New desktop

madmum33

I'm looking at desktops with a budget of £500.

I'll mainly be using it for image processing, lots of raw files. I'm sick of my dinosaur taking 10 minutes to do a simple task.

I found this, it looks good, but I am way behind on these things. I'd probably add an optical drive which takes it slightly over.

http://www.chillblast.com/chillblast-fusion-drone-gaming-pc.html#product-details-tab-tab68

Is there anything else out there?

Thanks in advance!

Johnmcl7

It's worth keeping an eye on the Dell Outlet as it's possible to get decent machines there for a good bit less than the main site and the machines are usually as new condition, even the scratch and dent ones. That said it's quite a tight budget and the stock changes all the time so it can be hard to gauge what sort of price range the machines will be.

For image processing I'd opt for a SSD rather than a mid range graphics card as that will give your general system performance a noticeable boost. I use Lightroom for raw image processing and it doesn't seem to use that much processor or ram, it is running off an SSD and performance of the application is good.

John

madmum33

Thank you, I'll keep checking!

Johnmcl7

Another one to consider is Zoostorm:

http://www.ebuyer.com/search?page=5&q=zoostorm&sort=price%20ascending

I haven't used their machines myself but I've seen quite a few recommendations for them as bargain PC's.

John

Mr_Toad

Image processing is complex and a lot of the processing is now done by the GPU, Graphics Processing Unit, and RAM on your graphics card.

As Johnmcl7 said, it doesn't use much CPU or RAM.

This means that a good graphics card will speed things up as long as your CPU can keep up with it, so an i7 or i5.

Also a decent amount of RAM is always good so that if required it can grab what it needs rather than having to use disk based cache. An SSD is also a good thing.

That said most half decent modern computers will be good enough and better than what you have. As always it will be a compromise of speed over cost but £500 will get you something that's absolutely fine.

madmum33

Is the AMD processor good enough, if combined with a graphics card? The zoostorms look flashy, I don't want lights and gimmicks, I need a solid computer that will last a few years with the option to add more RAM and storage if necessary.

Cisco001

You probably looking at something like i5 with GTX 750ti. If you are on budget, get FX6300/ FX8320 instead.

Cisco001

Although this is last gen, but for £500, this is the best value
http://www.ebuyer.com/735883-zoostorm-gaming-desktop-pc-7260-5195

Forgot to ask, what is your existing PC?
Have you consider upgrading that instead?
there may be components could be re-use

Or have you consider assemble one yourself? You can pick good quality hardwares

madmum33

It's a Dell Inspiron 530, running XP

Intel pentium dual CPU e2140 @ 1.6GHz
4GB ram
300GB hard drive

1TB hard drive added for storage a couple of years ago.

It's a dinosaur on the verge of extinction.

Cisco001

madmum33 wrote: »

It's a Dell Inspiron 530, running XP

Intel pentium dual CPU e2140 @ 1.6GHz
4GB ram
300GB hard drive

1TB hard drive added for storage a couple of years ago.

It's a dinosaur on the verge of extinction.

Upgrade seems not an option then.
But you can take out your optical drive & hdd for re-use

madmum33

Yeah, my son built his own desktop so I suppose that's an option, I'll ask him what he can do for my budget. Thanks for the advice.