Budget PC Tower?

Haldir

Haldir

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I need a new PC tower, full size or mini, doesn't matter, but it has to be cheap! Can anyone suggest something that is powerful enough to run Photoshop Elements, Affinity etc without buffering.
My laptop, an old 17 inch Fujitsu has an Intel i5, 2.5 GHz, 8 GB Ram, and struggles all the times with Elements. I have mentioned elsewhere that this has really only happened since upgrading
to Windows 10, and even after a new Windows 10 download this week, it's made no difference. My wife has been using it to do a home course in Microsoft Office and even that is struggling...

My tower is around 12 years old and hasn't worked properly for several months, and I've lost count how many times it's been repaired, so time to replace.
Is something similar to this on Amazon up to the job, especially if I double the ram?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0713SMTTD/ref=twister_B071DQ6PMM?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
 
You don't say how cheap is cheap
Have a look at
Dell Outlet UK
Laptops Direct
CCL Online
 
Haldir said:
I need a new PC tower, full size or mini, doesn't matter, but it has to be cheap! Can anyone suggest something that is powerful enough to run Photoshop Elements, Affinity etc without buffering.
My laptop, an old 17 inch Fujitsu has an Intel i5, 2.5 GHz, 8 GB Ram, and struggles all the times with Elements. I have mentioned elsewhere that this has really only happened since upgrading
to Windows 10, and even after a new Windows 10 download this week, it's made no difference. My wife has been using it to do a home course in Microsoft Office and even that is struggling...

My tower is around 12 years old and hasn't worked properly for several months, and I've lost count how many times it's been repaired, so time to replace.
Is something similar to this on Amazon up to the job, especially if I double the ram?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0713SMTTD/ref=twister_B071DQ6PMM?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
Click to expand...

Haldir said:
Around £150.00, I know it's not much...
Click to expand...

That pc is £230 though.
 
You might get something refurbished from ebay, they can be office units more robust than a cheap consumer model bought new - and more scope for upgrading
 
Just following your amazon link and looking at amazon renewed they all seem to come with a 12 moth warranty , Ok they are all at bit basic and are not going to set the world on fire from a speed point of view but they all look pretty decent for the money.
It looks like pick one Dell / HP and ask a few questions before you buy
 
andrewc said:
What version of the i5 is in your current laptop. There are multiple versions, so apart from an increase in clock speed you may not be gaining much.
Click to expand...

Very true.

@Haldir you can type about pc as a search in the windows 10 bar and hit enter, tells you the processor. Although, I note you have a laptop i5, mobile chipsets can be significantly slower than desktop variants.
 
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If you’re looking around the £150 range and want a PC, I would get the 256GB SSD one. The upgrade to the SSD would be of more benefit than anything else at this point.

Or you could have the best of both worlds and put a 1TB SSD in your laptop for around £100. The upgrade to an SSD will be far more noticeable than swapping to a pc with a fairly similar spec that’s being slowed down by a traditional drive.
 
andrewc said:
What version of the i5 is in your current laptop. There are multiple versions, so apart from an increase in clock speed you may not be gaining much.
Click to expand...

My laptop is an i5 2530M, doesn't mean anything to me to be honest...Can't remember what the tower system is it's been that long since I've had it on.
Tried connecting the laptop to the tower this morning, but the laptop socket is for outbound only...My PC was brilliant when I first got it, I think the processor was AMD,
I know it came with twin Nvidia Graphic Cards, but they gave up the ghost and not having the funds by then, a cheaper one was installed. Even now I know the fan
needs replacing again, it's quite loud and not really cooling properly. It's just been away for repair so many times I'm not chucking good money at it any more.
 
Haldir said:
My laptop is an i5 2530M, doesn't mean anything to me to be honest...Can't remember what the tower system is it's been that long since I've had it on.
Tried connecting the laptop to the tower this morning, but the laptop socket is for outbound only...My PC was brilliant when I first got it, I think the processor was AMD,
I know it came with twin Nvidia Graphic Cards, but they gave up the ghost and not having the funds by then, a cheaper one was installed. Even now I know the fan
needs replacing again, it's quite loud and not really cooling properly. It's just been away for repair so many times I'm not chucking good money at it any more.
Click to expand...

Definitely sounds like its time to move on! That laptop chipset is very old and slow as you know. The Amazon desktop (although also fairly old) will be significantly faster, especially if you change the windows OS disk to a cheap 240gb SSD.

Benchmarks arent everything but to give you some idea, your laptop processor scores 2006 points on passmark vs the amazon desktop with i5 3470 scoring 4643. Add an SSD (£35) and for the budget youll have a decent machine.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-PL...ld=1&keywords=256gb+ssd&qid=1587910427&sr=8-3
 
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andy1868 said:
If you’re looking around the £150 range and want a PC, I would get the 256GB SSD one. The upgrade to the SSD would be of more benefit than anything else at this point.

