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80% => Computer & Technology => Topic started by: blinkpip on Saturday, October 31, 2009, 20:58:55



Title: Buying a new PC.
Post by: blinkpip on Saturday, October 31, 2009, 20:58:55
Yo, I need a new computer, but not sure what's a good deal.
are these PC's on the mesh site value for money?
I need it more than less for:
Football manager to run smoothly
Photo editing (photoshop) a lot.
Music
And it to be good enough for the next few years.

http://www.meshcomputers.com/Default.aspx?PAGE=PRODCATEGORYVIEWPAGE&USG=APPLICATION&ENT=APPLICATION&KEY=71810

If anyone knows any decent sites, then please let me know. I don't want to make it my self either.


Title: Re: Buying a new PC.
Post by: RJack on Saturday, October 31, 2009, 21:15:52
Don't buy from Mesh, a few favourable reviews but read how many bad reviews of them.

Dead pc's on arrival, parkts broken / missing.  Long delivery times & poor customer service who really don't give a shit after they got your money

http://www.dooyoo.co.uk/misc-systems/mesh-computers-1/reviews/

and if those reviews don't puut you off just read there users boards

http://www.meshcomputersownersclub.com/forum/mesh-computers-owners-club-customer-care-technical-support/index2.html


Title: Re: Buying a new PC.
Post by: Simon Pieman on Saturday, October 31, 2009, 21:17:53
A budget might help.

Also, do you need a monitor?


Title: Re: Buying a new PC.
Post by: RJack on Saturday, October 31, 2009, 21:19:50
Forgot to add if you really don't want to build then try here

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/

My advice is build it yourself because the parts you buy will be of better quality & also if will cost you 1/2 as much as it would if someone builds its for you


Title: Re: Buying a new PC.
Post by: Simon Pieman on Saturday, October 31, 2009, 22:07:06
I was just about to post a link to that site up RJack. Seems to have a good reputation and quite well priced.

You could also have a look at www.yoyotech.co.uk and www.pcspecialist.co.uk

If you play a lot of music from your computer I recommend you upgrade the sound card to one of the Creative X-Fi models. I guess you have some speakers already.


Title: Re: Buying a new PC.
Post by: blinkpip on Sunday, November 1, 2009, 12:03:56
Budget,I did set my self 500, but can go up to 600 if needed.
I need the whole lot, as my monitor is an old CRT.  :lamo:

Ill take a look at these sites, as Mesh seems to be crud.


Title: Re: Buying a new PC.
Post by: blinkpip on Sunday, November 1, 2009, 12:30:34
I been on that cyberpowersystem site. Still unsure, as many don't include Monitor.
I would prefer it also to have windows7

I'm also no good understanding a decent graphics card.


Title: Re: Buying a new PC.
Post by: blinkpip on Sunday, November 1, 2009, 12:39:51
Is this good?

http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/system/infinity_aries_se/


Title: Re: Buying a new PC.
Post by: Simon Pieman on Sunday, November 1, 2009, 13:41:44
You won't need a good spec graphics card unless you plan to play games. However I recommend you do need a dedicated graphics card. An ATI Radeon 4850 HD 512mb or Nvidia Geforce GTS 250 512mb (or the Geforce 9800GT which is the older version) would be excellent choices and be able to play the games of today.

The pcs from cyberpowersystems all come with Windows 7, the menu buttons showing the basic spec at the top just haven't been updated.

http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/saving/show.asp?id=166163
Product Name: Ultra AthenaPrice: 517.00 ex. VAT ( 594.55 in. VAT )

I assume you have speakers already. A sound card has been added as it will be a massive improvement over the on board sound (integrated into the motherboard). It includes a monitor as well. Graphics card is the 4850HD. You get a quad core processor too.

If you want to save money you could go for a dual core processor and should still be good enough. If you do a lot of photo editing I'd say a better processor will be worth it though.

Just to be fair I looked on the Dell site and you'd have to spend a lot more for a similar spec and would only get a year of technical support.


Title: Re: Buying a new PC.
Post by: Simon Pieman on Sunday, November 1, 2009, 13:44:15
If you want to see how well individual components perform you could always google the name of the component + 'review'.

The reviews often benchmark against other components and give a conclusion based on that and the price. May help some decisions.


Title: Re: Buying a new PC.
Post by: blinkpip on Sunday, November 1, 2009, 14:16:39
Cheers, Pieman. I will probably go for that.
I do have some speakers, but will invest in new ones soon.

