Out with the old, in with the new

[DJMorgan]

Good evening one and all.

I hope you are all well, I have not been on in a long time.

I am currently using a laptop which is getting on for 5 or more years of age, and it still handles light-room etc but I need more speed, and in all honesty I think I`m best moving back to desktop PC to do editing with.

I have seen on ebay some that are gaming pc`s for around £289 or so.

I wanted to know can anyone advise me in where I can look for a decent, editing able PC from?

Many thanks

Daniel

 

[Pookeyhead]

What's your budget?

If you tend to keep computers for as long as 5 years it's probably best to start with something decent.

Do you game? If not... you do NOT need a big fast graphics card. In fact,you probably don't need to buy one at all.

Wherever you get it, I'd go for ...

• i7 4770 Socket 1150 CPU (if you need to save cash then i5 4670 Socket 1150) - Do not get a CPU ending in "K" unless you want to overclock it... as it offers no other advantage.
  
• A decent Z87 socket 1150 motherboard will give you tons of USB3.0 ports and hard drive options later and will also have on-board graphics capable of driving a 1920x1200 screen via DV-I or a 2560x1600 screen via HDMI. Photography does NOT Need a powerful graphics card. If anyone tells you it does, they do not know what they are talking about.
• 16GB DDR3 1600 RAM (minimum)
  
• As much hard drive space as you can afford.

Don't skimp on the monitor! I'd rather have an awesome screen on a crap PC than the other way around. The monitor is the interface between you and your photography. You judge it's quality, colour, tone, contrast etc using your monitor.. not the computer. Crap monitor usually = crap image quality.