Thread: Buying / building a new PC- opinions?

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

The less you spend, the less it will stand the Test of Time.


Of course the opposite is also true

I'm familiar with the performance reliability trade off.
Pretty much the story of my life when it comes to the vehicles I've owned!
(I mod them to be fast then they break )

Toxic avenger, I am in IT and have a background in electronics. I have custom built many pc's in the past but these days I don't think it is really worth your time. (unless you want to do it for fun or learning). I would recommend that you have a look at pc authority web site or similar for the category winning pc builds from various pc shops, check what the best thing is for your needs / at your pricepoint. Places like TI computers win these regularly - many shops create special builds at a good price to win these awards. This will give you a solid idea of what you should get for your money.

I agree with 33chinacars build philosophy - 250Gb SSD, 1-2Tb HDD, lots of memory and a decent video card. You should be able to get that on your budget Good luck with it



David

look at msy systems for an idea on whats current

I know this bloke...

He runs some Land Rover Forum thingy bob...

Apparently in his "spare" time he works on / builds / repairs PCs...

Decent sort of a bloke... Perhaps dropping him a line would:
- Help with your decision
- Help small business
- Save you some Ca$h

not sure of pricing, but if it helps, my local pc man recommends lenovo. I've just replaced my toshiba satellite and very happy except for learning a couple of new different key locations.

Originally Posted by vnx205

Linux has become a lot more user friendly in the last decade. None of the pensioners on whose machines I have installed it find it difficult to adapt to.

Originally Posted by Eevo

Are you suggesting that:

• Linux has become less user friendly.
• Linux always was user friendly.
• The pensioners on whose computers I installed Linux are a particularly tech savvy group of geeks.

I know we have had a discussion in the past about Linux, but my reason for claiming that it is user friendly is that a group of elderly acquaintances with an extremely limited understanding of computers were able to do everything they needed to do with no problems at all when Linux was installed on their computers.

They installed their printers with nothing more than a brief explanation from me about how to do it. When they switched on with either wireless or cable connection, the internet was available to them with no fuss and no need to resort to command line instructions as was the case a decade or more ago.

I'm not claiming that Linux is for everyone, but some of the aforementioned pensioners were quite impressed when a Word document created on an Apple computer would not open on an older version of Office on a Windows machine, but opened automatically on a Linux machine with Libre Office.

I know that people with some specialised needs would not be well served by Linux, but there seem to be a lot of people with more general needs who would be better off with Linux, especially if they have old equipment, and most of them don't even know that Linux exists.

I built one a while back and this is what I did based on my research.

Oem or custom?
-amd or Intel or X?
- video card?
- ssd drives or standard?
- has linux got more user friendly in the past 10 years? I've experienced red hat, debian and even spent some time without a gui in slackware
-going for reliability and performance at a modest price.

Custom
Intel
NVidia
SSD for operating system and HDD for storage.
Win 7

Originally Posted by 33chinacars

I'm certainly no expert on the subject. But not long ago have one build to my specs after doing a bit of research. Mainly used for internet / accounting / word proccessing / emails.

125 gb SSD ( should have gone 250 gb )
1 tb HDD
16 gb ram
2 gb dedicated graphics card
DVD burner X 2
Running Windows 7

Think thats it . Very happy

I did much the same. I'd also recommend a 250Gb SSD over a 125. I got a 2Tb HDD and am filling that up quite handily....
Mine has 8Gb RAM I think but 16Gb would be better.

I got a DVD/Blu-Ray burner and have used it to copy stuff TO the computer but have not once had occasion to burn anything TO a disc. For me just a Blu-Ray reader would be fine but the price difference is only small so I suppose its worth it "just in case".

32gig is even better again