buying a pc - what do I need??!

bluedog

I will be buying a pc asap but am lost with what I actually am looking for or need. I'd like it to be upgradeable in future as I won't be in a position to buy another one for a good few years. After looking at them online and instore, I'm totally confused by the differing types and current offers but think I'd be best off getting one with Windows media centre with the vista upgrade. I only need the base unit and monitor.

It will be used for music, digital photography and videos (from my camera) family tree and I plan to do alot of writing with it and (hopefully) some online courses. ( I have a full office programme so thats not a concern.) I'm not big on gaming, but do want to play games such as The Sims and mahjong and my son plays red alert 2 and Age of empires. There are only 2 of us that will use it.

Can anyone please suggest the minimum specs that will do all this please? I've seen this offer inon ebuyer and am not sure whether it is any good in the sense of what I need it for.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=24597402534&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X3Jldmlld3M=&product_uid=116052
Finally, is it better to get one that comes with OS disc or preloaded?

studentphil

That one should be fine for pictures and movies, office, internet as it has a nice big HDD to store all your files on.

For games I am not so sure not being a gamer.

superscaper

bluedog wrote:

I'm not big on gaming, but do want to play games such as The Sims and mahjong and my son plays red alert 2 and Age of empires. There are only 2 of us that will use it.

For the gaming side, they are very old games, so pretty much any new pc you buy should run them fine. They definitely run under XP, but as for Vista, they should do.

BillScarab

You need to tell us your budget. By modern standards that hard drive is not particularly big although it is a reasonable size, you could fill it fairly quickly with photos, videos and office documents.

If you're planning on doing Video Editing you need lots of RAM, a decent CPU andlots of disk space.

studentphil

To know if a PC is futue proof is very hard unless you have it custom built and you know if has free RAM slots to upgrade for example.

You need tons of USB ports in this day and age.

But it is safe to assume the New Windows Vista will be the market leader for 5-7 years to come, so your new Machine runs Vista then it should be as future proof as you can get.

studentphil

BillScarab wrote:

You need to tell us your budget. By modern standards that hard drive is not particularly big although it is a reasonable size, you could fill it fairly quickly with photos, videos and office documents.

If you're planning on doing Video Editing you need lots of RAM, a decent CPU andlots of disk space.

160 GB is a fairly large disk for the price of the machine

Though you can get 320 GB at reasonable price now I admit

Though you have to remember that a hour of video at 6MPX quality is about 1GB

bluedog

my budget is up to about £700 but if I can get what I need for less than this then it obviously makes sense.

Since posting, I've had a look at pc next day - are they any good?