Help me buy a new PC

[Marquis]

So, I used to be a major tech nerd, but it seems that my day of expertise has long gone....

Computer seem to be a lot cheaper than they used to be, and basic components seem to be the same, other than that I have no clue what's going on.

Could someone help me pick out the right components for a new custom build machine, hopefully staying under about $500?

What is the new hot shot processor, what is the next processor down that is almost as good but less than half the cost, etc.

How much RAM is going into these machines these days?

I remember when a 1 GB hard drive was considered massive, now I keep a 4 GB flash drive on my key ring...

 

[Primalex]

Range of use?

 

[Marquis]

I want to be able to do anything I want to do.

Honestly, mostly I just use office and the internet, maybe play the occasional game.

Being able to edit video might be nice.

 

[Primalex]

Being able to edit video might be nice.

as hobby I hope.


Intel i5 core

3 GB RAM still is enough for everything (unless professional video editing)

Graphic card around Radeon 4850 class is sufficient for most tasks and games unless you want full details on a 24" lcd, but then you'll need something like a Vapor-X 5870 which kills your budget itself.

40-60gb solid state disc for os and applications (f.e. Intel SSD X-25-V 40GB MLC) and a cheap simple harddisk for the porn storage and the rest.

The SSD will be the most expensive part in there, but imho it's worth it. Applications don't load anymore, they are just there - it's like acoustic coupler vs cable modem.

Now if you want to recode Blu-Ray movies as "video editing", the setup would me much different. Then you need a i7 quad core or you'll drive crazy.

 

[Daddy2mylilgirl]

I would get at least 4GB of RAM and 2TB of storage.

For a case, I've always like Antec.

 

[RuReal]

Remember the $500 price range a solid state drive makes no sense when doing that. I also don't think there is a need for a high end graphics card considering what was described.

I suspect you are in the states. Go to www. newegg.com and look at the bare bones systems. Then go from there. I agree with the 2 to 3 gb of ram should be more than enough for what you are doing.

1tb hard drive should be good enough for you, but if you have the money go for the 2gb.

If you are looking for a CPU that is just under the latest and greatest go for a quad core. Should be enough to power anything you are doing including video editing. Unless you are a big gamer you do not need a high end graphics card, solid state drive. That being said always keep your budget in mind and how long you plan on keeping the computer.

Happy hunting don't forget the DVD or Blue ray drive.... let's face it a DVD burner is probably good enough for most.

 

[Daddy2mylilgirl]

I was just going to suggest newegg.

If you don't go SSD then you should go with this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136296

They have it on sale for $99 only until 1pm today.

 

[RuReal]

I was just going to suggest newegg.

If you don't go SSD then you should go with this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136296

They have it on sale for $99 only until 1pm today.

Ok I am a bit confused you can get a 1tb drive that is 7400 rpm for that price. Why go with two drives. As long as the drive is fast enough with decent cache the user will not notice the difference in most cases. Solid state and high speed drives are useful for two things. Gaming, and fast responce raid services.

Just interesting in your take Daddy2mylilgirl as to why one would do that?

 

[Primalex]

Solid state and high speed drives are useful for two things. Gaming, and fast responce raid services.

a) A SSD does not have mechanical parts. It's much more reliable and life expectancy is higher and it won't be replaced by something better in 6 months.

b) A SSD for _gaming_ is pure luxury and really not that useful - I know this, because I have my third SSD installed now. Load times are better yes, but this isn't always a good thing - the helpful tips in loading screens disappear sometimes so fast again that you can't read them, for example.

But if you open an application like OpenOffice it's instantly there. What is really insane is to put much money into the CPU - it will idle 99,9% of the time anyway AND you will still never get a responsive system, because it just doesn't matter whether a 1GHz single core or 3 GHz quad core CPU waits for data - both can't do anything before the harddisk delivered the data. And these days the harddisk IS the bottleneck (except for games, there the bottleneck is still the graphic cards).

I upgrade my system twice or thrice a year and no upgrade did ever affect so much the overall system performance than the change to SSD technology.

Just out of curiousity, which SSDs did you buy for your PC to come to your conclusion?

 

[Daddy2mylilgirl]

Ok I am a bit confused you can get a 1tb drive that is 7400 rpm for that price. Why go with two drives. As long as the drive is fast enough with decent cache the user will not notice the difference in most cases. Solid state and high speed drives are useful for two things. Gaming, and fast responce raid services.

Just interesting in your take Daddy2mylilgirl as to why one would do that?

Faster boot times, loading of OS, loading of apps, etc. You put your OS and apps on the velociraptor and everything else on the 1TB drive.

