can anyone help me pick fast pc please i know some spec

happyhero

Hi my current PC which is a Medion Intel Quad core Q8200 2.33GHz with 4 GB of ram and a 1.6 TB hardrive and 32bit system is getting too slow for me. Its about 5 years old and I was thinking of getting new. I do a lot of finance work on the PC which means I have several browsers open at a time with many tabs open. I also use 2 screens together on the one PC. I am not a gamer or major film watcher but I do like speed and quality. I do watch a little bit and my kids play games sometimes but its all small stuff. I find now that my PC makes a lot of work noise and halts (ie mouse wont move for few seconds) before it seems to catch up and let me go on.

I do prefer Intel rather than anything else.

I am thinking of an Intel i7 (seems to be the top speedy one)
with 2TB HD
maybe 16GB ram
with Windows 8.1

It looks like I should be looking at £600 up is that about right?

I was considering building my own but I am not sure its worth the trouble with current packages on offer so I am more likely to go with something ready. I would love it if it included office as part of the package.

I saw this CPU on Amazon Intel i7 4770k Quad core which seems popular with very good reviews so I searched PC's with this cpu but to be honest I don't really understand the 4770k or 3.5 GHz it mentions, is it fairly simple and the bigger the number the better or how do I pick for speed?

It does not have to be this CPU, I just picked this one to start looking for something that might be fast. I would love one of the big fast gamer PC's that look good too but I do realise looks can mean nothing and I probably wont get any benefit out of it, so I am prepared to go up a bit but not silly amounts of money.

I can see I could easily pay over the top for something not great so can anybody suggest a couple please to guide me?

Any help would be much appreciated.

PS Remember I want to run 2 screens.

Fightsback

An idea might be one of these and add an Nvidia GTX750ti, OS and extra RAM.

http://www.ebuyer.com/670719-lenovo-thinkserver-ts140-4gb-xeon-e3-1226-v3-3-3ghz-1tb-hdd-tower-server-70a50022uk

If you wan to run two screens, I certainly would recommend a discrete graphics card as above with a minimum of 2GB vram

I'd also recommend getting an SSD as well to run your OS and programs off.

happyhero

cheers for that, can you answer the question about the GHz ie it simply faster if it has a higher Ghz?

And if so whats the fastest you can get now?

Also I have seen a lot Lenovo for a while now are they considered a good make, what would be the best make?

Cisco001

Can't fit £600 budget with i7, 16 GB RAM & Video card
I don't see you need 16GB RAM or

http://www.ebuyer.com/662253-zoostorm-desktop-pc-7260-0038
and add
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-video-card-n730k1gd5lpoc

Or something like this. Having SSD >> 16GB RAM
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-video-card-n730k1gd5lpoc


However, i5, 8GB and low end video card is probably what you needed for your purposes.

anotheruser

You won't need 16Gb RAM.
8 at the most unless you're planning on running a number of large processes at once, like huge billboard drawings or video encoding three videos at once...

Hard drive's can be bought fairly cheaply. Anything in the low TB is good for most people, unless you store everything on the PC.

Get a good £100-£200 graphics card. That will improve things graphically.

Buy a SSD and use your current hard drive for storage. This is the biggest speed improver you will ever see at this point in technology times. My Windows boots in less than 20 seconds - the logo doesn't even come together before the screen has changed and I'm at the desktop.

i7 is great for gaming and "production" (music/video/drawing/encoding/creation). I have an i5 and it's fine for my needs. If you're not playing the latest games, don't bother with the i7.

Ghz:
Don't look too much in to this. You'll find most are between 2 and 3. It's not about how many you have, not the speed. They haven't really improved with speed in the last 10 years or so, but more so the number. Having four (Quad) at 2.6Ghz will mean your PC will be good at multitasking.

Alternatively you can wait a few more months when Windows 10 will be out. Yes there is a free upgrade for those on Windows 8/8.1/8.2 but having a "vanilla" install would be better than upgrading.

Don't have "I want the biggest and best" thoughts. We all like to have the best but that's like having a 747 to take you and your gran from Southend Airport to Exeter Airport!

Mobeer

Your budget doesn't seem the match the components you talk about, which don't match your requirements.

