Spec me a new desktop pc

windup

what percentage of the public concern themselves with the nastiness (whatever that means) or otherwise of a power supply when they buy some electronic equipment. Is a pc more special than a dvd player, or a phone?

Manipulative marketing aimed at geeks has persuaded a small fraction of the public that they need something special, a custom pc from a 'specialist' company with lights and water cooling, when they don't. Most people in the it industry buy the same off the shelf big brand pc's and laptops everyone else does, the building your own thing is for people with too much time on their hands

Back to the op, what are you downloading, from where, in which browser, and what is happening in task manager at the point of these slow downs

Fightsback

fred246 wrote: »

Obviously I would make my own but last company to make me a PC was ginger6.com. If you go on their website you can specify each component. So:
Core i3 4160
Asus H81 M-PLUS motherboard
4GB DDR 1600 RAM
120GB SSD for operating system
500GB HD for music, files ETC
500w aerocool integrator 80 plus bronze
Windows 10 home
3 year warranty
£369.37
Bit more expensive but may be more efficient, reliable and last longer.

A bit more expensive ! and for what ? Perhaps the only benefit there is a 3 year warranty* however most PC issues are software based.

8GB dual channel, a 250GB SSD and still for considerably less with almost enough change left over to replace the mobo and PSU should the need arise when looking at the Box deal. The difference between the two is £140, which is a lot of money just for a 3 year warranty* and a 120gb SSD, not to mention the Ginger deal lacks wifi and a card reader.

Stick to blagging about gaming rigs.

* Addendum

I noticed that the warranty offered is 1 year parts and labour then the final two years are labour only and you foot the shipping costs in the last two so not much of an extended warranty at all.

jhiker

Even 4Gb RAM is not very much for a Windows machine.
I have recently given my desktop PC a new lease of life by doubling the RAM from 4Gb to 8Gb and it's make a significant difference. I was seriously thinking about replacement but I now think I can happily use it for a good while longer.
I used the 'Crucial' website - there's a small app which will scan your machine and recommend RAM upgrade options. I checked prices and, to my surprise Crucial were cheapest for this particular 'Ballistic' RAM

worried_jim

jhiker wrote: »

Even 4Gb RAM is not very much for a Windows machine.
I have recently given my desktop PC a new lease of life by doubling the RAM from 4Gb to 8Gb and it's make a significant difference. I was seriously thinking about replacement but I now think I can happily use it for a good while longer.
I used the 'Crucial' website - there's a small app which will scan your machine and recommend RAM upgrade options. I checked prices and, to my surprise Crucial were cheapest for this particular 'Ballistic' RAM

Thanks the tip! I've just bought 2x 1gb RAM from them to see if doubling what I have helps things. If not I'll seriously consider the pic recomendations that have been made by everyone. Thanks all!

Cisco001

worried_jim wrote: »

Thanks the tip! I've just bought 2x 1gb RAM from them to see if doubling what I have helps things. If not I'll seriously consider the pic recomendations that have been made by everyone. Thanks all!

If you decide to upgrade you existing pc, you may well spend extra £10 on get a dual core cpu on ebay.

worried_jim

Popped the RAM in and hey presto! Thanks for all the tips!

fred246

As long as you are no longer worried Jim, everything is fine. I just think a 2007 PC is probably difficult to upgrade much further. With a modern PC running the internet and a few basic programs on a fibre-optic broadband everything is just instantaneous whereas in the old days on especially on dial up you were used to waiting for things to happen.
On this type of forum you often find someone will ask a similar question to yours and then report they have bought an Apple at 5 times the price and the build quality is fantastic.
You can have PCs of exactly the same quality but you have to pay a little more for quality components. An i5 processor will be super quick and ultra reliable but if you put it on a motherboard that is built to be the cheapest on the market and a capacitor blows after a couple of years your i5 processor will be pretty useless.
Cheap power supplies are unreliable, inefficient and their noise can be intrusive. If you happen to need a fan heater as well as a PC I suppose this can be seen as a reasonable purchase.
When you have made PCs for years you can recognize the quality of the ingredients. If you just buy them and never disassemble them, you would never know.

Fightsback

fred246 wrote: »

As long as you are no longer.............

Rockman

Fightsback wrote: »

If you want a grumble mate, go to the pub and chew the barman's ear or alternatively make a recommendation. For example, £230 notes for this i3-4160 system which is cheap an cheerful and will do everything the OP requires with scope for future GPU upgrades as it has a 500w psu:

Cube Midi Core i3

Intel Core i3 4160 3.6Ghz Dual Core Processor
Cooler Master Elite 343
MSI H81M-E33 Motherboard
Kingston ValueRAM 1x 4GB
Samsung Internal Black DVD RW
Black Internal PC USB Internal 3.5" 23-in-1 Memory Card Reader
500W PSU
Seagate Barracuda 500GB HDD
Windows Bing 8.1 with Free Upgrade to Windows 10*
TP-Link TL-WN781ND 150Mbps Wireless PCI Express Adapter

This PC sounds super and at a good price. I have a monitor and keyboard from my old Dell PC which I can use but I need a printer. I do not need a heavy duty printer as the maximum number of pages needing printed at any one time would be 12. I would like a colour option as well. I have been told that a lazer printer is best as it works out cheaper in the long run. Can anyone advise of a good printer at a reasonable price.


Thanks

Fightsback

Rockman wrote: »

This PC sounds super and at a good price. I have a monitor and keyboard from my old Dell PC which I can use but I need a printer. I do not need a heavy duty printer as the maximum number of pages needing printed at any one time would be 12. I would like a colour option as well. I have been told that a lazer printer is best as it works out cheaper in the long run. Can anyone advise of a good printer at a reasonable price.


Thanks

Best open a new thread as people will notice it better.