Buying a new desktop PC

Saetana

After struggling with my 9 year old PC this year I have now managed to scrape together £500 to buy a new desktop. I use my PC mainly for the internet (including online gaming) and playing casual PC games (Big Fish etc). What I am dithering over is whether to get a dual or quad core processor, I want 4GB RAM in any case as I won't be buying a new PC again for a few years after this and I want a dedicated graphics card, onboard would probably do for now but maybe not in a year or two. I'm also undecided whether to get a whole system for £500 or to spend £400 on just a tower and get a separate monitor as cheap systems usually compromise on monitor quality and I have seen reasonable ones for around £100 or even a bit less.

The main thing I need is to get the best PC for my money that I can as we are on a low income and have saved for this purchase for quite a while. Any advice would be much appreciated, there are just so many places to buy a PC and I can't check all of them. I am an intermediate level computer user.

bengalknights

try overclockers they do very good spec pcs and £500 will get you alot

Saetana

I've been looking at Palicomp online and they have a system for £400, quad core AMD overclocked to 3 Ghz which sounds pretty good. I'd need to add a graphics card to it as it only comes with onboard.

I'm not sure I need a quad core processor, I don't video edit or anything like that but this PC will have to last me at least 5 years so I need to futureproof it as much as I can for the money available. The problem is there are so many companies that sell PCs its a case of information overload, lol!

gonzo127

i can fully understand the info overload as there is a lot to take in.

first thing i would say is dont bother buying a pre overclocked system, yes buy one which can be overclocked and then do it yourself when you need the extra power (and your warrenty has ran out due to overclocking invalidating the warrenty) as there are plenty of guides about depending on what parts you have,

duel core CPU's will still be fine in 4-5 years as the programs they are making at the moment have only just started using more than one core and most of the time they do not use the second one much, yes a quad will have the ability to run programs that are optimised for 4 but i still cant see many of them coming about soon - especially when you consider Intel are still selling duel core CPU's in their latest range the Core I so that should tell you they expect them to be fine for a while yet

since you say on board GPU would be fine for now, might it be worth going with on board now and spending the 'saving' on improving some of the other areas and then in a year or 2 when you need a GPU buy one then? of course i do not know how your finances work and if that would be possible but thought i would put it up as a suggestion

anyways have a look at these as they do 3 different systems which can be customised quite a bit, yes each of them is above the £400 starting price however with the customisations can be 'dropped' in price closer to what you are after
http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/LandingPages/megaspecial/worldcup/

Saetana

Thanks Gonzo, thats a great site and definitely on my shortlist. I've seen them advertising in my PC mags but they seemed a bit out of my budget as they do a lot of high spec gaming PCs so I never bothered looking before. And you can customise to the nth degree ;o)

Bromley86

Just wondering which way you jumped. My PC blew up (literally!), so I'm looking for one myself with pretty-much the same conditions as you were, with the exception that I need a dedicated graphics card now and have ~£500 for the base unit.

gonzo127

Bromley one of the places which has come about lately as having some good priced systems is Dinopc, not as much customisation as cyberpower but can in some instances be cheaper

http://www.dinopc.com/shop/pc/configurePrd.asp?idproduct=902
that i quite a good starting point and would give you roughly £100 for customisations, just remember they charge £25 for delivery

spakkker

Ebay seems best for towers -esp. if you have your own OS.