[Jaspersharpe]

Right, I need a new PC. Basically just for storing photos, videos etc and work (I'll need to put an accounts / tax package on it + Sage etc but nothing fancy).

It'll not be used for games or anything else aside from arsing about on the internet so what sort of thing should I get? I'm assuming that I really don't need to spend a lot of money! Also realise that most people end up buying way too high (or totally wrong) spec for what they actually need so want to avoid being shafted.

Already seen that you can get a 1TB External HD for £60 so that would sort backing stuff up etc. I'm clueless about these things though so any advice would be most appreciated.
 

Not entirely sure what my budget is as it'll depend on how much  I have left after being arse raped by HMRC next month but it'll be enough I'd have thought. Hopefully.

[slackline]

This would do you fine, although you'd have to either buy a copy of M$-Win [whatever version you want] as the default is Acers bastardised Linux distro Linpus.  You can then either run M$ under virtualisation or just wipe Linpus and install (although best check its up to the minimum specs of whatever M$-Win version you install).

Oh and it doesn't come with a monitor, keyboard or mouse, but I suspect you may already have these.

Or you could give me ~£600 and I'll build you an identical system to mine...



Spec...



Case Hiper HTC-1K614, Anubis Mid-Tower Alloy Case
PSU SilverStone 500W ST50F-230 v-1.0
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-X48-DS4 - Motherboard - ATX - iX48 - LGA775 Socket - UDMA133, Serial ATA-300 (RAID) - 2 x Gigabit Ethernet - FireWire - High Definition Audio
CPU Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Socket 775 (3.0GHz) 1333FSB 6MB L2 Cache
RAM Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 1066MHz/PC2-8500 XMS2 Memory CL5 2.1V
Graphics nVidia "Palit 9500GT 1GB DDR2 Super + VGA DVI HDMI PhysX and Cuda ready PCI-E Graphics Card
Fan Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Quiet Intel CPU Cooler
HD 1 x Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 16MB Cache
            RAID 2 x Samsung SpinPoint F1 HD103UJ 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache

[Tris]

Do you need peripherals like screen/keyboard/mouse or just the base unit?

[Jaspersharpe]

Ah no I do need everything really as the only kit I have / had is ancient and shit. I want shiny new stuff.

[Tris]

What about one of these then... all in one..

http://uk.insight.com/apps/productpresentation/index.php?product_id=ARRCA06MIS&nbs_search=C%3D102%26S%3D1013%26lang%3Den-gb%26SB%3Dplh%26200055v%3D5%264090v%3DAll-in-one

[slackline]

that desktop would still fit your needs, keyboards, mice and even monitors can be picked up from various places of work pretty easily (there's one of each currently gathering dust in the office here, probably going to nab the LCD monitor for my neighbour but can grab the mouse and keyboard for you).  If you want new they're still relatively cheap anyway.

[Jaspersharpe]

Would it be worth getting someone like you to build something from scratch that was a lot lower spec than your setup or would that not be cost effective in comparison to the ready made examples?

Nothing nickable from work unfortunately.

[slackline]

Would it be worth getting someone like you to build something from scratch that was a lot lower spec than your setup or would that not be cost effective in comparison to the ready made examples?

Probably not, and to be honest I could probably have got as good or better spec machine for less than I paid for all the bits I bought.  My main reason for doing it was a) geek factor b) never built a system from scratch before c) very nice case with lots of space for extras d) geek factor.

Also I couldn't make a nice all-in-one desktop like that which Tris has recommended.

I'd be happy to do it though, but with the disclaimer that I'm not responsible if I inadvertently screw things up by not being properly grounded whilst building it (earthed myself to the radiator before!).

[Johnny Brown]

You could always get Jim to build it. His quotes are certainly competitive.

[lagerstarfish]

Does the Slack---line 9000 have a red light on the front like this?



S---L 9000 "I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do"

Jasper "What are you talking about, SL?"

S---L 9000 "This tax return is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it"

Jasper "I won't argue with you anymore. Open the fridge and get me a beer"

S---L9000 "Jasper, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye."

--------------------

--------------------

S---L 9000 "Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two."

Jasper "I said get me a beer you bastard machine. You've drunk the lot!"

[Jaspersharpe]

 

Cheers for the ideas.........

So I'm thinking that this might be a decent setup for around £300:

http://www.ebuyer.com/bundle/K9TKD67P4/167153 Which is the mini thing slackers recommended with a 2GB memory upgrade.

This monitor....... http://www.ebuyer.com/product/169051

Keyboard and mouse.......http://www.ebuyer.com/product/132140

And then as you can get XP for about £35, put that on it. A friend of mine in prison says he can get a copy for me but for the sake of £35 I think it would be better just to use the genuine one. I also realise that everyone is using Windows 7 now but I'm not spending £150 on an OS and I don't know how to get it for FUCK ALL. And I'm not geek enough to use the penguin.

Total cost £299.95

IS THIS A GOOD PLAN!? DO I NEED ANYTHING ELSE!?

As you can probably tell, I've been thinking about this for months without actually doing anything about it.

[Jaspersharpe]

IS THIS A GOOD PLAN!? DO I NEED ANYTHING ELSE!?

Oh and, as I mentioned, this.....

