Desktop PC - cheap(ish) - any recommendations please?

Katchit

Katchit

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Looking to buy a new desktop tower, dont really want to spend a fortune for what i want it to do, but dont want it to be sluggish or slow, etc...

Will generally be used for -

Office software work
Web browsing
Design work / web work
And also perhaps (very sparingly) a game or 2 on Footie Manager.

Do any of you guys have any recommendations please? Im not really up to speed on the new processors, which processors are good, etc... are the i3, i5, i7, etc... the best ones to get?

Thanks again for any recommendations!
 
Need a price point to work from, maximum budget?
 
As said a budget will help us to give you ideas.

Design work does that include photoshop? You'll probably want to have a large amount of memory for design work i think, the rest of those won't need the latest and greatest to work well so the specs would just need to be whats requried to get photoshop etc to run nicely
 
Hi all!

Thanks for the replies.

To be honest, didnt really want to spend more than £400 on the tower.

Got monitor, accessories, etc... just want the tower.

Thanks again for any recommendations!
 
I'd probably go for an AMD processor instead of Intel. I was thinking of doing a build back in January (didn't bother since I've been able to play F1 2011, MW3, BF3 on my current set up) and this is what I had planned:
http://gyazo.com/5f04dc43193868bd3076911ac41ca55c.png

Was considering adding a SSD to have the OS on and reusing my HD 5770.

Dunno if that build would be of interest to you or inspire you to build a better one.

Obviously you'd have to add a PSU, graphics card and hard drives to that.
 
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Thanks for that Ross.

Are AMDs quite good then? Not really up to speed with the processors, etc... and which ones are good, etc...
 
That AMD processor is about as fast as the i3-2100 which is the same price... The Intel processors have better power consumption as they scale the clock better. You can also get cheaper motherboards too although I'd be tempted to get a better Z68 one with onboard integrated graphics. The gfx on chip with the ix-2xxx processors will handle photoshop, office and light gaming perfectly adequately. Removing the graphics card might help you to stretch to an i5-2500K which is by far the best value processor around at the moment and very easily overclockable to 4.3-4.5GHz (although you'd need a decent after market cooler to do that).

If you can reuse case/power supply/OS (you'd need Win7-64bit)/DVD drive from a previous machine, you can buy 8G/i5-2500K/Z68/1Tb HDD for £364. Add £60 for a decent PSU and another £30ish for a decent case, £20 for DVD drive and you're £470 for components + £70 O/S and you're about £540 for a machine that'll wipe the floor with all but the most expensive of builds.
 
neil_g said:
Amd are okay if you're on a budget, intel i series would be better if you can afford it. Have a look on the dell outlet page for that sort of budget.
Click to expand...

Hello, thanks for the link Neil.

They look good, are Dell Outlet pretty good in terms of warranty? Only reason i ask is because there are a few bargains on there by the looks of it! Thanks again.


arad85 said:
That AMD processor is about as fast as the i3-2100 which is the same price... The Intel processors have better power consumption as they scale the clock better. You can also get cheaper motherboards too although I'd be tempted to get a better Z68 one with onboard integrated graphics. The gfx on chip with the ix-2xxx processors will handle photoshop, office and light gaming perfectly adequately. Removing the graphics card might help you to stretch to an i5-2500K which is by far the best value processor around at the moment and very easily overclockable to 4.3-4.5GHz (although you'd need a decent after market cooler to do that).

If you can reuse case/power supply/OS (you'd need Win7-64bit)/DVD drive from a previous machine, you can buy 8G/i5-2500K/Z68/1Tb HDD for £364. Add £60 for a decent PSU and another £30ish for a decent case, £20 for DVD drive and you're £470 for components + £70 O/S and you're about £540 for a machine that'll wipe the floor with all but the most expensive of builds.
Click to expand...


Thanks for your reply!

To be honest, i know what you're saying and i appreciate that, but i dont think i would spend that amount on a new computer! Thank you for your advice and post, it is most welcome. :)
 
Katchit said:
Hello, thanks for the link Neil.

They look good, are Dell Outlet pretty good in terms of warranty? Only reason i ask is because there are a few bargains on there by the looks of it! Thanks again.

Thanks for your reply!

To be honest, i know what you're saying and i appreciate that, but i dont think i would spend that amount on a new computer! Thank you for your advice and post, it is most welcome. :)
Click to expand...

On a business level they're very good, I can't directly comment on home warranty I'm afraid. Default is return to base i would be tempted spend the extra if you can to get the on site warranty though.
 
Katchit said:
but i dont think i would spend that amount on a new computer!
Click to expand...
I know it all depends on your circumstances, but, in reality £540 isn't a lot to spend on something that is 2x as quick as something £140 less... I used to build myself mid range PCs until I built this one last year - I'm not buying/building a mid range PC for myself ever again ;)
 
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