Or you could have the best of both worlds and put a 1TB SSD in your laptop for around £100. The upgrade to an SSD will be far more noticeable than swapping to a pc with a fairly similar spec that’s being slowed down by a traditional drive.
Click to expand...

Would changing to SSD make the laptop faster or at least not make it so slow? I upgraded the ram from 4 to 8 a couple of months back after our lass said she wanted to do
this course. I thought it was a good move at first, but within a couple of days! Although I bought it secondhand, it was only to use tethered originally, the desktop did everything
else. As that became worn out, the laptop took over, and it has coped quite well until upgrading to Windows 10 which I mentioned in another post mid-week. I've since
done a complete re-install of Windows 10 in the hope it would run better, no change...
 
andy1868 said:
If you’re looking around the £150 range and want a PC, I would get the 256GB SSD one. The upgrade to the SSD would be of more benefit than anything else at this point.

Or you could have the best of both worlds and put a 1TB SSD in your laptop for around £100. The upgrade to an SSD will be far more noticeable than swapping to a pc with a fairly similar spec that’s being slowed down by a traditional drive.
Click to expand...

Not quite, that laptop spec i5 isnt anywhere near as fast as the desktop chip. Adobe products are very processor and fairly RAM intensive, SSD not such a huge factor in editing, more in app loading times etc. The CPU will be a definite improvement.
 
twist said:
Definitely sounds like its time to move on! That laptop chipset is very old and slow as you know. The Amazon desktop (although also fairly old) will be significantly faster, especially if you change the windows OS disk to a cheap 240gb SSD.

Benchmarks arent everything but to give you some idea, your laptop processor scores 2006 points on passmark vs the amazon desktop with i5 3470 scoring 4643. Add an SSD (£35) and for the budget youll have a decent machine.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-PL...ld=1&keywords=256gb+ssd&qid=1587910427&sr=8-3
Click to expand...


Much appreciated twist:giggle: I should know more about PC's for the number of years I've had one, but as long as they work, I've never got too involved with them!
 
Haldir said:
Much appreciated twist:giggle: I should know more about PC's for the number of years I've had one, but as long as they work, I've never got too involved with them!
Click to expand...

No problem.

Id personally pay the slight extra and go for this, it has a faster and newer CPU than the one you posted and 240GB SSD for only £20 more (definitely worth it). Then Id take the drives out your old machines and use them as additional storage. Either internally if it has space for additional drives or externally via USB 3 in a dock or caddy.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-OptiP...hild=1&qid=1587910967&sr=8-20&srs=16308409031
 
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twist said:
No problem.

Id personally pay the slight extra and go for this, it has a faster and newer CPU than the one you posted and 240GB SSD for only £20 more (definitely worth it). Then Id take the drives out your old machines and use them as additional storage. Either internally if it has space for additional drives or externally via USB 3 in a dock or caddy.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-OptiP...hild=1&qid=1587910967&sr=8-20&srs=16308409031
Click to expand...

FWIW
The i5 in that Dell is three generations on from my i5-760 (the only one of the i5 variants at that time to have Quad Cores and chosen for that reason) but they both have 4 cores & 4 thread specifications...........but the one above is a faster "speed" compared to mine and mine is no slouch when it comes to running photo editing LR, Photoshop & various others (sometimes 2 or 3 programs at the same time) Note ~ I have 16GB of RAM and multiple hard drives. In case the OP asks, this is my home build so nothing stock about it other than the parts that make it up ;)
 
Box Brownie said:
FWIW
The i5 in that Dell is three generations on from my i5-760 (the only one of the i5 variants at that time to have Quad Cores and chosen for that reason) but they both have 4 cores & 4 thread specifications...........but the one above is a faster "speed" compared to mine and mine is no slouch when it comes to running photo editing LR, Photoshop & various others (sometimes 2 or 3 programs at the same time) Note ~ I have 16GB of RAM and multiple hard drives. In case the OP asks, this is my home build so nothing stock about it other than the parts that make it up ;)
Click to expand...

Yup, intel made some really great chipsets the 760 and the early 2500/2600 etc Ks still stand out and with a bit of RAM and a decent GPU still kick ass. Now AMD has taken their throne at most levels at lower cost/performance ratio.
 
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twist said:
No problem.

Id personally pay the slight extra and go for this, it has a faster and newer CPU than the one you posted and 240GB SSD for only £20 more (definitely worth it). Then Id take the drives out your old machines and use them as additional storage. Either internally if it has space for additional drives or externally via USB 3 in a dock or caddy.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dell-OptiP...hild=1&qid=1587910967&sr=8-20&srs=16308409031
Click to expand...

Agreed - I was going to recommend that one too, having browsed what's available.
 
twist said:
Yup, intel made some really great chipsets the 760 and the early 2500/2600 etc Ks still stand out and with a bit of RAM and a decent GPU still kick ass. Now AMD has taken their throne at most levels at lower cost/performance ratio.
Click to expand...

