Spec me a PC

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GaryK26

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Gary
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So my trusted home PC is getting close to retirement and I need to buy a new one. I prefer the idea of a desktop rather than laptop and am leaning towards Dell as they seem to be reliable and not bad value.

Although I consider myself computer literate, I'm not up to speed on the processors. Do I go for AMD or Intel? If Intel, do I really need to go for i5 / i7 or would Core2 Quad Core been sufficient?

What I would be using the PC for is:
- Photoshop (CS3)
- Lightroom 2 or 3
- General use (internet, MS Office, etc)
- some gaming (ideal if it can run Modern Warfare 2 which my current system wont due to graphics card)


Budget is limited to approx £500 (could possibly stretch to £600) and I dont need a monitor with it.
 
I think i7 may be out of your budget. i5 will be a nice system. A 750 which is 4 cores, 4 threads (basically quad core) is a good base. A mid range graphics card like an ATI 5850 would allow you to play COD4, etc. Aim for 4Gb ram and a 64-bit OS and you'll be good to go

Do you need the whole base unit or just cpu/mobo/ram ?
 
GaryK26 said:
What I would be using the PC for is:
- Photoshop (CS3)
- Lightroom 2 or 3
- General use (internet, MS Office, etc)
- some gaming (ideal if it can run Modern Warfare 2 which my current system wont due to graphics card)
Click to expand...

also i pretty much do what you do (CS3, LR2.6, CODMW2 etc) on the following:

core 2 quad Q9550
8gb DDR2
ati XFX 4650 1GB

CS3 runs nicely, LR runs nicely and only really bogs out on processor when batch exporting 700 odd low res images and while the 4650 isnt the best card in the world CODMW2 runs nicely on medium detail.
 
Thanks for the info guys.
I have taken a look at Dell - what other manufacturers are worth considering?

Thanks
Gary
 
I'd agree on the 5850 although I'd probably put it in the mid to high range because there is so much below it and the only cards currently above it are the new Nvidia 4xx series, ATI 5870 and 5970 series.

Plus, if you get a 5850 (about £250), you can always add another one (Crossfire) on there next year when prices are lower and boost your power even more. According to reviews at Hexus.net. 2 x 5850's out performs a single Nvidia GTX480 AND an ATI 5970 for pretty much the same costs.
 
If you want to make a gaming computer then you definitely do for AMD. and if you want to work with heavy application the you should go for Intel. now a day intel processor is costly then AMD but new i5 and i7 give grate performance then AMD.
 
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