New PC advice please

Tamster150

weeowens wrote: »

I have a Zoostrom via Ebuyer & have had not a problem with it in over three years: http://www.ebuyer.com/zoostorm

With £500 you could look at such as this: http://www.ebuyer.com/662334-zoostorm-desktop-pc-7260-0041

Or for a good bit less: http://www.ebuyer.com/662248-zoostorm-desktop-pc-7260-1013

If you are happy with the monitor keep it.If not they are pretty cheap nowadays: http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Computer/cat/Monitors

Thanks will take a look

Tamster150

PenguinJim wrote: »

100% agree, but 8.1 beats both and is included free with 8, so either going for 8.1 or taking 8 and clicking on "update" seem to be the best way to do it.

With a £500 non-gaming budget you can easily put together a machine with an "Intel i5" CPU and 8GB of RAM.

Also consider getting a PC with both an HDD and an SSD. HDDs (hard drives, hard disks, hard disk drives - all the same!) are still popular for holding lots of data, so look for a 1TB (~1,000GB) or 2TB (~2,000GB) HDD - you can use it to copy your DSLR data and keep the external copy as a back-up.

SSDs ("solid state drives" - but everyone just calls them SSDs, don't worry! ) are great for your Windows install, as SSDs are much, much faster and snappier than HDDs. It will make a big difference to your PC's interface speed. 64GB is probably the bare minimum for a Windows install + free space. Aim a touch higher if you can - 96GB, 120GB or 128GB SSDs are available and reasonably priced.

I'm sorry, I don't have a specific recommendation for a vendor of pre-built PCs in the UK at present. But if you can wait until two weeks on Thursday, a new wave of Intel CPUs will launch which should get you a bit more for your money on either a cheaper old CPU or a more efficient new CPU (there's not much speed improvement, so I don't think it's too important which way you choose to go!).

Brilliant thanks! That gives me a good starting base!

Tamster150

NiftyDigits wrote: »

What is the old machine's Service Tag?

I'm not able to look this evening but was wondering why you asked? Do you think that there might be the potential to upgrade my current PC? It runs really slowly now.

Gloomendoom

Tamster150 wrote: »

I'm not able to look this evening but was wondering why you asked? Do you think that there might be the potential to upgrade my current PC? It runs really slowly now.

You might not need to upgrade, just doing a clean install of your OS will probably restore its mojo.

It doesn't cost anything either.

enfield_freddy

just to add to the recommendation's , look at pre built from scan computers http://www.scan.co.uk/shop/computer-hardware/all/systems/scan-f-series , a new legal copy of xp or win 7 from ebay £40-50 , and you are away , add a smaller ssd at the same time (£50) and you have a reliable machine

[Deleted User]

There are plenty of PCs, for a good bit less than £500, so you could buy one with a 30 day trial version of Office 2013, then buy the licence to activate it.

The machine I've just bought (for £339) comes with a 30 day trial version, but I won't be activating it, as I have the full version on my laptop. :cool: