Buying a new Desktop computer and need help

[Neoandrew1]

Hi all

Im looking into buying a Desktop computer for gaming as Ive just managed to sell my old Acer laptop which I used to play games on.

Ive only ever bought laptops so Im looking for some advice on this one lol

Ive sold my 17" Acer TravelMate 7320 for 500 Euros and Im willing to put 200 euros extra for a desktop. I have always gone with Acer laptops because they have always served me well and have been good value for money but Ive had no experience with there desktops?

any help would be great

The basics of what Im looking for are:

Duel Core or Quad Core that works and is reliable lol

3gb-4gb ram as standard with the ability to upgrade a fair bit

500gb HDD with 2-3 extra HDD bays would be nice

graphics? well, as good as possible as standard but cards are quite cheap here.

High speed usb`s..

half decent amount of mother board slots so I can pop in extra H.S usb etc

any other things that It should have in this day an age please tell me because I honestly have never bought or looked into buying a desktop before lol

[The Pinny Parlour]

Hi all

Im looking into buying a Desktop computer for gaming as Ive just managed to sell my old Acer laptop which I used to play games on.

Ive only ever bought laptops so Im looking for some advice on this one lol

Ive sold my 17" Acer TravelMate 7320 for 500 Euros and Im willing to put 200 euros extra for a desktop. I have always gone with Acer laptops because they have always served me well and have been good value for money but Ive had no experience with there desktops?

any help would be great

The basics of what Im looking for are:

Duel Core or Quad Core that works and is reliable lol

3gb-4gb ram as standard with the ability to upgrade a fair bit

500gb HDD with 2-3 extra HDD bays would be nice

graphics? well, as good as possible as standard but cards are quite cheap here.

High speed usb`s..

half decent amount of mother board slots so I can pop in extra H.S usb etc

any other things that It should have in this day an age please tell me because I honestly have never bought or looked into buying a desktop before lol

Dual Core / Quad core? - They all work. Bang for buck AMD Phenom II. Cutting edge intel i7 or a Core2 Quad for future proofing. Dual core are the shiz right now however.

RAM? - 3.5GB and over you need a 64bit OS to handle that amount. Vista 64bit or Windows 7 64bit in October.

HDD? - Seagates, Samsungs, Hitachi, WD crikey's I've seen them all and seen them all fail too. Whatever your budget.

Case? - Just about any Yum Cha case can accommodate 3 HDD's these days but the PSU is shitty. I would ALWAYS buy quality PSU's. Something like a Antec case with a PSU included is always a good purchase.

Graphics? - nVidia or ATI? Whatever you can afford will do.

USB? Defaults are usually high speed and not full speed.

Mainboard? - Intel cpu or AMD cpu? - AMD, best bang for buck, and 780g or 790gx chipset mainboard. (whack in any new ATI card and BANG, instant Crossfire working in tandam with the HD3X00 intergrated graphics).


Ultimately it's your choice what you get and how big you pocket is.

Hope it helps

[Brummel]

I might make a few posts in here, as I don't have time now to write one large one covering it all...

Main thing is: do you feel confident in building it all by yourself, or do you want to buy it as a whole package?

I'm personally a fan of Asus boards, they have alot of functionalities, specially if you're into overclocking. Make sure you define what you want from it before looking into them.

Quad or Dual core? My home desktop runs a DualCore E8400. If you want to game, a dual core will do, if you're going to do alot of video and/or 3d editing and rendering a Quad it should be.
Benefits for me of a Dual instead of a Quad: mainly heatproduction. Quad cores seem to develop alot more heat than Dual's. But I haven't got any experience with Intel's or AMD's new range of Quads.

Seeing your budget, I take it you're after DDR2 memory, but if you can save some money on a good vid-card, you might want to have a look into a motherboard to supports DDR3, makes you abit more future ready, but it's gonna be thight on the budget...

Vidcards: make sure you match them with whatever your motherboards supports: specially if you want to insert 2 or more (SLI or Crossfire).

More to come...

[Neoandrew1]

I was thinking about getting a package and upgrading the graphics as I have not built my own computer since 1997 and a lot has changed since then lol

plus I would not have thought about putting 2 vidcards in so that shows how long Ive been out of it lol

I`ll have a more in depth think about this today and re-educated myself as much as a possible (time permitting) and come back on tonight
Thanks Brum you have got me thinking now lol

[Brummel]

See if you can find a website that allows you to pick the components you want, and put it together for you. That way you'll be able to pick all and only the stuff you want.

If you have picked the items, post them here, some people might have a few comments or remarks :)

[SgtHetfield]

What is 500 euros in real money?

[Draco]

$700 usd??? I don't know... just a guess.

~Johnny Jones

[(0)(/)]

euros = £ or as good as ;);)

[SgtHetfield]

500 quid plus another 200 he should be able to get a good set up - though this is Tenerife!

[Old Man]

:)I don't know what 500 euro is in us but i have built 2 computers since November. the first was a kit for my daughter - amd 2.6 ghz duel core, 2 gig ram used onbord graphics 250 gig hard drive, keybord, mouse & speakers and 24x dvd burner for $250.00 US. For me i bought everything seperate. Intel quad core 2.4 ghz. 4 gig ram, graphich card nvidia 9600 gt with dual monitor support, gigabyte mother bord with intel g31 chipset, 500 gig hd, 24x dvd burner, 620 watt power supply, artic cool pro cpu cooler, case and 3-80 mm fans, for apros $500.00 US.
Mother will only hold 4 gig ram so if you want more this bord want do also this bord has onbord graphics which are good but not as good as the nvidia card. Not trying to say buy this just trying to give you an idea of what you can find if willing to look and take a little time ALSO remember if you build it there is no software supplied it will be extra where if you purchase an Acer or HP or DELL it comes with software. :D You can pick up a 20 inch flat screen LCD for less than $150.00 if watching for a sell less than $100.00 :)

Check these sights. Do not know if they ship international though but good place to look.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/
http://www.geeks.com/
http://www.newegg.com/Index.aspx?name=Home

[Brummel]

1 euro is about 85 pence....

