Thetownend.com

I want to replace my desktop PC.
It's so old it barely even starts up nowadays.
I don't want anything fancy, just a basic desktop PC, with a reasonable amount of hard drive space and memory (maybe 2gb) and maybe Vista/Windows 7 operating system.

I don't need a monitor or keyboard or anything.

Where is the best place to look?

I don't want to spend any more than £250-£300 if possible.

Thanks TEFers :D

This is good spec for the price. Has no OS though, so you'll need a version of Windows + licence key.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/218929

I wouldn't go through eBuyer... after the last couple of days i've had argueing with those cunts, i am actively recommending people to avoid them

I nearly always use Ebuyer, I have put £30k+ through them in the last 3 years and had not one moment of bother.

I guess I am the lucky one or LucienSanchez is the unlucky one...either way.

But I would suggest you build it yourself Ginghino, I put together a core i3 system with 4gb and a 9600gt graphics with Windows 7 for about £300 last week from there.

http://www.c-p-ltd.com/

They have a special offer on with the acer desktop.

http://misco.co.uk/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=456592&CatId=0

I ordered with free delivery a week ago, they cancelled my order at 23:45 the day before it was meant to be delivered without reason. The service I received was awful, and they refused to ship my laptop with free next day delivery to compensate. They also claimed I was lying about all the emails I received, and couldn't work out what mails, if any, I had been sent by their system. I had to forward them all mails, and a screenshot of my inbox to prove the timings and content, and then they still refused to send my items. Cocks.

Thats not good at all and very unlike them, but then you only find out how good a company are when you have a problem, one reason I wont use Pixmania any more for stuff due to their inept handling of problems.

Does anyone have any experience of building a PC? If so, is it fairly easy?

I have no previous experience of building anything like this.

I want to purchase a new computer. Have around £500 to spend but don't want to go to PC World or anything like that.

I forgot about this thread!

I wouldn't know where to start putting one together myself.

Yes, it's simple if you know what you're doing. Just have a search around on Google, you'll find plenty of guides.

I'm not that clued up on what's the best spec right now because I haven't built a new rig for quite a while, JJ or stfcinbmth will be the best people to tell you what to buy and what to avoid.

I can't say its easy but its not difficult, as long as you follow the instructions closely and as long as you have someone near by that can help you if things don't go well or how to test if you have put things on correctly or not and what the symptoms of them are.......such as....

Incorrectly fitted cards, memory, faulty memory, faulty chip, bent pins on CPU's (not on new intels) badly seated or incorrectly fitted heat sinks, screws shorting out connections, faulty power supplies causing shorting out or even minor fires and small explosions (seriously! I have had a few in my time!)
Making sure all the settings in the bios are correct and memory speeds set up to optimal, this does not happen "out of the box" with DDR3 memory as it often defaults back to 1333 settings despite it having almost double the speed.

Then installing and setting up the operating system.

If you are confident then go for it, you wont save an awful lot these days...probably £50..but it does give you satisfaction when it does work.

Or if in doubt, get someone to help you that knows what they are doing for the first PC you build.

If it works... which would be unlikely if you've never built one. Not worth the hassle for a first timer buy ready to boot.

Thanks for the information!

If i'm only saving around £50 then i may not bother. It'll save my sanity as i'm not that patient and will end up smashing the thing to pieces!

I've had a scout around on ebuyer so may purchase one on there.

I just want it to run multiple applications smoothly, what do i need to look out for?

I remember when I built my first PC. I bent the pins on the processor, worth about £300 back then. To say the boss wasn't happy was an understatement.

I'm very tempted by this little dinky thing - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/225755

personal opinion is to build one yourself. for £500 you could have a very good PC which would kick the arss out of anything PC world would put together.

as for messing things up you'd have to be pretty heaqvy handed and impatiant for things to go wrong.

and there are loads of people on here to help you out.

if you lived near brum i'd build it for you

I'm afraid i live in Cirencester. Only about an hour away but the hassle of driving all the way up there!

Thanks anyway!

I've bent the pins on a processor before, nothing to do with putting it together, just badly stored away. I just bent the pins back and it was fine :)

About the same performance as a netbook, slow processor and on board graphics, would struggle to play flash games smoothly...such as you find in Faceache etc, I read a review recently and they said its ok but rubbish at mutlitasking and anything that you wouldnt ask a netbook to do.

What do you need to look out for multiple programs running?

Preferably quad core, lots of memory 4gb+ and get a processor with the highest amount of L2 and preferably L3 cache memory, core i5 or i7 are best but after that a core i3 then some of the newer AM3 Phenom II's have good levels but are slower than the comparable Intel chips.

