New computer?

dktreesea

Put it this way - I'd rather have a 3 year old Mercedes Benz than a brand new Kia.

derrick

dktreesea wrote: »

Put it this way - I'd rather have a 3 year old Mercedes Benz than a brand new Kia.

Not same comparison, l.e. the computer in your link costs £150. but if a new one cost £220. that is the one I would buy.

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dktreesea

derrick wrote: »

Not same comparison, l.e. the computer in your link costs £150. but if a new one cost £220. that is the one I would buy.

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The problem is with cheap brand new computers (as opposed to second hand computers than have high end components) they have things like built in graphics cards, under powered power units, - everything is done on the cheap. Things like motherboards that can only take 4Gb of memory, because when they were made that was high end, whereas nowadays 8 to 16Gb is normal. Or they have DDr2 memory instead of DDR3. And even then, even if they have DDR3 memory, not all memory is created equal.


Or they have CPUs that are dual core, - not even quad core - when nowadays 6 to 8 core is available.

NiftyDigits

What about a monitor? Are you still using a CRT?

Something worth a mention is this HP 280 G1 Microtower PC for £289.98 Specs here
Why it is worth a mention is that there is currently £125 cashback available on this machine, bringing the price down to £164.98 . Your desktop with genuine XP qualifies for the Trade In. But...the offer is supposedly for businesses. I don't know how strict this is. I suggest that you contact grumpycrab as he might have some experience with this.
At the price of £165, you won't find anything better. Especially with Windows 7 Professional installed.
That will leave you with enough cash for a decent 24" monitor.

derrick

NiftyDigits wrote: »

What about a monitor? Are you still using a CRT?

Something worth a mention is this HP 280 G1 Microtower PC for £289.98 Specs here
Why it is worth a mention is that there is currently £125 cashback available on this machine, bringing the price down to £164.98 . Your desktop with genuine XP qualifies for the Trade In. But...the offer is supposedly for businesses. I don't know how strict this is. I suggest that you contact grumpycrab as he might have some experience with this.
At the price of £165, you won't find anything better. Especially with Windows 7 Professional installed.
That will leave you with enough cash for a decent 24" monitor.

My monitor is a good one, 23" AOC i12352vh LED IPS about 2 years old.

Fightsback

dktreesea wrote: »

Or they have CPUs that are dual core, - not even quad core - when nowadays 6 to 8 core is available.

Piffle

The reason AMD like to throw multiple cores at their silicon is because the performance of their cpus is so appalling, poor memory bandwidth, slow FPUs, poor performance per watt.

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=intel-i5-6500&num=3

kwikbreaks

I well remember the fairly brief period when AMD were leaders in the processor wars. That was a long long time ago though and TBH I don't really consider them these days. Although I expect there are some high end models I think for the most part they compete in the budget market.

The 8 Core AMD mentioned in post #20 actually has a lower Passmark CPU score than the ageing recon i7 I've just bought but I don't doubt that the other hardware mentioned would make the machine it is in trounce the cheapy I've bought - certainly in the graphics area but not being a gamer that doesn't concern me at all. As was already mentioned you need to pick a machine on it's overall specs based on what you intend to use it for.

Fightsback

NiftyDigits wrote: »

What about a monitor? Are you still using a CRT?

Something worth a mention is this HP 280 G1 Microtower PC for £289.98 Specs here
Why it is worth a mention is that there is currently £125 cashback available on this machine, bringing the price down to £164.98 . Your desktop with genuine XP qualifies for the Trade In. But...the offer is supposedly for businesses. I don't know how strict this is. I suggest that you contact grumpycrab as he might have some experience with this.
At the price of £165, you won't find anything better. Especially with Windows 7 Professional installed.
That will leave you with enough cash for a decent 24" monitor.

Nifty, that's a trade in deal (full of weasily T&Cs) not a cashback deal.

The box are doing an i3 (no cd drive) for £220:

The box i3 deal

derrick

Fightsback wrote: »

Nifty, that's a trade in deal (full of weasily T&Cs) not a cashback deal.

The box are doing an i3 (no cd drive) for £220:

http://www.box.co.uk/Cube_Midi_Core_i3_Bing_Series_Desktop_PC_1727622.html

From your link:
Results For : Cube Midi Core i3 Bing Series Desktop PC 1727622.h tml


Sorry, no products were found. Please search the website or use the navigation to browse our range.


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Fightsback

derrick wrote: »

From your link:
Results For : Cube Midi Core i3 Bing Series Desktop PC 1727622.h tml


Sorry, no products were found. Please search the website or use the navigation to browse our range.


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It's a parsing bug in the BBcode that they need to fix that occasionally crops up, link corrected