Looking for a new desktop

jermaindefoe

Going to spend a £1000 on a new pc and want to no which is the best

so far i have found this one

HP Pavilion Elite HPE-083UK Desktop - Desktops at Ebuyer

dont know if it can be bettered or not but would welcome your opinions <will be paying finance btw>

penrhyn

What about a nice Dell Alienware Area 51?

jermaindefoe

penrhyn wrote: »

What about a nice Dell Alienware Area 51?

they are too expensive

1200 max

gonzo127

what are you actually wanting to do with it?

that sort of range i would be looking at a custom build (if not making myself) somewhere like cyberpower, i would seriously suggest buying custom PC magazine and checking through it for adverts and 'best buy' parts to see what to look out for

jermaindefoe

gonzo127 wrote: »

what are you actually wanting to do with it?

that sort of range i would be looking at a custom build (if not making myself) somewhere like cyberpower, i would seriously suggest buying custom PC magazine and checking through it for adverts and 'best buy' parts to see what to look out for

will be used for software engineering (job) and accounting work (partners job)

not to fussed about sending the money as the gf and i are splitting it both ways

wanted a nice computer too last and will be playing the odd game. We have 4 laptops already so thought we would get a nice big powerfull desktop. I only came here as i thought you would all know where the bargains where to be found

gonzo127

well if you are doing a software engineering job you might be better looking at the core i7 920 which use's triple channel memory which does help when rendering things as it has a lot more bandwidth on the system, however this is a assumption that you will be using a professional applications to render very large things, otherwise the CPU in that one is a good choice

the hard drive split isn’t bad as it will allow for splitting of your data and operating system however it is person choice how people like to do this, i personally prefer a smaller operating system drive and a huge data storage drive

the graphics card is alright however the current generation of ATI graphics are better http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-310-5970,2491-7.html is a great chart comparing the cards from both manufacturers

all other things on it are pretty much generic, which would be my personal worry with this system

What motherboard? You would be surprised how much difference a good one can make to performance even without overclocking your system

What cooling is used? Bad cooling can make a system sound like a jumbo jet taking off!

What RAM? – 8gb is still a little over kill for most things and how fast is it and what latency does it have – this is also a very cheap and easy to do yourself upgrade in future and 4gb is usually more than enough for 95% of people, although if doing very intensive things 8 would help!

What power supply? - this is one of the biggest ones to find out since a LOT of manufacturers build systems with headline components and use rubbish generic extras, however with a power supply this can be disastrous as if your power supply blows up it can take out everything else in the computer (usual ones are the motherboard and processor) which can make it a very large repair bill

The above things are the reason I would suggest either building it your self if you can (and it isn’t really that hard) or buying from a custom computer builder as they will allow you to specify out of a choice of components which ones you want instead of what the manufacturer managed to get the cheapest

Cyberpower systems are good from what I know

You also have
Scan
pc specialist
Arbico
Cube247
Yoyotech

There are others out there and I have NOT dealt with any of them myself even the ones listed as i build my own however the above have all been around a while and usually allow a reasonable amount of customization

Hope this helps a little bit

quick edit, if you dont want to buy the custom PC magazine i also go on this website www.bit-tech.net which is very helpful and is joined with custom pc

ddoris

No such pc as "best".
Whatever you do get, make sure you install a spell-checker type program.

penrhyn

..... a British English programme possibly?:rotfl:

ddoris

penrhyn - I did wonder about "program(me)" but as I don't use a spell-checker my English, UK version, of XP didn't complain ! Maybe should brush up on text-speak ?
I think gonzo has raised good points, esp. about the motherboard, I would also google all major components.
You will easily get a pc to last - but it will not be up to date with latest spec.- the number of new cpu types in the last two years ,for instance, is hard to keep up with, imo .