Good specifications for a new PC??

Blacksheep1979

isofa wrote: »

In a word: rude...

Didums

isofa wrote: »

The point is to make the system last as long as possible, I believe that was the original OP's question. With top end Dell systems just a few hundred today it is entirely possible.

The quad core would make no difference with XP I grant you, but, the user may well include moving to one or two new iterations of Windows, no doubt by then able to take full advantage of multiple cores. Surely nice to future proof a bit?

How is paying over the odds, when the chance of the op upgrading (if that's what you can say about newer itterations of Windows) is slim, future proofing? If it does all he/she needs now and they don't have any specific high use hobbies like I said before a dual core cpu is going to be overkill

A quad core cpu will make a difference on any OS capable of a using more than one cpu which xp is more than capable of.

isofa wrote: »

I assume from your advice, you are still happily running DOS and maybe even Windows 3.1, and hopefully128Mb is still enough for you? Because, as you say, on an old system "these magically don't tend to slow down that much". No but when you install newer OSes, and more powerful software, you'll find they do slow down, and not that magically.

Oooh mr clever. No I obviously don't still use those (and never really used windows 3.1 as it was carp) as my needs have grown and far outstripped that - but the op's needs of web browsing and using spreadsheets, wordprocessing etc aren't exactly demanding and aren't likely to grow and outstrip a new computer - strangely as I said before my computer from almost 5 years ago, as said before, still somehow magically manages to cope with stuff.

Sorry, you're just getting upset now as you're wrong aren't you? There's no point in having the newest and shiniest stuff if you're not going to use it to its full potential and could have used the cash elsewhere.

coolagarry

I reckon you get a huge amount for your money with this Mesh
http://www.meshcomputers.com/Default.aspx?PAGE=PRODUCTVIEWPAGE&USG=PRODUCT&ENT=PRODUCT&KEY=348637
It has a similar spec to one I bought for nearly twice as much aboput 9mts ago. I appreciate that a quad processor doesn't do a lot at the moment but I have no doubt that it will come into it's one in the future as more software is written to take advantage of it. I was quite happy with my old 17" monitor but now it seems so small compared with my 22" lcd.
The only thing I would add would be a pci card to receive and record freeview