I recently spend about 300 euro on a new (second hand) board, Core 2 Duo E84000 en 4 gigs of DDR3 memory...

[The Pinny Parlour]

I don't consider myself a fanboi of either the Intel or AMD camps but I am a HUGE fan of AMD/ATI's 700 series mainboard chipset. Especially the 780G with integrated HD 3200 integrated graphics or the 790GX with HD 3300 integrated graphics. Best all-rounder mainboard hands down. As mentioned before, the integrated graphics is enough to run most games you can throw at it when coupled with a decent Phenom or Phenom II cpu.

When you insert dedicated graphics card in the PCI-E slot, you usually disable the on-board graphics solutions, but that doesn't happen with this chipset. When you connect a supported Radeon video card, it works in tandem with the integrated graphics to create a Hybrid Graphics solution.

Awesome IMO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgKWEpe4h8Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgKWEpe4h8Y

Pay attention at 1.33 and 3.23

[Neoandrew1]

That does look awsome!!!
Ive just done a quick google for it and I get one for 80 euros!

I was just wondering if you can by a desktop ready built with it in but could not find anything?

I have been looking at his Acer today and Im quite liking it at 435 Euros, what do you think?

Brand Name Acer
Product Name Aspire
Computer Type Microsoft Vista-64bit
Product Features 652gb hardrive
8 gb ram
All-In-One
Intel Quad Core
Microsoft Works 9.0
Mid-Tower
Nvidia Geforce Gtx+ graphic card
Pocket Media Drive
Portable Media
USB Ports x 10
Windows Vista Premium
service pack 3
x64 Bit Processor

Like I said before the most taxing thing I will be doing on it is playing games, Encoding with Nero etc

but Im not actually sure if its a good Graphics card??? I know hardly anything about the new cards lol

[The Pinny Parlour]

That does look awsome!!!
Ive just done a quick google for it and I get one for 80 euros!

I was just wondering if you can by a desktop ready built with it in but could not find anything?

I have been looking at his Acer today and Im quite liking it at 435 Euros, what do you think?

Brand Name Acer
Product Name Aspire
Computer Type Microsoft Vista-64bit
Product Features 652gb hardrive
8 gb ram
All-In-One
Intel Quad Core
Microsoft Works 9.0
Mid-Tower
Nvidia Geforce Gtx+ graphic card
Pocket Media Drive
Portable Media
USB Ports x 10
Windows Vista Premium
service pack 3
x64 Bit Processor

Like I said before the most taxing thing I will be doing on it is playing games, Encoding with Nero etc

but Im not actually sure if its a good Graphics card??? I know hardly anything about the new cards lol


Regarding your question, "I was just wondering if you can by a desktop ready built with it in but could not find anything?". Yes you can. I suggest you look at local PC shops as opposed to OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturers) to build you a system based on it.

The system you stated is an Intel based one. It looks ok but doesn't really go into great details on the Mainboard.

[Ironface_NL]

1 euro - $1.40 at this moment. But it ain't fair, the computer components are much cheaper in the US then here in Europe. hyst hyst

[SgtHetfield]

How about this

http://www.meshcomputers.com/Default.aspx?PAGE=PRODUCTVIEWPAGE&USG=PRODUCT&ENT=PRODUCT&KEY=560668&utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=online&utm_content=9950_HD_p1&utm_campaign=panel1

£425 Euros - not sure on delivery

[Brummel]

How about this

http://www.meshcomputers.com/Default.aspx?PAGE=PRODUCTVIEWPAGE&USG=PRODUCT&ENT=PRODUCT&KEY=560668&utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=online&utm_content=9950_HD_p1&utm_campaign=panel1

£425 Euros - not sure on delivery

Looks ok, but I'd rather have a bit 'bigger' psu: you'll risk overloading the 300W one when you upgrade on the vidcard and full load it then. Not sure about the vidcard in it, is it onboard or is it a PCI-E one?

[Neoandrew1]

Right ok I should be getting into Los Christianos early next week so what questions do you think I should be asking about the Acer I mentioned?

Like er

what mother board is in it?
what PSU does it have etc?

Then I`ll make the guys in the shop earn the sale lol

ps there are only 2 half decent and trustworthy computer shops in the south of Tenerife where I live and both of them are quite small shops so I dont get a great deal of options and a lot of companies dont like shipping here because the postal service is so unreliable...
This would have been a simple task back in the UK but here its a p@in in the ass and this is why Im being anul about what I buy so I dont have to piss around doinging again for a while lol

[SgtHetfield]

Looks ok, but I'd rather have a bit 'bigger' psu: you'll risk overloading the 300W one when you upgrade on the vidcard and full load it then. Not sure about the vidcard in it, is it onboard or is it a PCI-E one?

That's a fair comment, my set up I built myself, but I have a hefty PSU in it - 600W (I think).

My brother is building himself a super computer for doing his work on, and said he'll give me his old one - it is virtually the same same spec as mine, if just has more RAM and a 512Mb PCI-e Graphics card.

My missus is moaning already - "More junk" What! It isn't junk. I may recommission it and have a second set up - the extra disks will be useful, hell if Neo isn't sorted out by then he could have my old one?