Ok,

I've had a look on ebuyer and looked at either:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/239776

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/239774

Any suggestions?

Have a mooch through some of this lots gear

http://www.chillblast.com/product.php?productid=18938&cat=99&page=1

Just been voted No 1 Desktop manufacturer in the latest PC Pro Awards

Nothing to do with it but they are based in Bournemouth

The core i3 system is the much better bet for future proofing and a much better processor, but if you can afford it and want to play games add in a graphics card of at least an ATI 5770 (£100ish) into that too and you will have a nice little system, if you dont play much games then the core i3 system isnt bad as it is.

What JJ said, deffo the i3

Any useful updates to this chaps?

Thinking of leaving the XP age and getting a new desktop. Haven't bought one in 8 years. Am thinking I should be looking for something that has i5, 4GB RAM, 1TB HDD & DVDRW. Not sure what else to look for or how much to pay?

What's your budget?

£500-1000

http://www.chillblast.com/Chillblast-Fusion-Bullet.html

Who makes Chillblast? Are they reliable?

Their systems always get good write ups in PC Pro


http://www.chillblast.com/PC-PRO-2010-and-2011-Awards.html

http://www.chillblast.com/PC-Advisor-Winner-2011.html

Can't argue with that I guess!

Will have a look round the site a bit more. Would like the budget to be closer to £500 vice £1k, but am not sure what to sacrifice yet!

You could also ask JJ if he'd like to knock you up something

Drop down to the i5

You can get a good system for £500-£600 dead easy to make core i5 2500k with a good bit of RAM and hard drive with a fairly good graphics card too.

Bought one of these (http://www.simplyacer.com/Acer_Aspire_X3990_1114413.html) a week or two back, definitely recommended.

You've cocked your link up, besides I wouldn't recommend an Acer  ;)

Ooops, works ok here.

http://www.simplyacer.com/Acer_Aspire_X3990_1114413.html

What's up with Acer?

Their laptops are one of the least reliable and they are not in the top 5 of most reliable desktops, but then I wouldn't buy an HP either

http://ctwatchdog.com/business/2011-computer-reliability-reports-lenovo-asus-on-top

http://forums.pcworld.com/index.php?/topic/109832-acer-quality-reliability/page__st__20

Some interesting guff on this forum debate.

I've had a couple of Acer laptops and they were fine.

Nephew (who is into this stuff) has told me that the Chillblast is much more than I need and a little pricey. He's suggested pcspecialist.co.uk (which looks the same to me!) Am hoping jjedmunds can come up trumps! ;0)

Right then eggheads here's one for you.

I currently run free AVG version 10.0.1416, whatever that means with Firefox as my ISP.

Now this has an irritating habit of when updating and scanning of paralysing my PC for 30 minutes or so and regularly doing so during a prolonged session especially when I boot up.

I'm sure for getting this free service and in fairness what appears to be a good level of protection those sneaky fuckers are downloading all my activity and selling it on to third parties as well as freezing up my PC or am i being paranoid?

So the question is am I better off buying protection and if so who, or just changing from one free service to another?

Regards

Fatbasher

AVG by default is set to scan at noon, or when it next starts, this means that AVG invariably scans on start up and slows everything down. Go into the scheduling part and disable scheduled scanning and just do it yourself occasionally.

And if you want to buy I've always found ESET Smart Security the least intrusive as a set and forget scanner/protector thing.

http://www.eset.com/us/home/products/smart-security/

Microsoft Security Essentials, freeeee and unobtrusive

Slight change of topic again but I'm looking at building a new PC and I've specced up the following with a little help from a friend:

[url width=900 height=555]http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a251/jehst/pcspec.jpg[/url]

Any thoughts?

yeah - don't buy an MSI 6950 - buy a Sapphire dual fan edition 6950

They are quieter and can be overclocked up to 6970 speeds as they also have a dual bios to do this....

Well Sonic IMO can I offer you a couple of pointers that if I was building a PC fro someone I would advise them to do.....

The Phenom 960T is a poor processor in comparison to the much much better 2500k i5 even though the 2500k is £50 more it would give you about 25-30% better performance, in games it is nearer 50% better performance, I have made builds with the Phenom and they are sluggish in comparison, noticably sluggish.

You wont really need 16gb memory, anything over 8gb is just willy waving exercises and you will probably never ever use that even if you do huge amounts of photoshopping.

If you get a 2500k then you use a much smalled SSD which would be far cheaper and used in conjunction with the Z68 motherboard you can use it as a hybrid hard drive/SSD so you can buy a 60gb SSD and a 1gb HD like a Samsung spinpoint, giving you the best of both worlds for speed and capacity.

