Looking for advice on buying a new pc please

deanos

Oneday77 wrote: »

Blue Mars do not support the ATi Radeon 4350 Graphics card and the extra £60 for the Geforce220 card from Dell is a rip off.

Looking at Blue Mars the 4350 will be fine , there are loads of cards listed that are less powerful on that list

http://www.bluemarsonline.com/about/videocards.html

power consumption can be found below, seems they may be the same as there are 2 versions of the quad core

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CPU_power_dissipation#

Athlon X2 7550 Kuma (65 nm) 2.5 GHz 95 W
Phenom X4 9750 Agena (65 nm) 2.4 GHz 125 W or 95 W

The Intel chips run as low as 65W

Confuzzled

Oneday77 wrote: »

You could consider: -
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-197-OK&groupid=43&catid=1444&subcat=
+
http://www.software4students.co.uk/Microsoft_Windows_7_Professional_64_bit_Upgrade_Edition-details.aspx
£410
Since you daughter is at school, assuming you still have an XP disc lying about to upgrade from.

thanks for the suggestions...

unfortunately i don't have the xp disc, as is normal these days when ordering a computer from a company they only send you the rescue disc not the full thing so i couldn't add it to a system that didn't have an OS to start with... i must say i find that extremely annoying but there's nought i can do about it i suppose

my daughter is only 8 and isn't registered at a local school even as she's home educated until i go back to uni full time next year, would she really qualify as a student for this offer? and if so what in the world would i give them as 'proof'
technically i'm a student too, part time through the OU but i'm only doing one course and i've found that i get laughed at when trying to ask for student deals, appearantly i'm not enough of a student :cool: i'm all up for considering something i'd have to add an OS to but it's got to be cost effective and i can't spend more than 400 quid total but if you know a way i could pull that off then please tell me because then i could consider a model without the OS

cheers!

EDITED: YAY finally someone considers part time at OU to be a 'real student' after a bit of digging i found out where to search to see if i'm eligible and the OU is on there so that's now a consideration, thank you! EDITED AGAIN: well whilst i'm eligible for upgrades they don't do full disc packages 'Buy this upgrade for Windows 7 Professional 64-bit and upgrade from your Windows XP or Vista PC' and 'Under Software4Students programme Microsoft provides students with an upgrade license to use operating system software. For a list of supported upgrade paths please check here. Microsoft restricts volume licensing programs to operating system upgrade products. If you need the full system product, you will have to buy it commercially.'

oh well! thanks anyway for the no OS option

Oneday77

deanos wrote: »

Looking at Blue Mars the 4350 will be fine , there are loads of cards listed that are less powerful on that list

http://www.bluemarsonline.com/about/videocards.html

power consumption can be found below, seems they may be the same as there are 2 versions of the quad core

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CPU_power_dissipation#

Athlon X2 7550 Kuma (65 nm) 2.5 GHz 95 W
Phenom X4 9750 Agena (65 nm) 2.4 GHz 125 W or 95 W

The Intel chips run as low as 65W

I know what you mean Deanos but it is the bottom of the pile after integrated and since its a new PC it's a shame to be limited buy the low stuff.
PC building is easy but not for everyone, if you don't fancy it then cool. Know your limits
Most of the good low power components will only come in special manufacturer eco models ie expensive and marketed hype
Or self build with this 45w Athlon Processor which isn't an option.

Oneday77

Pretty sure OU students would qualify for the OS. They need no proof other than your study centre is listed on their accepted list of education centres.
I only suggested the XP disc as technically the software is an upgrade. I got is as my wife is studying, myine never prompted me for my XP disc as I have set mine up as 2 OS on the same PC, Dual Boot. There is the risk it validated off the back of that. If anyone can say that the OS upgrade will be fine without then it's an option.
There are other student software suplliers too you could try.

deanos

Oneday77 wrote: »

I know what you mean Deanos but it is the bottom of the pile after integrated and since its a new PC it's a shame to be limited buy the low stuff.
PC building is easy but not for everyone, if you don't fancy it then cool. Know your limits
Most of the good low power components will only come in special manufacturer eco models ie expensive and marketed hype
Or self build with this 45w Athlon Processor which isn't an option.

yeah i know what you are saying but most pc's come with lower end cards, it may work fine but you can upgrade at a later date if you wish

Gonna check out that CPU myself im toying with the idea of building a new PC myself

Confuzzled

i really want to thank everyone that has chimed in here, you've all been really patient and helpful. i'm not a complete novice but i've been out of the game as far as researching computers for some time as i simply haven't had the funds to buy one.

i suppose it didn't help that i had people over the last year telling me 'oh this will solve your problem' and others insisting 'no that will make it worse you need 'xyz' and most of those people were major gamers that i think don't realise that whilst i want a good gaming experience my idea of good is probably not as exacting as theirs and also because most of them were young and didn't have as many everday expenditures to overide their lust for faster better harder stronger so to speak!

Oneday77

deanos wrote: »

Gonna check out that CPU myself im toying with the idea of building a new PC myself

I said nothing :D:A:D:D

Confuzzled your more than welcome. My first suggestion as long as the Dell has a seperate card is probably your best bet tbh. All seperate graphics cards are PCI-E now and any upgrade with in reason should fit. It could even wait a few months as the 4***series cards are being phased out so will only get cheaper hopefully

sarah_h_014

Should your new PC not have Windows 7 or Office readily installed on it, you can get them for £30 (Win7) and £38.95 (Office Ultimate 2007) with Microsoft's student offer. Just search for Ultimate Steal and it's on that website.

:j