Desktop PC advice

macvisual

macvisual

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Peter
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Hi all, hoping youse PC guru's can guide me please towards a Desktop PC which I'll only be using for a small web browsing, but my main purpose will be editing photographic images using Adobe Lightroom 5 via a USB card reader (SD & CF cards) and separate portable 2TB HDD storage.
I must stress I don't do any gaming or downloads whatsoever. We run BT Infinity fibre optic broadband. We've a couple of tablets for general light use for web browsing etc. A dedicated desktop PC will be located in an unused bedroom upstairs to mainly work on photographic images and photo uploads to the web etc... I would probably need speed, decent size ram, storage, and a quality monitor to view photographic images.

For 2/3 years now I've been running an elderly Acer laptop (about 4yrs old) as an only source for editing my photographic (jpg/raw) images via Windows 7 Home, it's becoming extremely slow and tiresome to work with. I've transferred as many photo storage files onto separate 2TB HDD's from the laptop's hard drive to give it breathing space etc......but it's needing replaced to be honest, it takes ages to boot up and if you've two pages up it generally goes very slow.

I'm so out of touch with desktops/monitors I really don't know where to start (??), what I need is a PC that can cope with mainly large photographic files as I shoot a Nikon D810 camera. I'm up for all advice of where to purchase a desktop PC from, I'm not very technical minded.........sorry!!
My budget would be around £450 - £475 ish. I'm guessing a keyboard and mouse are as cheap as chips to pick up? The main focus is the actual desktop PC unit and monitor, although an average sized monitor would do me for a while as I could save for a larger quality screen in the very near future.

I'm totally lost as to what spec's are good/bad/indifferent..?? Can you purchase refurbed desktop PC units?, buy second hand?, to buy new......where from? What about my local Currys/PC World?, ebay etc....? I don't know where to start looking or exactly what I need processor speed wise/ram/space wise.

Any advice/knowledge/experience would be fantastic help, thank you.


Regards;
Peter
Central Scotland
 
Have a look this range below. IPS? with this you can view the monitor from almost any angle without darkening from one side of the screen to the other . check them out on youtube. I have one and it is really good

Can't help with computers as my son and I built our own with photography in mind. That way you know what components are in it and the quality of each part. You can build a better computer £ for £ spent against a pre assembled one
The cooler a computer the better,so air flow is a big consideration. Look at a computer case and see where the vents are. Vents front and back are best as it makes a straight through air flow, side vents means the air has to get diverted to exit so slows down. That would be my main tip on what to watch out for if buying a pre assembled one


" Dell UltraSharp Monitors with IPS Technology"
 
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Dell have an outlet store which sells refurbished or cancelled order PCs. I have also used a couple of companies ITCsales and MCSCOM for PCs. something like a Dell OptiPlex would be a good candidate, I bought an i7 based OptiPlex for the same purpose as you. I have 16gb ram, an SSD and a 2gb internal disk in an USFF unit which runs cool and quiet.
 
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Fancy building your own? very easy. The below will absolutely fly.

Theres an i5 4670k in the classifieds at the moment (£115)
Get a cheap case £30. Sharkoon C10 is great, small and easy to build in.
Get a used Z87 motherboard. £50
8GB ram £30-40
430w PSU £35
256g GB SSD - £70 or 128GB £40

Grand total of £310-£340

If you do it I'll send you a free Keyboard and mouse!

Pick up a used Dell IPS 1920 x 1200 monitor £100

And you've got plenty of change for a few fish suppers or you could add an aftermarket cpu cooler, overclock it and have a speed demon on your hands!
 
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Aria.co.uk have a quadcore i5 for about £200 refurb at the moment. Add SSD and a decent monitor to take you up to your budget.
 
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