Who has a computer that comps really fast?

hdh74

Looking to replace my PC roundabout black Friday /tech monday time. My old beast is so slow. Have seen people mention on here they have machines that can easily open 60 or more tabs at once. Mine really struggles with more than 10. So can I ask what anyone, who has a good comping machine has please - whether specific machine or specs. I'll need a desktop - whether with tower or all-in-one machine as I need a large monitor due to being partially sighted. I was angling for an i5 processor, 16gb ram, and a 512 GB SSD till I saw the price!
Suggestions please.

sleepyjones

You can get a 480GB SSD for around £50 (ie this).
For comping I would go with an SSD and more RAM ... I would base everything around that.

Check out itzoo, they have some good reconditioned models for fairly good prices, and if you see something you like you can ask them to add more RAM or add an SSD : https://itzoo.co.uk/collections/pc-base-units

(and if you register you get 10% off)

Oh and by the way, most (if not all) Laptops will have an HDMI port, so you can just plug a monitor into it (or a 55" TV if you want).

https://itzoo.co.uk/collections/pc-base-units/products/refurbished-dell-9020-tower-pc-i5-8gb-1tb-windows-10 ... looks OK, listing says 16GB RAM but the link says 8GB ... you'd want to make sure it's 16GB and ask them to stick an SSD in it.

hdh74

Ooh, some good prices on there, thanks Sleepy, will check it out properly when I'm not so tired.

sleepyjones

They're reconditioned, so bear that in mind ... they're not new.

I think they buy from company liquidation sales, that kinda thing and fix them up, so the cases might have a few scratches and stuff but other than that they should be good.

libra10

I use a Lenovo Yoga Pro laptop with an inbuilt SSD card, which enables the PC to open up and close down within seconds. Also a scroll screen, which enables you to fly up and down pages without too much clicking. I wouldn't buy another PC without either of these features.

Good luck finding a PC you like.

unforeseen

libra10 wrote: »

I use a Lenovo Yoga Pro laptop with an inbuilt SSD card, which enables the PC to open up and close down within seconds. Also a scroll screen, which enables you to fly up and down pages without too much clicking. I wouldn't buy another PC without either of these features.

Good luck finding a PC you like.

You'll find that your SSD is actually soldered directly on to the motherboard and does not use a SATA interface. That is why it is so fast.

hdh74

Been having a nosy round itzoo - can see I can get a good spec replacement tower for a good price. Bit scared cos I'm rubbish at tech and last computer came as a full system in a box with all instructions and from curry's - so I knew I could get help if I got stuck. So I'm trying to think through what I'll have to do. I'm assuming if I pay for windows 10 it will be installed and just need activating and updating etc? I'll need to work out what ports I have on this pc and what I need. I can already guess I'll need some kind of adaptor for my monitor as it has old thingy (Think it's VGA - could be DVI?).



Not sure what else I need to work out. Thinking even if I have to find a local chap to set it up for me if I get really stuck it will still be cheaper than buying something from a shop? Also I was reading that the average life-span for a hard-drive is now 1.5 years so really don't fancy forking out mega bucks for a new one that might not last longer than a refurb anyway.

sleepyjones

If you get Windows pre-installed you shouldn't really have to do anything, plug in your mouse and stuff and windows should auto-detect and install the drivers. Set up your internet etc and you're good to go. You might need to play about with the settings to get it to the right resolution / text size etc that you prefer but nothing you can't do yourself with a bit of help / youtube-ing.

You should look at Google Sync and maybe backup any of your personal stuff (Bookmarks etc would be good for comping), take a look here : https://www.howtogeek.com/228989/how-to-use-the-desktop-google-drive-app/

Your image looks like a VGA, DVI is a bit bigger, although it's hard to tell without seeing the actual pins. Doesn't matter anyway, you can just buy a cable ie :
VGA to HDMI
DVI to HDMI

(Plug goes into the back of the monitor, then you plug an HDMI cable into the other end of the adaptor (above) which then goes into your PC., you can pretty much get any variation, so can be a DVI to VGA cable, whatever it is the new PC has, there'll be a cable/adaptor to make it work with your current monitor).

Not really sure why the lifespan of a HD would be 1.5 years, but that could be more to do with games these days, I got an update to a game the other day that was 50GB ... so I think they're maybe just talking about the lifespan before people need to get a bigger one because games and apps are eating up more and more hard drive space these days, that shouldn't affect you. If you do ever need a new Hard drive you can just buy an external one that plugs into a USB port, and then just move all of your non-system files onto there (an external drive is slower, so you can just chuck stuff that you don't use often, ie photographs onto the external drive, freeing up space on your main system drive). (ie : 1TB (1000GB) USB external drive, £40)

Don't forget to signup to get 10% off!

sleepyjones

But just out of curiosity ... what system do you currently have?

If you hit the Windows button on the bottom left and click on the settings cog, then click on "System" and then choose the last option in the menu "About".

If I look at mine it says :
Processor : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz 2.40GHz
Installed RAM : 8.00 GB

hdh74

That's brilliantly helpful sleepy thank you.
It says Intel core TM i3 - 2120 CPU @3.30 ghz 3.30GHz
4 GB ram
It was a windows 7 machine but a friend installed windows 10 for me when it was free
I did think about paying someone to add me some more ram but I'm thinking the processor would still slow it down.
And I have 1TB of hard drive. (which is about half full)
Incidently the sales 'expert' in currys told me the half full hard drive is why it's so slow and it's nothing to do with ram as 'ram is just where the software is' - now I'm not good at this but I thought ram was short term memory and was exactly where stuff got 'juggled' (for want of a proper word) when the processor is handling it. I can tell my puter struggles when I have a lot of tabs open (ie more than about 10) and I can see that the memory is at full usage if I do ctr, alt, del if it freezes. My understanding (might be wrong) is that if ram is full the system will use hard-drive which slows it down but I would think half a terabite would be enough? Although I think the 'old' type of hard drive is slower.

Oh and another problem is that half my usb ports and various other things don't work properly because windows updates knocked out the drivers. I've tried finding new drivers but they just don't seem to be available for my old Lenovo. I've found work arounds for a lot of things but it's a PITA so I do think a new tower is the way to go.

sleepyjones

hdh74 wrote: »

Incidently the sales 'expert' in currys told me the half full hard drive is why it's so slow and it's nothing to do with ram as 'ram is just where the software is'

Think that "expert" should maybe stick to selling hoovers.

Try and go for an i5 7XX (quad core)
or at the very least an i5 6XX (dual core with hyper threading)
All i7's are Quad core, but they're still pretty expensive.

They update those listings on itZoo all the time, so if you don't see something you like, hang off a week or two and check again.