Thanks.


Title: Re: Buying a new PC.
Post by: blinkpip on Sunday, November 1, 2009, 14:23:40
Hey if I upgrade Video card from 512mb to 1 GB, would it make more difference? Only cost an extra 10
ATI Radeon HD 4850 PCI-E x16 1GB Video Card (ATI Radeon HD 4850 PCI-E x16 1GB Video Card)


Title: Re: Buying a new PC.
Post by: Simon Pieman on Sunday, November 1, 2009, 16:12:07
512mb will be plenty of memory for your monitor size. 1gb is only useful for really high resolutions (screen size) for larger monitors. It's actually the speed of the graphics processor on the card and the way it interacts with the memory which will determine the smoothness of the picture and framerate. Only when you hit the memory buffer limit will a 1gb give a noticeable difference. At the resolutions your monitor will have, you won't hit this limit and you won't notice any difference between the 512mb and 1gb versions.

If you do want to play games and are worried about how long your card will keep up with the latest releases, I would spend £20 more on the 4870 512mb which will be faster and better than even the 4850 1gb at the resolutions you will be playing games at.

If you're not fussed about playing the latest graphically demanding games and only want to play football manager or the sims then you don't need to upgrade at all and stick with the 4850 512mb.

So a quick conclusion:

Don't bother with the 4850 1gb.
Upgrade to the 4870 512mb if you think you'll be playing modern graphically demanding pc games for the next couple of years.


Title: Re: Buying a new PC.
Post by: Peter Venkman on Sunday, November 1, 2009, 16:40:10
I can reiterate Mr Pies comments, I use the Soundblaster X-fi gamer (@ £50) and the sound is exceptional and dont bother with the 4850 1gb as the 512 is fine, but if you can afford the extra £10 for the 1gb you would be beter off putting another £10ish to that and getting the far superior 4870 which is a much much better GPU.


Title: Re: Buying a new PC.
Post by: blinkpip on Sunday, November 1, 2009, 17:48:57
Cheers with all this. I went with the one you recommended, I don't play many games apart from FM, so went with it.
Hopefully I will receive it by the end of the week.

Thanks.


Title: Re: Buying a new PC.
Post by: blinkpip on Thursday, November 5, 2009, 18:13:26
Recieved my new computer today. They upgraded the PSU to 650W free of chrage, due to 500W not in stock.
Packaged well and took minutes to set up, very happy so far.

Do most Anti Virus software work with Windows7? I had Norton on my old PC, but was crud.

What do you chaps recommend?


Title: Re: Buying a new PC.
Post by: brendentaylor on Saturday, November 21, 2009, 04:53:13
I'm very confuse right now on which one to choose from. Both cost the same and the only differences are LCD 17" and 15" inch and one comes with Quad and the other with I7.

Should I upgrade:
1) The ram to 6GB or 8GB or stay 4GB
2) For M17x processor to Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme Mobile Processor QX9300 (2.53GHz/ 1066 FSB/ 12MB Cache)

or

3) For M15x processor to Intel® Core™ I7-920XM Mobile Processor Extreme Edition (2GHz, turbo up to 3.2GHz, 8MB L3 Cache)


I'm not much of a hard core gamer but I do wish to have an Alienware for my own.

Please give me recommendations about these two different spec. Any advices on upgrade or suggestions will be taken seriously.


M15x Spec
- Metallic Space Black Base
- Intel® Core™ I7-820QM Mobile Processor (1.73GHz, turbo up to 3.06GHz, 8MB L3 Cache)
- 4GB Dual-channel 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM (2 x 2GB)
- 500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
- Slot Load Fixed Blu-ray BD-ROM / DVD + /-RW Combo Drive
- 1GB GDDR3 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 260M

M17x Spec
- Metallic Space Black Base
- Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Processor Q9100 (2.26GHz/ 1066 FSB/ 12MB Cache)
- 4GB Dual-channel 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM (2 x 2GB)
- 500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
- Slot Load Fixed Blu-ray BD-ROM / DVD + /-RW Combo Drive
- Single 1GB GDDR3 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 260M


Thanks for all your help.


Title: Re: Buying a new PC.
Post by: Spy on Saturday, November 21, 2009, 08:37:53
imo 15" monitors are too small given people watch videos on them these days. get the 17 " one.