Best Desktop PC Deal under £500

expeditionist

Hi everyone

Is there not a thread for best computer deals? I couldn't find it?

I have £500 to spend on a desktop PC (base unit ony) and I'm wondering where the best deal is at the moment.

If anyone has noticed any really great deals or special offers I sure wold appreciate your comments. Thanks

james123

check out www.arbico.co.uk then search for CD8400XL

specs
PC Advisor Best Buy May 2008
Choice of Cases
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU
Asrock 4Core1333-GLAN Motherboard
512MB nVidia 8600GT PCI-Express Graphics Card
Choice of 2 GB Kingston OR Corsair 667Mhz PC5300 DDR2 Ram
160GB SATA 7200RPM Hard Drive
20x Dual Layer DVD +/- Rewriter
19" Hannspree New York, Black, Widescreen, TFT
Choice of Windows Vista Home Premium (32BIT OR 64BIT) OR Windows XP Home (32BIT)
Standard Keyboard & Optical Mouse
AVG Antivirus, OpenOffice & Nero
Also known as CD 8400 XL / CD8400XL / CD8400 XL / CD 8400XL / 8400XL
XL / CD8400XL / CD8400 XL / CD 8400XL / 8400XL


really good all round PC, not the biggest HD but for £500 you get a monitor aswell.

I think delivery is around £60 though

sharp910sh

Build the oc yourself, go to https://www.tomshardware.com they will help go to the forums, the pc that guy suggested has a rubbish graphics card.

getmore4less

expeditionist wrote: »

Hi everyone

Is there not a thread for best computer deals? I couldn't find it?

I have £500 to spend on a desktop PC (base unit ony) and I'm wondering where the best deal is at the moment.

If anyone has noticed any really great deals or special offers I sure wold appreciate your comments. Thanks

Why start with the price? would it not be better to analyse your needs and find the best deal that meets them, why spend £500 if a £200 pc with do the job

Remember that these days for the basics, internet, basic movie watching, office apps the cheapest thing you can get will do the job, by focusing on your needs above this you can optimise.

what are your needs video editing,games,storage for downloads/pics, development,web design.......

Another way to look at it is that is you spend £250 now in about 2 years you will be able to buy with the other £250 what you could have got today for £500 anyway.

saintscouple

Hi, Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere (please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="abuse@moneysavingexpert.com"]!!!!!![/EMAIL].

penrhyn

If you fancy a Dell, this site will help you through the maze.

http://www.dmxdimension.com/

nephilim

what do you wish to use the PC for? I can get a good price accordingly

expeditionist

Thanks everybody for all your fast replies - what a good site this is!

Sorry if I put my post on the wrong board - I see that the post was moved - but how do I see which board it has moved to? Is there a special board for computer deals that I've missed? If not, maybe others users would appreciate a special board for computer deals?

Ok, here’s more info as requested, I really appreciate the advice….

I’m a photographer and use my computer to work with folders full of large photo files using Adobe Lightroom 1.3.1 and image processing using Adobe Photoshop CS3 –so that’s what I need the computer for mainly. I never ever use my PC to play computer games, I do rip DVDs occasionally, and use my PC for all the usual less demanding tasks such as web surfing, e-mail, office programs, playing mp3’s, etc.

My current PC is a top spec model bought for £1100 3-4 years ago from Mesh – it’s an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ - but it’s painfully slow for what I use it for – always has been despite 2 rebuilds – CPU is often maxed out at 100% (while working with photos) and my 2 GB of RAM falls below 20%. It also has 600GB of storage which is now at capacity. I have more high resolution photos than I can count and capacity is still growing! My PC must have averaged several hours use per day every day since new – I’ve replaced a faulty graphics card and a faulty chipset fan 1-2 years ago but PC is failing again now in addition to being too slow and full up because it reboots for no reason sometimes and lines also appear down the screen sometimes.

First question because I’m confused is – do I need a good graphics card for image editing or is the graphics card just important for graphics?

Secondly, I can’t build the computer myself because I have a problem with my hands – but I do know a good hardware engineer who does jobs on site for £25 per hour and I intend to transfer my Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum sound card and my 2 x SATA150 300GB hard drives and maybe even the little things such as the card reader, DVD-RW drive, PCI modem, and Nvidia GeForce 128MB FX-6600GT graphics card if I don’t need to buy a better one.

I don’t need to spend money on extras like a screen or speakers or a keyboard/mouse – I have all that already – and top spec too.

My budget is negotiable – but £500 has more to do with what I have without borrowing so I’d prefer not to go too much over.

1st Priority in my new PC then – speed when working with Photoshop/Lightroom - much faster please.

2nd Priority – internal hard disk capacity of at least of at least 500GB, preferably more, and able to fit my existing 2 x SATA150 300GB drives (I do have external disks to back up the lot)

3rd Priority – it’s going to get a lot of use so it must have stamina!

I really appreciate the advice. Thanks

P.S. Is that the record for the longest posting? !

getmore4less

Looks to me you have two key requirements

1. Perfomance for photo work.(if it will do that it will do the rest)
2. Storage.

These do not have to be in the same PC.

A large network attached unit might be an option for the mass storage, expandable by getting bigger drives or adding another unit independant of any PC upgrades.

Not sure on the PC, but fast CPU and loads of memmory are a good starting point. existing disks may be good enough for local work, which you move to/from the network unit as needed. No idea if the graphics card help on the photo side probably not so existing kit would fill out a base unit with good Motherboard, CPU and Memory.

I am sure some of the builders can help more, if they can find the thread.

Another option is to keep the current PC going as well as getting a new one and spread the load over two units.