new pc query

doom

hi, a friend has asked if i would post his query here ....... thanks in advance ...

"i am looking for a computer with the top power and performance for many operations to run simultaneously - it has to be way more power packed than my current 3 gig ram and 3.07 mhz processor ... the pc's available in the shops at the moment that seem to be adequate are labelled as 'gaming pcs' - however i do not want to buy it for gaming. are these 'gaming pcs' more suited to gamers only - or can i find what i am looking for in them?"

:beer:

kwikbreaks

Gaming PCs will have top notch graphics cards which may, if you don't need that, represent a waste of money (and electricity).

Don't look in the shops - look online. One buzzword worth trying is "workstation" but if you decide on a high end processor then searching on that will be better as some places advertise anything as being a workstation.

nitr02007

A "Gaming" PC these days normally means it has an adequate to high end graphics card installed which will run modern games well and possibly a custom case.

These PCs are fully functional computers and will excel at all non-gaming tasks - however part of the premium price will be for the graphics card as the top of the range cards at the moment are about £300.

This might seem like a waste of money if you don't play games however recently the graphics card manufacturers have begun to enable their cards to run general purpose software. The cards are basically hugely parallel computing engines and can be used to speed up many non-gaming tasks such as video processing, CAD, simulations etc.

See for more info:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/cuda_home.html
http://www.amd.com/US/PRODUCTS/TECHNOLOGIES/STREAM-TECHNOLOGY/Pages/stream-technology.aspx

momoyama

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/alist

Always your first stop for new PCs or peripherals if you want the best.

CrazysnipeR

Give us the main use of this PC i.e video rendering, running multiple Virtual Machines etc. and how much is your Budget.

doom

CrazysnipeR wrote: »

Give us the main use of this PC i.e video rendering, running multiple Virtual Machines etc. and how much is your Budget.

budget - approx £1000 (could be more)

main use - concerned about running muliple applications - e.g burning a dvd video while downloading huge files in the background, and also having a couple of websites open at the same time, while still able to send and recieve emails with no lag mainly - thanks

mr_fishbulb

doom wrote: »

main use - concerned about running muliple applications - e.g burning a dvd video while downloading huge files in the background,

"You want buy DVD?"

[Deleted User]

doom wrote: »

budget - approx £1000 (could be more)

main use - concerned about running muliple applications - e.g burning a dvd video while downloading huge files in the background, and also having a couple of websites open at the same time, while still able to send and recieve emails with no lag mainly - thanks

In essence, doing nothing that would be considered intensive and certainly not cause to spend £1,000 in doing so.

Any Dell with a dual core processor and 4GB RAM would be more than suitable.

nitr02007

@Mr_fishbulb - LOL :D

The hard disk is gonna be the bottleneck with these sort of applications - but typically any modern mid-spec PC can do all those things at the same time and not break a sweat.

Get a decent speed dual core processor & 4GB of ram and you'll be set.

I updated my PC in Jan with these bits from Ebuyer:
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Item: OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800Mhz/PC2-6400 Memory GOLD DUAL CHANNEL Unbuffered CL5(5-5-5-18)
Cost: 28.69

Item: Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 Socket AM2 Nvidia MCP55P PCI-E 8 Channel audio ATX Motherboard
Cost: 48.57

Item: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Socket AM2 2.6GHz Energy Efficient L2 1MB (2x512KB) Cache Retail Boxed Processor
Cost: 41.71[/FONT]

Total cost was less than £130 and I got a pretty good system now. You dont have to spend loads to get a decent PC.

Marty_J

doom wrote: »

main use - concerned about running muliple applications - e.g burning a dvd video while downloading huge files in the background, and also having a couple of websites open at the same time, while still able to send and recieve emails with no lag mainly - thanks

If he wants to burn DVDs and surf the web (forget about sending emails at the same time - it's not possible), he'll need an 8 core Mac Pro with 32 GB of RAM.

It'll cost him £5,000 though (excluding a monitor), so tell him to get saving!

doom

mr_fishbulb wrote: »

"You want buy DVD?"

Absolutely hilarious - this made my day !!! LOL :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl: