pcan you plse help with PC purchase dicision

Lugh_Chronain

Can anyone help with this query regarding a purchase decision of a computer? I have never bought one before and was wondering what would be the best to buy and what specifics I should be looking for.

For what I have been informed I should make sure the processor isn't a Celeron- these are old slow chips and are due to be replaced by Pentium D processors this year. Also it may be better to go for an AMD 64 chip as it's the newer 64 bit processors. The reason I ask this is, as has been pointed out to me, I don't want to become outdated in the next year.

I suppose a Pentium 4 with HT technology would be good as that's pretty modern.

I also hear that there is new software coming out replacing XP, would it be worth my waiting for this to come out or should I purchase now?

And finally, I am prepared to pay under the £400 mark for a new PC.

I would be very grateful indeed if you can help with my query.

Thanks very much in advance.

mr_fishbulb

You might not be able to get a P4 with HT for under £400, but should be able to get a relatively fast P4 or AMD chip.

The XP replacement is Vista and is due out towards the end of this year. The computer requirements for it are likely to be high - specifically the graphics as all the display processing will be done on the graphics card.

But the average user is probably very unlikely to want Vista straight away - I am not planning to buy it.

What do you want the PC for?
Serious gaming?
Lots of digital photo/video work?
Some games?
Mostly Internet and Word Processing?

Lugh_Chronain

I didn’t think I would need the XP replacement as I mostly use PC for e-mail, Internet and Word Processing. Digital photo/video work maybe and some games perhaps.

I will keep an eye out for a P4 or AMD chip type PC, unless someone can point me in the right direction otherwise.

Little_John

Your budget is very limiting. especially if you dont want it to be out of date very soon.

I have built brand new pc's with a P4 3.0 HT including a 17"TFT for about £450 for freinds

Buying anything in your budget will be out of date as you have pointed out AMD 64bit cpu's are available even they are outdated by the dual core CPUs that both AMD and Intel have created. The Pentium D you mention is the Dual core intel cpu. The information you have been fed about Celerons being old and slow is not correct, they are still available and the latest is 3.33Ghz, their disadvantage is that they have a limited (256k) amount of L2 cache memory where the P4's have 512k all he way up to 2MB

A guide for you on the 3 bits that make a difference inside a PC. ok the motherboard does also but when buying that you have to decide on the CPU before anything else.

CPU, speed isnt always better, a 3.2GHz with 1MB of cache will be out performed by a 3.0GHz with 2MB of cache

Memory more is better, there are lots of diferent qualities of memory speeds ect but you wont notice this in general pc usage. people spending silly money on special high spec memory do it to brag about their benchmark test scores.

Hard drives, SATA is the latest connection and is a masive improvement over the old IDE connection some drives are 150mbps some are 300mbps which is SATA2 and better.

Graphics cards are the other thing that make a diference but they onle really matter if you are planning on playing the latest games which for £400 you aint getting a games pc. the top cards are £300+
Everything else is personal choice, monitor size and type a CRT will be alot cheaper than a TFT/LCD. CD roms/DVD writers

I would say dell is your best bet but to get a P4 with a good size drive you need to up your budget a bit

the only p4 system in budget inc delivery and VAT is the Dimension 1100 at £399 remember knock the warrenty down to 90 day

If you are thinking about what is round the corner you will never buy a PC there is always something better round the corner. not always the new software from microsoft is better than whats vailable already.

raymond

Lugh_Chronain wrote:

what specifics I should be looking for.

Just be sure to get one with a spellchecker :rotfl:

Lugh_Chronain

Thank you Little John. I will check out what is on offer in the line of what you have suggested and perhaps up my budget a little. I’m just testing the water at the moment to see what I can get for around £400. Maybe I should be thinking around and above £400 instead I suppose.

Hey Raymond you cheeky monkey!