Replacing home 'workhorse'

heather_p03

I'd welcome any advice/opinions on replacing our 2002 Packard Bell iMedia 5069.

The machine will be used for email, school work, surfing the net including YouTube. It will replace an Intel P4 with 2x256 Ram, 40GB hard drive and 15" monitor.

I have looked at Dell Inspiron 560 (we already have an Inspiron 560s) and Packard Bell iXtreme X6622 (Currys) as I have had no reason to complain about Packard Bell machines.

Both are Intel Core 2 Quad-core Q8300 with same specs. Both have 1TB SATA (7200) hard drive.

PB comes with Windows 7 Home Premium but I could upgrade the Dell to Windows 7 Professional.

Graphics card: PB - NVIDIA GeForce GT320 (1GB mem); Dell NVIDIA GeForce G310 (512MB mem).

Monitor - PB has 23" Viseo monitor, would choose 18.5" HD W/S monitor from Dell.


Dell has 6144MB RAM (2x2048,2x1024); PB has 4GB.


I am tempted by the Dell with Windows Professional. With Quidco, the price would be approx £640 and £620 for the Packard Bell.

I'd welcome any opinions on this matter.

Thanks in advance.

TheodoreMasters

If all you are doing is email, school work and surfing the net you do not need a quad core. Unless the school work is graphical or 3D work.

Both look like overkill for what you need.

Why are you upgrading anyway?

heather_p03

Hi. The machine is full and falling apart. I'd rather have a high spec machine and hopefully keep it for 8 or so years again.

TheodoreMasters

I understand that.

As much as I hate recommending prebuilds I'd suggest the dell, That'd last you probably 3-4 maybe even 5 years before something fails.

But if you got the Inspiron 570 (From the desktop deals), It'd last you just as long and is a good £100 cheaper.

Also you have no reason to upgrade the operating system.

JasX

heather_p03 wrote: »

I'd rather have a high spec machine and hopefully keep it for 8 or so years again.

Very sensible move, the Q8300 is fairly mid range anyways these days and a good choice.

You have no requirement whatsoever for Window7 Professional over home edition unless you're doing something odd with a home network.

The Graphics card on the PB is a good two and a half times more powerful than the dell so reason in itself to discount the dell.

Basically no reason to trade off 2.5x more raw GPU ower for a bunch of networking features you'd never use. however Dell build quality would be slightly higher.

Often I caution against PBs traditionally 'below average' build quality but you seem to have done ok with your 2002 machine.

Worth looking at the other threads on desktop recommendations posted on this forum in the last 48 hours as I'm fairly sure they they were pointed towards similar spec machines (Q8300 based with similar/more powerful graphics cards) for around the £430 range however they were without a monitor.

EDIT: links to related threads on Desktop advice in the last week, the dino PC place looks fairly promising with a fair few customisation options...

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2707453

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2706901

quidsinquentin

Anybody got a link to the Dells mentioned in here please?

Cheers

Hammyman

Windows Professional is an utter waste of money for anyone but corporate users. For what you're wanting to do, the lowest spec PC you can buy will be more than ample.

ddoris

As above a basic dual core intel cpu is going to be 4 to 15 times as fast as your "P4",memory much faster, h/d etc. all better and faster.
You could stop your pc from being "full" v. easily.
Any 8 year old pc is going to be very sad, same for 6yrs or 4.
Any idea what you need a quad core for??

John_Gray

Just a note that Packard Bell is now a trading name of Acer, so the quality is likely to have improved since the dark days when Packard Bell PCs were not highly regarded. (That's assuming you regard Acer as building computer equipment of adequate quality!) There was never any connection with Hewlett Packard, either.

tronator

Hammyman wrote: »

Windows Professional is an utter waste of money for anyone but corporate users. For what you're wanting to do, the lowest spec PC you can buy will be more than ample.

Some people might like one of the additional features. It's also supported until 2020, and not until 2015 like the Home Premium.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7_editions#Windows_7_Professional

Windows 7 Professional

This edition is targeted towards enthusiasts and small business users.[17] It includes all the features of Windows 7 Home Premium, and adds the ability to participate in a Windows Server domain.[17] Additional features include operating as a Remote Desktop server, location aware printing, Encrypting File System, Presentation Mode, Software Restriction Policies (but not the extra management features of AppLocker) and Windows XP Mode.[17] Like Enterprise, Microsoft will support this edition until 2020.

sharkie

personally for £421.26 (inc vat and delivery) I would go for the dell, then buy a separate monitor - if needed and you should still be £100 in pocket and that price came from the dell refurb shop

Personally, you will probably get a faster PC, better spec, at a lower cost, with a longer warranty if you built your own, or bought a bundle and slotted it in.

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/bundles.html
http://www.awd-it.co.uk/cpu-memory-motherboard-bundle