Just look at some of the customer reviews:

by far faster than my old 72,000 RPM drive windows 7 loads in no time at all

Cut boot to desktop time by almost 50% vs seagate 7200 320G barracuda. This why I bought the drive and it delivered. System specs:
WinXP Pro, AMD 5000X2 cpu, 2GB RAM

---------------------7200RPM vs Raptor
HDD Test Suite Score 2841.00 5543.00
HDD - Windows Defender 14.09 MB/s 26.97 MB/s
HDD - gaming 10.24 MB/s 17.30 MB/s
HDD - import pictures to WPG 27.96 MB/s 52.08 MB/s
HDD - Windows Vista startup 13.50 MB/s 21.87 MB/s
HDD - video editing in WMM 24.79 MB/s 49.93 MB/s
HDD - Windows Media Center 37.17 MB/s 97.88 MB/s
HDD - Add music to WMP 6.62 MB/s 12.99 MB/s
HDD - application loading 2.83 MB/s 5.85 MB/s

 

[Primalex]

I would get at least 4GB of RAM and 2TB of storage.

With 4GB you need a 64-Bit OS though, so he can't reuse the one he has - for a new OS the budget is too limited.

For a case, I've always like Antec.

Yes, they are nice, my HTPC case is an Antec Fusion. But with a $500 budget, I would get the cheapest case that doesn't fall apart immediately. Not sure how the Antec low budget cases are? Do you have any real life experiences with them?

 

[Daddy2mylilgirl]

With 4GB you need a 64-Bit OS though, so he can't reuse the one he has - for a new OS the budget is too limited.



Yes, they are nice, my HTPC case is an Antec Fusion. But with a $500 budget, I would get the cheapest case that doesn't fall apart immediately. Not sure how the Antec low budget cases are? Do you have any real life experiences with them?

I didn't realize he was reusing his OS.

No experience with Antec but I've read good things about them.

Like this one http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042

Their whole Hundred series is suppose to be good.

 

[RuReal]

I suppose that boot time has never really been an issue for me because I almost never turn my computers off. There is hardly ever any reason to do it.

there will be replacements for those solid state drives and that is larger capacity ones that come out. As for life span of the drive from everything I have read there is no real confirmation that it will last longer. There are no movable parts and that is great, but there is the whole repeated store memory effect where there is a limitation in how many times you can write to any one block.

I still have not heard what the solution was when they came out with these drives. This has been in place for a long time on memory keys. Then again that could all be a useless worry only time will tell. Frankly I will take capacity most of the time over the speed increase of the solid state drive at the prices that they charge for them.

 

[Primalex]

I didn't realize he was reusing his OS.

Hmm..

I was assuming this. I mean...if he wants a second system, then we would also need a monitor, too and mouse and keyboard and all this in $500?

But then again, if he really reuses the OS, then he might not need a case either.

Hey M, what do you actually need and what can you reuse?
OS? computer case?

 

[Primalex]

Frankly I will take capacity most of the time over the speed increase of the solid state drive at the prices that they charge for them.

But what do you use the capacity for?

Usually just crap, because you are too lazy to delete things.

I mean, my games drive is full, too and when I install a new game I think:"Damned, more capacity would be great." But then I think:"Fuck Primalex, how about you just delete one of the games you didn't play for weeks and just keep on the disk for the off-chance you start playing it again?"

Really, on a 1 TB disc at least 75% is crap that could be deleted. If it would be important, you would need to back it up regularly and most don't do this anyway - so this shows how important this data is. We are data hogs and more capacity won't change this - it just means more work when we want to clean up.

Just my 2 cents ;-)

(Of course, the guy with a 16 TB movie archive is talking here, who refuses to delete movies he doesn't like...)

 

[Daddy2mylilgirl]

Hmm..

I was assuming this. I mean...if he wants a second system, then we would also need a monitor, too and mouse and keyboard and all this in $500?

But then again, if he really reuses the OS, then he might not need a case either.

Hey M, what do you actually need and what can you reuse?
OS? computer case?

Yea $500 is tough if he wants all new.

The OS and SSD will be $200 alone.

CPU and motherboard about $280 - $300.

Case, mouse, keyboard about $100.

Monitor around $200.

Two 1TB HDs about $180.

Video card around $100.

You're looking at about $1000 for everything new.

 

[Daddy2mylilgirl]

But what do you use the capacity for?

Usually just crap, because you are too lazy to delete things.

I mean, my games drive is full, too and when I install a new game I think:"Damned, more capacity would be great." But then I think:"Fuck Primalex, how about you just delete one of the games you didn't play for weeks and just keep on the disk for the off-chance you start playing it again?"

