help needed to buy a pc

muckipupz

personally wouldnt spend anymore on an 8 year pc. typical pc world adding ram for you at the time of sale surely they should have pointed you to a higer spec at the time.

gonzo127

now i might have missed this but since you are looking like a new system is on the cards more than a tune up (still suggest you look at this as a old system can be used as a home media pc if connected up to a tv) but what is your maximum budget? and do you mind refurbs? also do you need a full system with monitor or just a base unit?

another thing to consider, since you use photoshop i woudl suggest looking into a system with a low level descrite nVidia graphics card because of CUDA support inside photoshop - which basically takes some of the load from the CPU and passes it onto the graphics card, this can massively speed up the program and when you consider the cards can be got for £20-30 it would be a worth while purchase

hard drive - well these are expensive at the moment (flooding in tailand destroyed the factories/stock so prices have gone up) but over the next year or 2 they will start to come down again so i would suggest to go for a faster CPU over a bigger hard drive (within reason of course) because if space becomes an issue again you can also pick up a external hard drive - which i think someone has already posted is under £100 for 2tb (2000gb) http://www.ebuyer.com/255189-buffalo-2tb-drivestation-hd-lb2-0tu2-uk-usb-2-0-hd-lb2-0tu2-uk

ram - same as the hard drive this is really VERY cheap at the moment with 8gb of ddr3 ram going for under £35 and 12gb of ddr3 going for under £45

i know both of the above do start adding up in price, but the main thing is the keep this in mind that some things are cheaper/easier to upgrade than others and space/ram are probably 2 of the easiest things to upgrade

robmar0se

gonzo127 wrote: »

now i might have missed this but since you are looking like a new system is on the cards more than a tune up (still suggest you look at this as a old system can be used as a home media pc if connected up to a tv) but what is your maximum budget? and do you mind refurbs? also do you need a full system with monitor or just a base unit?

another thing to consider, since you use photoshop i woudl suggest looking into a system with a low level descrite nVidia graphics card because of CUDA support inside photoshop - which basically takes some of the load from the CPU and passes it onto the graphics card, this can massively speed up the program and when you consider the cards can be got for £20-30 it would be a worth while purchase

hard drive - well these are expensive at the moment (flooding in tailand destroyed the factories/stock so prices have gone up) but over the next year or 2 they will start to come down again so i would suggest to go for a faster CPU over a bigger hard drive (within reason of course) because if space becomes an issue again you can also pick up a external hard drive - which i think someone has already posted is under £100 for 2tb (2000gb) http://www.ebuyer.com/255189-buffalo-2tb-drivestation-hd-lb2-0tu2-uk-usb-2-0-hd-lb2-0tu2-uk

ram - same as the hard drive this is really VERY cheap at the moment with 8gb of ddr3 ram going for under £35 and 12gb of ddr3 going for under £45

i know both of the above do start adding up in price, but the main thing is the keep this in mind that some things are cheaper/easier to upgrade than others and space/ram are probably 2 of the easiest things to upgrade

This is a good analysis, and makes a lot of good common sense. Typically the motherboard/cpu are not usually upgraded, but everything else can relatively inexpensively/easily be replaced or added to.

SteveJH200

The OP's computer will not take the cheaper DDR3 ram or a modern PCIe graphics card. The RAM will be the more expensive DDR 184 pin and only an AGP graphics card will fit, so the motherboard is not worth upgrading.

robmar0se

SteveJH200 wrote: »

The OP's computer will not take the cheaper DDR3 ram or a modern PCIe graphics card. The RAM will be the more expensive DDR 184 pin and only an AGP graphics card will fit, so the motherboard is not worth upgrading.

Steve, Just to be clear both mine and gonzo's posts are referring to a new PC, rather than upgrading the old one, which we both felt is not worth investing in new components. Okay?

SteveJH200

robmar0se wrote: »

Steve, Just to be clear both mine and gonzo's posts are referring to a new PC, rather than upgrading the old one, which we both felt is not worth investing in new components. Okay?

Sorry, misunderstood. In that case I agree:beer:

peacellily

thanks for all the posts there, still doing lots of reasearch & counting the pennies at the moment.

A new one is definately on the cards for sure, please keep adding links & suggestions.

closed

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peacellily

no threats found

closed

The idea was that you post a hijackthis log while you make your mind up