when trying to buy some partitioning software was a joy to hear. On plus point with PCW is you can walk in with the hope of buying it off the shelf).

The Ebuyer machines were ready built, with Windows 7 installed.
 
SO latest update...

I have completely scrapped the PC world idea - going custom PC, I have a friend who has built several so we are going to go for it.

I am basing the system around the monitor really starting with a choice of:
1)Viewsonic VP2365wb
2)Samsung Syncmaster F2380
3)HP LP2275
4)Dell U2311

I think I will go with win 7 home premium (don't see any benefit to pro or ultimate for my uses - unless anyone can advise otherwise?) but will have to pay full whack as not a student ...

Will def have 4GB DDR3 RAM and poss have and AMD quad core thingy! The budget has been increased a bit to help thing but we should still be in the region of £600 (he says!)
 
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