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/181159

[slackline]

Looks good Jasper.  The computer actually comes with mouse and keyboard (apologies for misleading you), but it doesn't indicate whether they're wireless or not, so if thats a feature you want the one's you've selected look fine.  Good size and price on the monitor too.

One final thing to check is the minimum requirements for the version of XP you want to install, I'm sure it will be fine.

Oh and don't forget there's no CD-ROM on it, so you're going to have to do some jiggery pokery to get M$ Win XP onto a USB stick and install from that or consider getting an external drive like this ( bit of an oversight)

(sorry for the late reply went to the cinema last night then a few drinks  )

[Jim]

look at dell outlet site. you can get half decent spec desktop with win 7 on it for about 250.
get a 22" monitor, no smaller as well, can be got for about 100

[GCW]

Probably not, and to be honest I could probably have got as good or better spec machine for less than I paid for all the bits I bought.  My main reason for doing it was a) geek factor b) never built a system from scratch before c) very nice case with lots of space for extras d) geek factor.

Every machine I've built has saved significant amounts compared to what you'd pay for a ready built machine.  Having said that, the more expensive it is the more you save.

Try building one yourself, it's very therapeutic.

[Jaspersharpe]

Oh and don't forget there's no CD-ROM on it, so you're going to have to do some jiggery pokery to get M$ Win XP onto a USB stick and install from that or consider getting an external drive like this ( bit of an oversight)

Cheers slackers. Already have a decent external CD-ROM so that's cool.

look at dell outlet site. you can get half decent spec desktop with win 7 on it for about 250.
get a 22" monitor, no smaller as well, can be got for about 100

Nice one Jim. I'll have a look.

[Jaspersharpe]

Would this do? Looks like better spec than the last one + includes Win7.

You were right by the way Jim, I found a really nice 22" monitor for £104.

Total cost of this system (inc the external HD + some speakers) £381.60 so only £20 more than the previous setup. Fuck me this is confusing.

[slackline]

Looks like a good bet, doesn't list graphics card, but as all you want it for is simple surfing/pics/vid storage etc. these aren't really points that require much consideration.  Processor is only single core and moderate speed, but again since you're not going to be pounding it it shouldn't be an issue.

Fuck me this is confusing.

Yep, lots of letters and numbers that I spend ages looking up the meaning and significance of.  Simple/general rule is the higher the better.

[Jaspersharpe]

Yeah there's one with a dual core processor but that's another £40 extra and I think it'd be overkill anyway for what I need it for.

The spec of the PC I use at work is pathetic in comparison and it still works ok for the type of shit I'll be doing at home.

[tomtom]

Yeah there's one with a dual core processor but that's another £40 extra and I think it'd be overkill anyway for what I need it for.

The spec of the PC I use at work is pathetic in comparison and it still works ok for the type of shit I'll be doing at home.

Dual cores good - even the atom ones kind of do it (someone will know more than me..) - if you've got a flash intensive website or video playing on one browser window it doesnt cripple the machine for anything else (in my experience)... defo worth the extra sheets.

Watching this thread with interest as the GF needs a new desktop...

More genius from Lagers earlier    
T

[Jaspersharpe]

Shut up. I'm not spending any more.

Seriously, the bag of shit PC I'm writing this on is about 5 years (old and was shit then). It manages to do plenty at once (for my needs) and I can't see me ever doing more at once at home.

[slackline]

The computer I recently replaced was about 9 or 10 years old and was fine for 95% of my requirements, it was getting sluggish when I was stitching pictures together.

The laptop I use is a Dell Latitude X300 that I was kindly allowed to keep when I left a job back in January 2006.  I'd already had it for three years before leaving the job.  Opened it up earlier this year to stick a bluetooth module in it, thankfully it worked when I put it back together (the second time, managed to fry the RAM playing around with it as I'd not taken the battery out  ).



A Mac fanboy friend of mine said "Well the new Macs have eight-cores" when I was telling him about the new system I'd built.  WTF are you using eight cores for when all you do is surf the web, write emails, and use word-processing and spreadsheets.  Even the fancy eye-candy under OSX doesn't need that much processing power.

Its a complete myth/con that you need to have the latest and greatest computer.

Its not helped by the revisions of M$-Win continually requiring higher and higher specs, which suits the Wintel cartel fine, but just wastes normal people's money.

I've an old Sun Ultra 10 (very c.1998 old 64-bit computer) you could have if you want Jasper, needs a new HD though and you'd have to re-install OpenSolaris or some flavour of Linux on it 

[slackline]

STOP PRESS : I take it all back 48-core prototype CPU 

[Jaspersharpe]

A Mac fanboy friend of mine said "Well the new Macs have eight-cores" when I was telling him about the new system I'd built.  WTF are you using eight cores for when all you do is surf the web, write emails, and use word-processing and spreadsheets.  Even the fancy eye-candy under OSX doesn't need that much processing power.

Its a complete myth/con that you need to have the latest and greatest computer.

That's exactly what I'm trying to avoid!

Its not helped by the revisions of M$-Win continually requiring higher and higher specs, which suits the Wintel cartel fine, but just wastes normal people's money.

Presumably the Windows 7 that the Dell comes with will run ok on that system?

[tomtom]

Win 7 runs fine... slows down if you've got 1gm ram, but is all fine and dandy on my puny netbook so should be no problem.