Advice On Buying A New Pc

[Richie Cross]

Hi folks,

my current pc has been slowly dying and getting noisier

to the point where some things won't even open now!

So, decided that it's time for a change.

My current pc has an amd athlon 2.1G processor and 1.5g

of ram.

It only gets used for office, e-mail and Internet.

So far I've only looked at pc world as they do base units only.

Can find ones that are quick enough but they come with 300gb

of hard drive. I've survived with 15g for ages!!!!

Is that just the norm?

Where else can I look? Is it a waste of money to just upgrade the current one?

Cheers

[st3ph3n]

You must surely have more than 15gb of hard drive space?

I got a cracking deal from the Dell outlet last year, and have used it a few times since then for a netbook for myself and for a few machines for other people.

Basic rules - no celerons, 3gb ram, and get Windows 7.

And yes it probably is a waste of money upgrading the current one.

[Richie Cross]

Er, yes....have a massive 40G hdd!!! Only used 15g

when you say dell outlet, do they have an actual shop or

is it online?

Cheers

[st3ph3n]

Online - http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/default....amp;lid=1141768

Basically it's refurb or scratch and dent machines they sell. Sometimes it's from cancelled orders or machines that have been DOA and sent back for repair.

I've seen maybe 5 machines from the outlet now and they've all been absolutely perfect.

Best thing to do is price it on the outlet then try and configure that combo on the main shop and see if there is a good saving. Sometimes there's not, but I know when I got mine it was £330 delivered and configured new on the main site was £420.

[StrikE]

Or there is great deals on custom built PC's. Dell PC's are or were difficult to upgrade.

Have a looky at these guys overclockers £279.99 for a new pc is not bad, just the base mind and plus operating system depends on how much you want to spend

Good to deal with & get most of my gear from there too.

Del <--<< wish Dell was my company

[weedman]

I'm no computer guru, but I got a new machine from Dell last October and have been very pleased with it. I like their next business day backup. I set a budget and bought the best specced machine I could for that price.

I'd agree with st3ph3n about Windows 7 - I've been impressed with it. (So far!)

[supremeweb]

I supply machines every week for individuals and corporate clients, custom built machines and bare bones systems. At present for lower spec or basic machines Tesco are doing some cracking deals. I will say most P.C's we get in for repair are DELLS and we constantly hear of people having issues dealing with P.C world......

[Vimmy]

I've always built my own machines, 'cos I'm a cheapskate but recently wanted one quick and went to Overclockers. They build and sell far cheaper than you could if you sourced parts from anywhere else, good thing is they test it all before shipping so you know it will work out of the box. The best bit about these guys is that you can build a machine by adding or removing certain spec hardware and you're able to tailor your new pc's spec's to your budget, making it very customizable. I'm not putting down Dell, we use a lot of them in work, but I find they use parts in them made for Dell, so if anything breaks it can be hard to source Dell parts

I've always been a Windows XP guy, Vista (imho) is a steaming pile of poo as it is overbloated and needs a high specced machine to run properly, however Windows 7 is great, it doesn't need a huge machine to run it and driver support is very good. I have converted to Windows7 now from XP in most of my machines - a much as I hate to say it, 7 is a great OS.

Edited March 29, 2010 by Vimmy

[st3ph3n]

Dells are easy to upgrade now. Done a few things on mine before it was even switched on.

Used to use Overclockers back in the day but haven't done much recently. I gave up building my own or buying barebones ones. The thing I like with the mass produced ones is that they tend to have quite well engineered cases and power supplies that don't generate a lot of noise. When I bought my current machine it was the first time (in 15+ years too) that I'd actually bought an "off the shelf" model. I couldn't be bothered with the hassle any more and I don't regret it one bit. At the time I specced up a custom build one and it worked out more expensive. Okay the components might have been better quality, but I'm going to chuck it all out after I've had it 3 years anyway.

[bmwhere?]

Wouldn't go anywhere near PC World for a new PC.

Best deals are online.

I've bought several desktops from Dell over the years, about 4 for myself, and 2 for my dad and never had a problem with any of them. Also no problems with upgrading or compatibility with old or new software and hardware. From my experience they just work!

Now have an HP machine at work which has also been faultless.

From my experience over the years, paying that little bit extra for main brands is worth it for piece of mind and to be sure of a stable system. The most problems I've had with machines over the years have been the cheaper brands or custom built machines.

I will say most P.C's we get in for repair are DELLS

That's probably more related to their market share than any particular reliability issues. Would you say that most Dells you get for repair are old machines or do you get a lot of new(ish) machines too?

My dads first Dell lasted for about 8 years with no problem. Eventually his hard drive packed in, although it was particularly undersized and over-full and with limited RAM, there was a lot of swapping going on. IMHO 8 years for a HDD in daily use is pretty good going!

[st3ph3n]

I've got an HP in the office which is quite a nice wee box. Well put together and quiet as a mouse for the most part. It's got a 2.5" hard drive though and .... well I just don't trust them not to die quickly in daily use. Time will tell though!

[Richie Cross]

Thanks for the replies. Didn't you could personalise your build

with Dell. Looking a good bet so far

[Jimmy321]

If you are going down the windows 7 route and only need a small HD and have the cash you might want to consider a fast solid state drive which supports TRIM (like the Corsair Nova 64GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive @ £154.99 on overclockers).

I know its a lot of money for such a small drive but the performance increase is amazing, i use a 128gb SSD every day for graphics work and could never go back to a mechanical drive, opening an image in photoshop in seconds including the actual loading of photoshop and a spreadsheet in open office in under a second including the actual loading of open office saves me loads of time.

It took me just under 14 mins to install windows 7 64bit on this machine (i7 quad + 6gb ram).

[dark]

If you're looking at Dell's website make sure you look at both the 'home' and 'business' sections.

The business machines are usually cheaper, have a higher spec and more frequent special offers. The only real difference seems to be that the business machines do without surround sound and have a less pretty box!

I ordered a Vostro 430 last week with i7-860, 4Gb RAM, 500GB HDD, descrete 512MB ATI graphics card & Win 7 Pro 64bit for £500 incl vat and delivery which was ~£100 cheaper than the equivalent Inspiron for the home market.

Cheers, Mark