New Desktop PC Around £500 - Chillblast? Help!

Maddy25

Hi

I currently have a Laptop and now am looking to by a Desktop PC as it'll keep me at my desk!:D

I've been looking around for the "best budget PC 2012" and came across Chillblast who have won several awards. i usually by HP or Toshiba or something and have never bought "built" ones.

My budget is around £500, the cheaper the better as I am a student with no job!:mad: And have invested my Student loan for a Car!::j

I don't know too much about all the technical computer stuff but know the basics.

My preferable spec is;

-Minimum 500GB hard drive. Preferable 1TB as i have a lot of Videos, Music, Photos and Books.
-8GB Ram
-I think Intel? (NVidia, AMD??:()
-A VERY good DVD burner. 2 DVD burners are a bonus.
-Preferably comes with a monitor, speaker, mouse, keyboard etc.
-Minimum 21" monitor - preferably 24". Bigger the better and Good quality as I watch a lot of Videos.
-Has to have wireless for internet.

I don't really play games as my iPad does that.
A lot of multitasking- e.g. 5 word documents, 3 powerpoints, Google Chrome with 9 tabs plus Itunes music!
Should do that fairly fast and good sound.
Currently have a 140gb laptop + 80GB portable HD+about 70GB memory sticks! And still not enough!
Would love to somehow connect to my TV - Wirelessly?!

I saw this Computer, (I can't add links:()
GOOGLE - "Chillblast Neutrino"

with added;
-54Mbps 802.11g Wireless PCI Adaptor (for Wireless networks)
-Logitech S-220 2.1 Speakers
is £612 inc VAT
if adding another DVD burner is +£20
Adding a 24" monitor is +£80

Is the above PC good at £612?
Any better PC?
Am I looking at the right PC for me?
HELP?!

ANY suggestions would be appreciated.

jayme1

I say that system is a little overpriced for what you need.

Do you definitely want to buy it pre-built or could you build it yourself?

Taking the fact my Core 2 duo 2GHz laptop with 4GB of RAM can do all you want to do you could build yourself a small PC, similar to this HTPC spec, but swap the 4GB of RAM for 8GB and swap the blu-ray for 2 DVD drives and a bigger case that can fit the 2 DVD drives, a 24inch monitor is about £110 and keyboard and mouse can be as low as £10, finally add some Logitech X530 5.1 speakers (5.1 very useful for watching movies) and you would be set.

haven't don't the exact calculations myself but all that should come in just under £500

closed

put laptop on desk, £612 of debt saved.

Maddy25

At Jayme1 - Firstly thank you for your reply. I was giving up hope!

Secondly, I don't really have the time nor the skill to build my own. Their are a LOT of other pre-built computers on Chillblast's website and a lot of them have won awards. Will a different will be better?

At closed- :rotfl: But I don't have the self-restraint! Nah my laptops sloooowing down. it's a 4 year old toshiba.

closed

There's a thread above about how to fix slow machines for nothing

Buy a kensington lock, and give the key to someone.

Awards from magazines that take adverts and do very small scale surveys?

Maddy25

My laptop takes 8 hours to burn a DVD and then says it failed! And its only 15" and I suppose I'm getting bored of it!

Awards from PCPro and Expert Reviews?!

What's a kensington lock?

Cisco001

I would suggest you change PSU, don't get EZCOOL
And I suggest you using usb wifi adaptor than internal card. I find those pci wifi card with weaker signal a your PC usually place at the corner or under the desk.

Intel i5 CPU you chosen is faster than AMD A6 3670K, but the fact is it is over budget.

If you want to stay under £500. You can consider cheaper AMD.

Zoostorm Desktop PC, AMD A6 3670K Quad Core 2.7GHz, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD, DVDRW, AMD HD6530D, No Operating System

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium w/SP1

TP-Link TL-WN821N Wireless-N300 USB Adapter

Xenta Black Wireless 2.4GHz Multimedia Keyboard and Optical Mouse with Nano USB Receiver

Samsung S24b300hl LED LCD Widescreen 23.6" HDMI Monitor

Logitech S220 2.1 Speakers

SailorSam

I just got a new 21.5" monitor from Argos last week for £85 which i thought was good. But looked at it now and it's only £75.
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/6833295/c_1/1|category_root|Office%2C+PCs+and+phones|14418968/c_2/2|14418968|Computers+and+monitors|14419111.htm

Maddy25

Thanks To Cisco001: All those items look good but if AMD is slower then can't I get a similar tower with intel?

And thanks SailorSam, might just get a tower with that monitor.

Maddy25

Also I was wondering whether I should email chillblast and try negotiating the price?!

jayme1

I'm not sure if they would really move on the price, for what you are wanting to use the PC for Intel/AMD won't matter both are more than up to the job.

since you don't want to build the PC yourself you can have the shop build it for you, for example (I've just thrown this together as an example using CCL)

AMD A4-3400 2.7GHz Dual Core Accelerated Processing Unit
£47.63
Asus F1A75-M PRO Socket FM1 Motherboard
£74.87
Kingston HyperX Blu 8GB (2x4GB) Memory Kit
£33.71
Seagate Barracuda© SATA 6Gb/s 1TB Hard Drive
£59.83
CiT Shade Micro ATX Black Interior Mesh Case
£23.10
Sony 24x Int DVD-RAM SATA Black Bare
2 for £25.75
Corsair CX430 Builder Series 430 Watt ATX PS/2 Power Supply Unit
£38.89
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (SP1)
£71.05
TP-Link TL-WN781ND 150Mbps Wireless Lite N PCI Express Adaptor
£8.20
Acer S240HLbd 24 inch Full HD 16:9 Widescreen LED Monitor
£114.97
Logitech MK120 UK Desktop Wired USB Keyboard Low-profile Keys and Optical Mouse
£12.67
Gold-Level System Assembly
£60.00
then add the Logitech X530 5.1 speakers from Amazon for £45.83

and all that is £629.87

the difference between this build and the Chillblast, this is using a AMD CPU which is a perfectly fine CPU but the integrated graphics is much better, this has a better motherboard with 5.1 audio, has N WiFi, it has a proper branded power supply, and 5.1 speakers

I personally would probably get this build over the Chillblast, but the build that Cisco001 posted is very good money (~£140 cheaper than above) it even has 5.1 audio, but you would have to do some of the build and installation of the software yourself.

As I say pretty much any computer will do all you ask of it, you could even buy a laptop from the under £350 thread and hook it up to a monitor adding a keyboard, mouse and some speakers which would keep it under £500 be a faux desktop and also be portable.