The 6950 isnt a bad graphics card but again for a basic gaming PC but you would be beter served by an Nvidia 570 for a similar price but better performance.

PS Sheepshagger....the Sapphire dual bios 6950 cannot now be flashed to a 6970 as they have changed the chips now negating the possibility of flashing them, they are now locked, that is unless you can find one that will work which is as rare as rocking horse shit now cos they have pretty much all been bought already. AMD have stopped producing the upgradable 6950 chipset about 4 months ago and will not ever produce them again so this loophole is no longer available.

http://tinyurl.com/c5zxxqb

Would still much prefer a 570 for a comparable price which gives loads more FPS (25%) than even a flashed 6950 to a 6970.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BRAND-NEW-NVIDIA-GEFORCE-GTX-570-1280MB-/250957154182?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item3a6e364786

Sorry JJ I know you are somewhat of an expert in the PC field but on this particular point you are wrong.

the newer Sapphire 6950 Dual Fan also has a dual bios and can be easily overclocked to 6970 performance

This is not limited to older parts.  AMD didn't stop producing this 4 months ago - they have been supplying ASIC's until around 2 weeks ago - it is now going end of life to be replaced by the new arriving 7k series.

I'm not too sure that the 570 is 25% higher FPS than a 6950 which is overclocked - that would completely depend on the game - certainly some games run better on a 570 and some better on a 6950 although I would concede the 570 is "slightly" quicker overall

However for other things like Eyefinity (3 screen setup) and transcoding video AMD beats Nvidia hands down....

You may be correct but I do remember reading in the several computing press association articles that AMD had stopped making the chip, sorry if this is incorrect but I am only stating what I have read, maybe it was put out to stop people trying the flash bios and getting something for free, I am not sure on that.

The comparison of clock speeds was based upon a standard 6950 or even a flashed to 6970 card agaibst a standard 570, e.g. not overclocked as ina ctual fact the 570 overclocks far better than the 6950 but as you say there are a few games that the 6950 does indeed run faster than the 570 but in the main there is a fairly big gap.

I myself run a pair of 5970's and have no problem but £ for £ the 570 is a better single card option than the AMD in most peoples opinions with benchmarks to back this up.

I also personally would not change from my pair of 5970's because they will beat any single card option witht he possible exception of the 590 which is a stupidly expensive option!

I dont know anyone that runs a multi screen set up for home use either so I personally would not use the eyefinity as a selling point.

Sorry double post wouldnt let me delete one! :D

I think to be fair the 6950 dual bios was stopped then re-introduced .....

To be honest if someone was prepared to wait - the best option is to wait for the 7xxx series that AMD will launch in January

7970 is first - ridiculously expensive but beats the 590 hands down, and Nvidia will have nothing to come back with for 4-6 months...

There will be cards down in the mainstream based on 7xxx which is why the 6950 and 6970 are going end of life currently

There is definitely going to be more "bang for your buck" coming in the next 4-6 weeks from AMD as they pretty much refresh the complete line up....

You are certainly correct there, the new 7 series AMD is worth waiting for but I do think the January release date may be a little optomistic as always with AMD!

There will be a shortage of 7970's and a price that will be huge to start with rumoured to be $549 or £450 which is a bit pricey!

JJ I have to admit to having a bit of an inside track here - I run Sapphire for Northern Europe :)

7970 launches Jan 9th (to co-incide with CES Vegas) - I have already shipped 350 pieces and will ship more over the next 2 weeks....There will be more launches but probably later in the month...

A nice job, I have used several Sapphire cards in my time, probably well over 100!

They arent bad cards at all, actually both my 5970's are Sapphire, but they do suffer from microstutter which is noticable to me, but thats a driver issue not a hardware issue.

the main question I do have is why is the US release price so much less than the UK release price? when the exchange rate is fairly good in our direction? always has been and always will be I suspect but why I do not know.

JJ it's mainly due to the way biz is done in the US - we sell directly to the New Eggs and others, and they have a LOT of mail in rebates which we just don't have in Europe.

The take up is around 6% of people actually sending in their rebates, so in reality it doesn't cost much to offer.

In the UK we sell through distributors who sell onto the likes of Scan, OCUK etc... so they take their cut and the etailers take theirs - etail generally works off 12% in the UK and distribution around 6% - so their is an 18% margin model.  In the US the etail companies tend to work off 6%-8% so it makes a big difference....

Thanks SS I had long time wondered why and guessed it was something to do with resellers and middle men, shame we cant deal directly with you, the supplier, for certain items which would cut the cost hugely!

So if any fall off the back of a lorry please let me know as I can find a good home for a pair of them ;) sorry couldnt resist that, I bet you get that all the time!

TEF Discount?  ;)