Desktop or All-in-one

Kernow666

i am looking to get a new computer to replace my 7yr old desktop

looking to spend around £300 - £350 and am torn between a new tower or one of the AIOs

have seen a nice tower for £275 & monitor for £75 and an AIO for £329

i am not a gamer as such Football Manager is about the most i would play , just want something better than what i got as its on its way out

i could just get a tower for £150 or less but fancy something abit more better than what i been used too

enfield_freddy

can you change the video card on the AIO , or add a card reader?

esuhl

Desktop:
Cheaper than laptop or all-in-one
Easier to repair/upgrade

Laptop:
Portable
Hard/expensive/impossible to repair/upgrade

All-in-one:
More expensive than desktop
Hard/expensive/impossible to repair/upgrade
Not portable

Essentially, an all-in-one PC gives you all the worst aspects of a desktop and laptop combined, with none of the advantages. The only reason to get an all-in-one is that you don't mind spending way over the odds to get something that won't last but looks pretty.

Kernow666

esuhl wrote: »

Desktop:
Cheaper than laptop or all-in-one
Easier to repair/upgrade

Laptop:
Portable
Hard/expensive/impossible to repair/upgrade

All-in-one:
More expensive than desktop
Hard/expensive/impossible to repair/upgrade
Not portable

Essentially, an all-in-one PC gives you all the worst aspects of a desktop and laptop combined, with none of the advantages. The only reason to get an all-in-one is that you don't mind spending way over the odds to get something that won't last but looks pretty.

good points there , the AIOs i have seen just have onboard graphics cards and no way of upgrading , the desktop i have seen has 1gb GFX card so looks like that the way to go

thanks for your input :beer:

spannerzone

Just be mindful that many of the current budget desktops use very low power consuming/low performing intel Atom based CPU's such as the n2840, j1900 series and go by Celeron and Pentium brands BUT these CPU's may not perform any better than a Core2duo from 7 years ago on many programs.

So basically check (and ask here) whether what you propose to buy will actually be an upgrade from your current desktop.

I'm not saying these CPU's aren't any good, but they often aren't much of an upgrade.

Here's an example of a Core2duo E4400 from around 2007 vs the current budget J2900 used in many bottom of the range desktops, it's not cut and dry, some aspects are better on the new CPU and some on the older.
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Pentium-J2900-vs-Intel-Core2-Duo-E4400

Kernow666

spannerzone wrote: »

Just be mindful that many of the current budget desktops use very low power consuming/low performing intel Atom based CPU's such as the n2840, j1900 series and go by Celeron and Pentium brands BUT these CPU's may not perform any better than a Core2duo from 7 years ago on many programs.

So basically check (and ask here) whether what you propose to buy will actually be an upgrade from your current desktop.

I'm not saying these CPU's aren't any good, but they often aren't much of an upgrade.

Here's an example of a Core2duo E4400 from around 2007 vs the current budget J2900 used in many bottom of the range desktops, it's not cut and dry, some aspects are better on the new CPU and some on the older.
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Pentium-J2900-vs-Intel-Core2-Duo-E4400

my current desktop is a Compaq Presario

Intel Pentium Dual-Core Processor E2180
2GB ram
320GB HDD
on board graphics

it still works just really slow

the one i am looking at desktop wise is

ASUS M32
i5-4460 processor
6GB ram
1TB HDD
GT620 1GB GFX

can get this for around £275


was looking at one on ebuyer for £120 but from what i read it cant be upgraded apart from doubling the ram to 8GB

spannerzone

Kernow666 wrote: »

my current desktop is a Compaq Presario

Intel Pentium Dual-Core Processor E2180
2GB ram
320GB HDD
on board graphics

it still works just really slow

the one i am looking at desktop wise is

ASUS M32
i5-4460 processor
6GB ram
1TB HDD
GT620 1GB GFX

can get this for around £275


was looking at one on ebuyer for £120 but from what i read it cant be upgraded apart from doubling the ram to 8GB

That £120 probably won't be much better than what you've got (if you did a reinstall of the operating system on your existing) and is absolutely bottom of the range and extremely limited so personally would avoid.

The i5 you mention will certainly be a big upgrade from what you had, the i5's built in graphics is probably as good as the G620 card so that's an odd choice I think but hey ho, good price for an i5 system which (presumably comes with Win8.1 ready to go?)

Kernow666

i was looking on the site called part picker and for the price advertised its cheap , 3 places have it £275 - £299

yes comes with windows 8.1 64-bit installed

looking at the specs

http://www.asus.com/uk/Desktops/M32AD/specifications/

i could upgrade the ram to 16GB & the HDD to 4GB although i wont need to at 1st

i could even install a SSD to it

my current monitor is only a 19in & to take advantage of the spec could get a larger monitor for £75 - £100 pushing it upto my max £350 spend

this one for example from same supplier as desktop is £98

http://www.hannspree.eu/en/monitors/he-series/he247dpb

spannerzone

For me, the first upgrade would be to an SSD which will make even a new PC seem even better. Once you go SSD you can never go back

In fact even your old machine with an SSD will feel much faster!

4GB ram is fine for most users and easy and cheap to upgrade if really required but get the SSD first.

Kernow666

too slow the one i want is sold out although foun it on another site for £25 more

found this also

http://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id=K4S66EA&opt=ABU&sel=PCDT

which i can get for £279.99

more storage but AMD processor so not sure if its better or worse than an i5 in the asus one

enfield_freddy

the AMD might look to be a higher speed , but in practice , its only about 2/3rds the performance if the i5 http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=1936&cmp[]=2017




you will have to copy/paste the whole link into a new window