New Desktop PC Around £500 - Chillblast? Help!

Maddy25

transient wrote: »

I would get this and keep the lappy

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/hp-proliant-n40l-microserver-203-02-ccl-computers-103-02-with-100-hp-cashback-offer-1295452

Too late laptops gone!

awayinchina

why not look at pcworld refurbished site?
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/hp-pavilion-p6-2022uk-refurbished-desktop-pc-12021801-pdt.html?intcmpid=display~RR~~12021801

HP I3 with 4gb ram and 1tb HD money saved get dedicated memory card and monitor...job done! and probably for less than £500

Maddy25

awayinchina wrote: »

why not look at pcworld refurbished site?
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/hp-pavilion-p6-2022uk-refurbished-desktop-pc-12021801-pdt.html?intcmpid=display~RR~~12021801

HP I3 with 4gb ram and 1tb HD money saved get dedicated memory card and monitor...job done! and probably for less than £500

Thanks for your suggestion. But it'll work out around £480 by the time I get a monitor, wireless keyboard and mouse, and some good speakers. And even then it's half the ram I want and has the old i3.

The main question which could save me a lot of money from Dino PC is, which is sufficient for me for at least 5 years:
3rd gen i3 or 3rd gen i5

If someone can please answer that with some detailed comparison that would be awesome. I've tried googling but they're reeeally vague.

Maddy25

Let me just give a quick summary of what I would use the PC for:

-Email
-Microsoft Office
-Watching and Downloading Movies
-Editing and Burning Home Videos
-Listening and Downlading Music
-Using iTunes
-A lot of Downloading

I could be multitasking like this; 2 Word Documents, 3 Powerpoints, 1 Excel Spreadsheet, 9 tabs on Google Chrome, Downloading 2 movies, Listening to Music on iTunes.

And I need something that doesn't crash 20 times when editing a 150 min long video. And actually burns the movie and doesn't take 9 hours!

Thanks to all of you so far for some very useful suggestions and answers.

Maddy25

One other thing in my Dino Pc spec for £500 I've got this CPU Cooler added: Xigmatek Loki SD-S963. Do I need it?
It's for £16.99

jayme1

Maddy25 wrote: »

Let me just give a quick summary of what I would use the PC for:

-Email
-Microsoft Office
-Watching and Downloading Movies
-Editing and Burning Home Videos
-Listening and Downlading Music
-Using iTunes
-A lot of Downloading

I could be multitasking like this; 2 Word Documents, 3 Powerpoints, 1 Excel Spreadsheet, 9 tabs on Google Chrome, Downloading 2 movies, Listening to Music on iTunes.

And I need something that doesn't crash 20 times when editing a 150 min long video. And actually burns the movie and doesn't take 9 hours!

Thanks to all of you so far for some very useful suggestions and answers.

yes i3 is perfectly adequate, I have a 1st gen i3 in my gaming PC and do all that and game on it, a 3rd gen i3 is only better, transcoding video and burning DVDs won't phase it, I have a non stock CPU cooler so when transcoding video it stays cool and quiet, so it could be worth upgrading the CPU cooler to keep the CPU cooler and quieter.

Maddy25

jayme1 wrote: »

yes i3 is perfectly adequate, I have a 1st gen i3 in my gaming PC and do all that and game on it, a 3rd gen i3 is only better, transcoding video and burning DVDs won't phase it, I have a non stock CPU cooler so when transcoding video it stays cool and quiet, so it could be worth upgrading the CPU cooler to keep the CPU cooler and quieter.

Thanks a lot! :)Was waiting for someone to reply.:j How's this setup


Intel B75 Chipset (custom-b75)

Description: £5 DISCOUNT

Customizations:
CPU: 2088 - NEW! Intel Core i3 2130
CPU Cooler: 3015 - Xigmatek Loki SD-S963
Operating System: 11001 - No Operating System - I will install my own
Motherboard: 4154 - NEW! Asus P8B75-M LX
Memory: 5039 - 8GB DDR3 1333mhz (2x 4GB)
Hard Drives: 6028 - 1TB S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s
Optical Drive: 7003 - 22x DVD±RW DL S-ATA
Graphics card: 8038 - Onboard Video
Sound card: 10001 - Onboard 7.1 Audio
Internet: 13006 - Wireless 802.11N 300Mbps MIMO PCI card
Speakers: 2006 - Logitech S220
Monitors: 15002 - 21.5" Widescreen LCD
Case: 17045 - NEW! EZCool Mesh ATX
PSU: 18033 - 500W Xigmatek
Warranty: sc-1 - 3 Year SureCare Warranty
£467.49

Maddy25

And Jayme1: how's the PSU? Was told not to go for cheap EZCool.

So it isn't worth it paying an extra £33 for i5 3450?

jayme1

Maddy25 wrote: »

And Jayme1: how's the PSU? Was told not to go for cheap EZCool.

So it isn't worth it paying an extra £33 for i5 3450?

I personally would prefer a better PSU of which Corsair would be my first choice.

as for upgrading to the i5, I probably would as the i5 is ivy bridge compared to the i3's sandy bridge, i5 range is higher than i3, the i5 has 2 more CPU cores and it has HD2500 GPU compared to HD2000.
But all these little upgrades slowly edge up the price, £33 doesn't seem a lot but it pushes you over the £500 limit (albeit 49p), even more so if you upgrade the PSU.

Maddy25

jayme1 wrote: »

I personally would prefer a better PSU of which Corsair would be my first choice.

as for upgrading to the i5, I probably would as the i5 is ivy bridge compared to the i3's sandy bridge, i5 range is higher than i3, the i5 has 2 more CPU cores and it has HD2500 GPU compared to HD2000.
But all these little upgrades slowly edge up the price, £33 doesn't seem a lot but it pushes you over the £500 limit (albeit 49p), even more so if you upgrade the PSU.

Would it be ok if I just upgrade to i5 and not bother about the PSU?