Really, on a 1 TB disc at least 75% is crap that could be deleted. If it would be important, you would need to back it up regularly and most don't do this anyway - so this shows how important this data is. We are data hogs and more capacity won't change this - it just means more work when we want to clean up.

Just my 2 cents ;-)

(Of course, the guy with a 16 TB movie archive is talking here, who refuses to delete movies he doesn't like...)

Exactly.

Just insert porn for games and you have just described me as well.

I remember upgrading from 40GB to 80GB and thinking there is NO WAY I'm gonna fill it up. Damn you broadband internet.

 

[RuReal]

But what do you use the capacity for?

Usually just crap, because you are too lazy to delete things.

I mean, my games drive is full, too and when I install a new game I think:"Damned, more capacity would be great." But then I think:"Fuck Primalex, how about you just delete one of the games you didn't play for weeks and just keep on the disk for the off-chance you start playing it again?"

Really, on a 1 TB disc at least 75% is crap that could be deleted. If it would be important, you would need to back it up regularly and most don't do this anyway - so this shows how important this data is. We are data hogs and more capacity won't change this - it just means more work when we want to clean up.

Just my 2 cents ;-)

(Of course, the guy with a 16 TB movie archive is talking here, who refuses to delete movies he doesn't like...)

primarly I currently use a lot of the home server space to store my movies, music, WSUS, and backup for my web server as well as all the computers. In fact I am well over the 1 TB mark, but then again I tend to be a heavy user. I game next to not at all, but when I was younger I used to. For your average gammer you are correct the space is nothing but wasted and speed is your number 1 priority followed by stability in a lot of cases.

How I use computers I hunt for stability and data retention. I will say my web server has nothing close to 1tb on it, but it does not need the space.

Then again I am also running VMware and multiple OS's so I am probably also using more processor and memory than most out there as well.

 

[where]

buy a Mac.

 

[RawHumor]

buy a Mac.

He wants to stay under $500. Not under $5000.

 

[where]

He wants to stay under $500. Not under $5000.

you can get a second hand mini mac for that.

 

[Primalex]

buy a Mac.

What would be the benefit?

 

[where]

What would be the benefit?

no viruses, bugs get fixed pretty quick, usually before you even notice them, you get pretty much all the same software you do for PCs and even then you can if you want run microsoft on it or a part of it. it's super easy to use, it's aesthetically pleasing and you can big it up if you so choose.

what's the benefit of a PC?

 

[Primalex]

no viruses

Not that many.

bugs get fixed pretty quick

What kind of bugs? Hardware? OS? Application?

you get pretty much all the same software you do for PCs and even then you can if you want run microsoft on it or a part of it.

and then you get the viri problem, too. Maybe much worse, because you are not used to care about it.

it's super easy to use, it's aesthetically pleasing and you can big it up if you so choose.

I would grant you the "aesthetically pleasing" point, if I would care to look at my computer. I rather look at the monitor.

what's the benefit of a PC?

Compared to a Mac?

a) Better third-party hardware support.
b) Ten times more software.
c) Much bigger user communities for support.
d) Compatible with equipment at work.
e) Much richer UI options - one button and a scroll-wheel is maybe easier, but for sure not as versatile.
f) Cheaper.
g) Computer games.
h) By the way, do they have Blu-Ray support by now?

just a few things.

You know, if he would have said:"I want to impress chicks with my cool equipment, do a lot of video editing and painting and got some spare money" I would have said "Mac!", too. But I really have trouble to match his requirements with your recommendation.

 

[goodie1]

Not that many.



What kind of bugs? Hardware? OS? Application?



and then you get the viri problem, too. Maybe much worse, because you are not used to care about it.



I would grant you the "aesthetically pleasing" point, if I would care to look at my computer. I rather look at the monitor.




Compared to a Mac?

a) Better third-party hardware support.
b) Ten times more software.
c) Much bigger user communities for support.
d) Compatible with equipment at work.
e) Much richer UI options - one button and a scroll-wheel is maybe easier, but for sure not as versatile.
f) Cheaper.
g) Computer games.
h) By the way, do they have Blu-Ray support by now?

just a few things.

You know, if he would have said:"I want to impress chicks with my cool equipment, do a lot of video editing and painting and got some spare money" I would have said "Mac!", too. But I really have trouble to match his requirements with your recommendation.

32 Reasons to buy a PC

www.pcauthority.com.au/Feature/92605,32-reasons-why-pcs-are-better-than-macs.aspx