Yup, re GPU ~ I updated my ageing nVidia GT610 because not compatible with any sort of speed when using Topaz AI programs so go the GTX1050Ti 4GB version, this IMO was decent bang for buck keeping at approx £150 rather than going >£200 :)
 
twist said:
Not quite, that laptop spec i5 isnt anywhere near as fast as the desktop chip. Adobe products are very processor and fairly RAM intensive, SSD not such a huge factor in editing, more in app loading times etc. The CPU will be a definite improvement.
Click to expand...

Agreed! I (wrongly) assumed the laptop was newer than it was, that’s what I get for giving advise without all the information :D

Looking at the machine twist and mariner posted I would choose that one over the original HP too. Those little Dells are great, and for £170 you can’t go far wrong.
 
andy1868 said:
Agreed! I (wrongly) assumed the laptop was newer than it was, that’s what I get for giving advise without all the information :D

Looking at the machine twist and mariner posted I would choose that one over the original HP too. Those little Dells are great, and for £170 you can’t go far wrong.
Click to expand...

With PCs naming its fairly easy to assume they are all the same unless the purchaser/owner knows about the various generations and naming conventions like H/K/U/Y etc etc. which can make a huge difference... but can sometimes work in the salesperson favor ;)
 
andy1868 said:
Agreed! I (wrongly) assumed the laptop was newer than it was, that’s what I get for giving advise without all the information :D

Looking at the machine twist and mariner posted I would choose that one over the original HP too. Those little Dells are great, and for £170 you can’t go far wrong.
Click to expand...

The company is only half an hour away from me, handy should things go wrong:giggle:
 
Haldir said:
The company is only half an hour away from me, handy should things go wrong:giggle:
Click to expand...

Sounds positive, it looks a good deal and has warranty. Its a Dell, these workstation type Dells especially are designed for long life and are cheap to repair as they wont have the best performing gpu/ram/drives but they are perfectly fine for a cheap upgrade from a dying PC and you should be pleasantly surprised.
 
As far as I can see, just some things to be aware of:-
That Dell has onboard graphics and will use some of the 8GB RAM graphics function.....you could upgrade the RAM to 16GB in future as needed?
It has only a VGA socket for monitor attachment ~ maybe a case of :(
Though can be expanded the choice of suitable PCI cards because of the form factor might be limited?

It does look like a very nice option for a budget PC :)
 
twist said:
Sounds positive, it looks a good deal and has warranty. Its a Dell, these workstation type Dells especially are designed for long life and are cheap to repair as they wont have the best performing gpu/ram/drives but they are perfectly fine for a cheap upgrade from a dying PC and you should be pleasantly surprised.
Click to expand...

Appreciated twist, and to everyone for their input...
 
Box Brownie said:
As far as I can see, just some things to be aware of:-
That Dell has onboard graphics and will use some of the 8GB RAM graphics function.....you could upgrade the RAM to 16GB in future as needed?
It has only a VGA socket for monitor attachment ~ maybe a case of :(
Though can be expanded the choice of suitable PCI cards because of the form factor might be limited?

It does look like a very nice option for a budget PC :)
Click to expand...


My monitor is VGA, but what are they using nowadays?
 
Haldir said:
My monitor is VGA, but what are they using nowadays?
Click to expand...

Mostly Hdmi these days. VGA nly carries video, not sound where Hdmi does it all - also, I think VGA maxes out at 1080p, could be wrong on that though.
 
Cagey75 said:
Mostly Hdmi these days. VGA nly carries video, not sound where Hdmi does it all - also, I think VGA maxes out at 1080p, could be wrong on that though.
Click to expand...

Unlikely that the op will need 4k, as the monitors are expensive and the onboard graphics likely won't output 4k... But it is 170 quid. Monitor speakers usually aren't worth using.
 
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twist said:
Unlikely that the op will need 4k, as the monitors are expensive and the onboard graphics likely won't output 4k... But it is 170 quid. Monitor speakers usually aren't worth using.
Click to expand...


Yeah thought that, but just stating the differences. I used VGA on my old desktops before I got the laptop. that was quite a ways back, the old pcs I had didn't have hdmi, don't think i even knew what that was back then :D
 
The TV has HDMI, had know idea monitors where the same now, makes sense though I suppose.
 
Haldir said:
The TV has HDMI, had know idea monitors where the same now, makes sense though I suppose.
Click to expand...

Monitors are pretty much extremely high quality TVs without a receiver section.

FWIW if you go for a higher end monitor & computer then displayport is the connection to use.
 
ancient_mariner said:
Monitors are pretty much extremely high quality TVs without a receiver section.

FWIW if you go for a higher end monitor & computer then displayport is the connection to use.
Click to expand...

Agreed, if OP increases their budget by a couple thousand £££ they'll want display port :)
 
Personally, I'd ditch Windows 10 and install Linux - it may not help with your photographic stuff (although you can use Gimp) but it will give your laptop a new lease of life.
 
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