Ninehigh
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| posted on 29/5/10 at 03:17 PM |
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New comp for missus
Seeing as the old one will barely run Firefox for 10 minutes, it's time for a new one.
So the first question is, off-the-shelf or self built? I'm more asking if there's any point making one myself or if it would end up being
more expensive just to have a nicer looking chassis? She mostly uses it for browsing but it does have to be quick.
If self-built what parts to reccomend?
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mcerd1
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| posted on 29/5/10 at 03:29 PM |
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whats you budget and how high a spec. do you want ?
if its just a cheap machine for office work / internet then you can normally find a good deal off the shelf
for the higher end specs I think its often cheaper to build it yourself
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r1_pete
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| posted on 29/5/10 at 03:52 PM |
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IMO, unless you're into mega gaming, a laptop is the best bet, for £4-500 you can get a really good machine, and save a ton of space......
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Ninehigh
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| posted on 29/5/10 at 03:53 PM |
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Well I'd like a high spec but mainly so it'll last a few years. My laptop was middle of the road 2 years ago and it's pants slow
now.
Budget is f-all really I'll be getting it in bits until August.
It is mostly for browsing and simple games but there is the odd cpu-heavy application running.
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SeanStone
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| posted on 29/5/10 at 04:05 PM |
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It depends just how cpu heavy the tasks you will be loading it with are. Also depends on the types of games.
Self building is fun (if you like that sort of thing) and if you are looking for high end, it is cheaper.
If you are going to buy in stages then I wouldn't reccomend you either don't, or if you must, then buy things like case, power supply,
monitor first. Things like cpu's, motherboard and graphics cards change price a lot. DDR3 and DDR2 are quite often swapping places with being
the cheapest often as well.
So I would save what you need, then re-asess the price of what you need when you have the money.
More specifics on what your intended is would make it much easier to make reccomendations.
Will you use it for music? watching films? video editing? etc etc
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Ninehigh
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| posted on 29/5/10 at 04:12 PM |
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Mostly browsing, a good chunk of playing games (nothing power hungry like Red Alert 3)
Yeah a bit of video, picture and sound editing but it's not the primary use. I'm more after a higher spec as the one she has now (which
has barely hit 5 years old) won't run any new game. Mind you neither will my 2 year old laptop.
Oh yeah and it currently houses about 85gb of music and video, but I can transfer that drive 
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SeanStone
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| posted on 29/5/10 at 04:30 PM |
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So really you need something mid range at most.
A quad core will put you in good stead for later applications being optimised for more cores. 4gb of meoery isn't too expensive and a terrabyte
hard drive isn't much either.
If building is the way you want to go I can advise you on what to get etc. Might even be able to sort you out a legit educational version of windows
7. I am a student
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Ninehigh
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| posted on 29/5/10 at 04:45 PM |
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Oh yes I remember that offer, available to anyone with a .ac.uk email. I shall have to pick that one up
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b16mts
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| posted on 29/5/10 at 05:36 PM |
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i keep getting excited about this one!!
http://www.medion.com/ms/aldi/md8850/uk/
think it goes on sale at aldi tomorrow, but'll probably all be gone by 10.05am
dunno if its actually any good though!
Martin
who says you can't drive a kit car when you're 6'5"?
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mcerd1
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| posted on 29/5/10 at 05:47 PM |
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I know what you mean about building something with enough power to last - but in practice I find mine only last 2-3 years between rebuilds/major
upgrades
last time round I built myself a decent spec one with a i7 (920 - the entry level LGA1366 chip) and a good ASUS board (same one alienware machines
used on there first i7's)
that cost me ~£400 on it own
then £100 for some new good quality RAM (DDR3) and £125 for a good 1kW PSU and £99 for a retail copy of win7 pro (32 & 64 bit versions)
and another £80 for a 1TB disk and another £70 for a sound card
I already had a spare case, DVD-RW etc... and I'd bought the new graphiccs card a few months before to flog the last out of my old machine
(GTX285)
add that lot up and its not cheap   (those prices are mostly 6 months old now)
[Edited on 29/5/2010 by mcerd1]
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gottabedone
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| posted on 29/5/10 at 06:23 PM |
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If you don't have a lot of cash then try something like
this and add a hard drive- a few companies do bundles.
Stick with your case/mouse/keyboard and screen until you can afford to upgrade them. I wouldn't bother with a sound card as onboard sound is
good these days. Use the onboard graphics until you get bored with the quality then add a card.
A quality machine need not cost a fortune!!
oh, and if you can build a car then a computer is nothing
Steve
[Edited on 29/5/10 by gottabedone]
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bmseven
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| posted on 29/5/10 at 07:06 PM |
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These guys are spot on
Novatech
BMW 7 Resource
Bures Pit anyone?
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dhutch
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| posted on 29/5/10 at 07:31 PM |
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Ive bought my last desktop and laptop second hand through forums from people casting off old gear. Works well for me.
Maybe try and pick up a SFF microatx box?
Daniel
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britishtrident
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| posted on 29/5/10 at 09:16 PM |
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End of line, ex-demo and ex-lease boxes from Morgan computers are what we use -- good company to deal with been buying from them for near 25 years
never had any problems. One client had a dodgy monitor from them but it was replaced within 24hrs.
http://www.morgancomputers.co.uk/shop/products2.asp?CategoryID=407
[I] “ What use our work, Bennet, if we cannot care for those we love? .”
― From BBC TV/Amazon's Ripper Street.
[/I]
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Ninehigh
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| posted on 30/5/10 at 09:41 AM |
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I've not built a car yet but I have done a comp before, it's burnt out now (overclocking is bad without great cooling boys and girls!) but
some parts of it live on in the missus's dying one.
Yeah I could get away without hard drives (got 2 big ones here, both over 400Gb iirc) and the cd drives (have several now) but I would need a new case
otherwise I'll be all "Happy birthday!" and she'd be "What? You put windows 7 on it? It barely runs XP!"
All looks good now, just gonna have to stash some money away now
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