Desktop PC buying advixe

murphy's law

Member

Nov 24, 2008

232

• Aug 31, 2015

• #1

Looking to get a new desktop PC & not really up on what is what.

Have a Dell Inspiron that is 5 years old, been happy with it so was thinking to just get the latest version, which is £450 odd (http://m.dell.com/mt/www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-3847-desktop/pd?fl=m&oc=cd84747 - no wireless mouse or keyboard is a downside though). Are there any other makes I should be considering in that price range?

I want it for music, browsing + downloading & streaming TV & film, not games (apart from a cheeky bit of CM01/02 now & then).

In the £500 price range are Dell, PC world etc much the same?

Cheers for any advice.

 

5mins-from-amex

New member

Sep 1, 2011

1,547

coldean

• Aug 31, 2015

• #2

Build it yourself you will end up with a MUCH better PC.

 

W

Wardy

NSC's Benefits Guru

Oct 9, 2003

11,219

In front of the PC

• Aug 31, 2015

• #3

Most of what you want to do will depend more on your bandwidth then the PC itself. Personally I would avoid PC World since their PCs tend to come with a lot of bloatware. Ebuyer are normally good and a quick look shows the following in your price range. http://www.ebuyer.com/670680-exdisp...-i7-4790-16gb-ddr3-ram-2tb-hdd-ebr1-7260-0038

 

W

Wardy

NSC's Benefits Guru

Oct 9, 2003

11,219

In front of the PC

• Aug 31, 2015

• #4

5mins-from-amex said:

Build it yourself you will end up with a MUCH better PC.

Click to expand...

Have to agree with this

 

Barham's tash

Well-known member

Jun 8, 2013

3,613

Rayners Lane

• Aug 31, 2015

• #5

Buy a laptop. For that money you'll get one with huge hard drive space, tonnes of RAM and an awesome processor.

I bought a Lenovo Z50 to replace a desktop and am completely loving it. Only £420 too.

 

H

Husty

Mooderator

Oct 18, 2008

11,991

• Aug 31, 2015

• #6

Would you be happy using the screen of the old one? If so that package doesn't seem like good value.

I'd suggest stumping up the cash (it shouldnt be much) for a Solid State Harddrive (SSD), these are much faster than traditional spinning-wheel harddrives. They make a massive and very much noticeable improvement to PC and application start-up and loading and are well worth the today quite small investment.

The trade-off is that a similar priced SSD Harddrive will have much less storage, say 250GB compared to 1TB storage in an old, slow harddrive. If you have a LOT of music etc then this might be a concern but the average person doesn't come close to acquiring that much data anyway so the smaller capacity shouldnt be a concern.

 

Herr Tubthumper

Well-known member

NSC Patron

Jul 11, 2003

59,487

The Fatherland

• Aug 31, 2015

• #7

Buy one with good spellcheck software.

 

5mins-from-amex

New member

Sep 1, 2011

1,547

coldean

• Aug 31, 2015

• #8

Husty said:

Would you be happy using the screen of the old one? If so that package doesn't seem like good value.

I'd suggest stumping up the cash (it shouldnt be much) for a Solid State Harddrive (SSD), these are much faster than traditional spinning-wheel harddrives. They make a massive and very much noticeable improvement to PC and application start-up and loading and are well worth the today quite small investment.

The trade-off is that a similar priced SSD Harddrive will have much less storage, say 250GB compared to 1TB storage in an old, slow harddrive. If you have a LOT of music etc then this might be a concern but the average person doesn't come close to acquiring that much data anyway so the smaller capacity shouldnt be a concern.

Click to expand...

I run my OS and a couple of games off a SSD and use my HDD for everything else, much quicker load times.

 

perseus

Broad Blue & White stripe

Jul 5, 2003

23,456

Sūþseaxna

• Aug 31, 2015

• #9

I paid 20% an extra and chose a local shop. My specs, no bloatware. The advantages of a local shop is if something goes wrong. Nothing has. Two hard discs, SSD for programs and an ordinary hard disc for files etc. External HD for back-up (probably bought that from PCWorld).

Bought a secondhand flat screen TV in a charuty shop to use as a monitor.

 

beorhthelm

A. Virgo, Football Genius

Jul 21, 2003

35,299

• Aug 31, 2015

• #10

5mins-from-amex said:

Build it yourself you will end up with a MUCH better PC.

Click to expand...

though also doing more than the poster needs. if we take it down the DIY path, just upgrade some bits on the existing one for couple hundred, a freash OS and it will be like new.

Husty said:

The trade-off is that a similar priced SSD Harddrive will have much less storage, say 250GB compared to 1TB storage in an old, slow harddrive. If you have a LOT of music etc then this might be a concern but the average person doesn't come close to acquiring that much data anyway so the smaller capacity shouldnt be a concern.

Click to expand...

trade off is best solved with keeping the OS and apps on the SSD, music, video and other data on standard spinning rust. SSD are bonkers fast and do make massive improvments, really only gets noticed where one needs to load large amounts of data quickly. so a freash install to a new SSD (about £50), add some memory (Crucial will provided correct modules for the model), budget end GPU (say £75), and be like new.

but if do go with a new machine, Dell arent to be sniffed at, i always say to look at the business ranges (Optilex) as they tend to be better built and dont have so much bloat. Or look at the models that simply look nice, some look quite a long way from the beige boxes of old. Or, ask a local shop to spec one, throw some money locally, especially if keeping the monitor (you wont get any improvement here without spending lots, and probably wouldnt notice it)

 

F

Fungus

Well-known member

NSC Patron

May 21, 2004

7,046

Truro

• Aug 31, 2015

• #11

Another vote for (smallish) SSD as system disk, plus a larger HDD for data. Bought my powerful Chillblast with two 2tb hard disks, but they were a real bottleneck (task manager frequently showed them maxed-out, while the processor and memory were barely doing anything). Added a 250gb SSD for Windows, programs, and small data, and it's much better balanced.