How about this for £500:
http://www.scan.co.uk/3xs/configurator/ready-to-ship-budget-value-intel-home-office-pc-v15i


As standard it supports 2 monitors, but an upgrade with the XFX Radeon R7 260X (£86.39) would be better for gaming. I would recommend explicitly checking with any supplier than the graphics card included would have the right connections for your monitors.

If you feel rich then any of the SSDs listed as options would be faster (though you still need a separate hard disk for storage alongside the small SSD).

Office - there are free alternatives available.

Neil49

Medion still have quite a few pc's to offer (and are owned by Lenovo). This one looks like the kind of model you are talking about.

http://www.medion.com/gb/shop/multimedia-pcs-medion-akoya-pc-p5373-g-310019764.html

happyhero

Neil49 wrote: »

Medion still have quite a few pc's to offer (and are owned by Lenovo). This one looks like the kind of model you are talking about.

http://www.medion.com/gb/shop/multimedia-pcs-medion-akoya-pc-p5373-g-310019764.html

Yes thanks Neil49, this looks very close to the sort of thing I have got in the past, and would want now, crazy that having a Medion I did not think of looking at their stuff. And the price is right.

I have looked the CPU up and it seems to get very good reviews.

What would be the best way to get it to do 2 monitors, could I just use one on HDMI and the other on DVi, I've done something like that before and could not tell the difference, between 2 identical monitors, or would I be best getting another video card?

GunJack

you'll probably speed it up by backing up your data and doing a clean install of the OS....cost = £0, time taken = couple of days

Neil49

happyhero wrote: »

Yes thanks Neil49, this looks very close to the sort of thing I have got in the past, and would want now, crazy that having a Medion I did not think of looking at their stuff. And the price is right.

I have looked the CPU up and it seems to get very good reviews.

What would be the best way to get it to do 2 monitors, could I just use one on HDMI and the other on DVi, I've done something like that before and could not tell the difference, between 2 identical monitors, or would I be best getting another video card?

Personally, if you bought this I would try it out with 2 monitors as it stands and only install a new video card if necessary.

I swopped out the one on my old Medion last year and it was a doddle to do.

If you look at their entire site they also have another model running Win 7 Pro but with built in graphics. You could just buy a new card to run the 2 monitors straight off if you preferred.

Either way, you will get Win 10 for free later on this year.

I also agree with Gunjack that a straight reinstall of Windows on your existing pc would be worth trying.

prost

Your Intel Quad core Q8200 is a perfectly fast processor, faster than the one I'm using, so you absolutely won't need a new PC for decades.

I think your biggest problem is that 32-bit operating systems only use 3Gb RAM. So, your next operating system should be 64 bit & not 32. 32-bit software will still work, however. You'll need 64-bit driver software for your graphics & audio etc. Windows 10 will be available free soon.

Kingsoft offer their free renowned MS-compatible office-suite software which also has 64-bit versions:
http://www.kingsoftstore.com/office/download-free-office-windows.html

(If have 64-bit MS Office some add ons won't work with it:
http://www.tekrevue.com/tip/how-to-choose-between-the-32-bit-and-64-bit-versions-of-office/ )


http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-windows7-vista-64-bit-software.htm
lists free 64-bit software.

The Chrome, Internet Explorer 8+ & Opera http://www.opera.com/download/guide/?custom=yes browsers make use of multi-core processors but not Firefox. Firefox is also badly written & sometimes eats up excessive processor power.

(Opera can import bookmarks of other browsers.)

You could also search for 'clearing windows clutter'.

There's also software to monitor processor & memory usage, like MKN TaskExplorer
http://listoffreeware.com/list-of-best-free-process-viewer-software/

MKN TaskExplorer can also remove any software that has crashed. With the software you'll be able to determine which piece of software is hogging all the resources. Have it on all the time & you'll wonder how you ever did without it.

4Gb RAM is fine for current 64-bit Windows use. You can also get inexpensive new reliable memory at Ebay when you want to upgrade to 8Gb. This often comes from Hong Kong dealers & takes 1-2 weeks to arrive. I've often bought from these people & they are trustworthy. Search for 'intel desktop memory'. The title may state 'non-ECC' memory, which is fine. Once your memory usage reaches 3.5Gb that's the time to upgrade.

YouTube has videos on 'installing desktop memory'.

If you reinstall a 32-bit operating system it will only slow down again & if you buy a new PC it will happen again there too.