RedM Posted May 22, 2005 Share Posted May 22, 2005 There seems to be a fair few IT bods on the forum so I hope some of you can point us in the right direction. My days of obsessively following PC trends are long gone and I'm a bit lost as to what is good and what isn't We want to spend 700 at the very most. We don't need a monitor as the one we have is very good. How much memory should we be looking at? How large for a hard-drive? Graphics card or integrated? AGP or PCI Express? How much memory? Sound card or integrated? DVD ROM essential. DVD-Re-Writer would be nice. Most of our PC usage is the Internet. Some photo work, Word etc. I guess we want a PC that'll do media stuff rather than play the latest games. Can anyone recommend a supplier too? What are Tiny like? They seem to have awesome spec machines at the price we want to pay but I've heard things!! Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carl0s Posted May 22, 2005 Share Posted May 22, 2005 Tiny have never had a good reputation with me. I just remember lots of Tiny computers coming into our shop for repair years ago and having 2.5" laptop harddrives inside them on adapters Didn't make a good impression really. Sorry, my memory could be failing me, they might have been Time Computers. Dell are pretty good on price, and £700 should get you a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Digger Posted May 22, 2005 Share Posted May 22, 2005 Are you capable of building the PC yourself ? I recently bought new PC components (from Aria and Scan) and it cost me about 600 quid all in. I bought a P4 2.8ghz with Hyperthreading, a 160gb SATA hard drive, an A-Bit motherboard, 1024mb memory, 128mb PCI-Express Gigabyte G-Force Graphics card, on board 7.1 sound, blah blah. I also bought a new copy of XP Pro with Service Pack 2. I bought a new case from Aria with a clear side and it has about 4 or 5 fans on it to help keep things nice and cool. That's not quite everything I bought - but the whole lot came to no more than 600 quid. Well pleased with it all .... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedM Posted May 22, 2005 Author Share Posted May 22, 2005 I could probably build a PC myself but whenever I've added up the costs I can't seem to match a pre-built machine. The OS seems to take a huge amount of the money! I'll check out those comapnies though. What are you doning about warranties? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SUPRALOOPY Posted May 22, 2005 Share Posted May 22, 2005 just go to http://www.dell.co.uk you can't beat the prices imho Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gamer Posted May 22, 2005 Share Posted May 22, 2005 How much memory should we be looking at?.... Nothing less then 512mb How large for a hard-drive?.... Depends on what your storage usage is like, prices are quite reasonable for at least a 120gb sata drive Graphics card or integrated?.... This would depend on if you like to play games on the PC or not, if not then an integrated card will suffice. If you do like to play games then you can pick up some nice bargains on various cards. AGP or PCI Express?.... AGP is being phased out, so PCI Express is the way to go, performance differences between the two are negligible. How much memory?.... the more the merrier... Sound card or integrated?.... Depends on what you want out of your system sound wise. Some of the newer motherboards are putting out some quite nice integrated cards. So some savings can be had there. DVD ROM essential. DVD-Re-Writer would be nice.... Go for the DVD-RW if possible, it pays off in the end for the ability to burn your own CD's and DVD's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted May 22, 2005 Share Posted May 22, 2005 Buy this from me and spend the cash you've saved on any upgrades you need http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?t=38421& I got a black DVD-RW for £35 the other day, 512mb can be had for £30 or so, disks are cheap as chips, your only additional expense would be a PCI graphics card if the onboard isn't enough for you and a screen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nic Posted May 22, 2005 Share Posted May 22, 2005 Forget all the advice above from all these so called IT experts THE best thing you can do is to buy one of THESE. It will fit your current monitor, keyboard and mouse (if they are USB.) I guarantee once you get use to the superior OS, are shocked at how user friendly and how quick it is, you will be thanking me and begging to send me the money you save out of your £700. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted May 22, 2005 Share Posted May 22, 2005 Highly upgradable Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nic Posted May 22, 2005 Share Posted May 22, 2005 Highly upgradable Actually YES Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedM Posted May 22, 2005 Author Share Posted May 22, 2005 Buy this from me and spend the cash you've saved on any upgrades you need http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?t=38421& I got a black DVD-RW for £35 the other day, 512mb can be had for £30 or so, disks are cheap as chips, your only additional expense would be a PCI graphics card if the onboard isn't enough for you and a screen. If we were buying a PC out of my Supra fund then I'd take it from you without thinking twice. However, t'other half is paying for the new comp and wants brand new and as good as we can afford. Maybe I should suggest she buys the car and I get the computer! Sorry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael Posted May 22, 2005 Share Posted May 22, 2005 Dell Dimension 3000 Pentium 4 Processor 17" TFT Flatscreen Monitor 512MB Ram 160GB Hard Drive Only £385 when I last looked. Enter code d-d05302b as your evalue code and reduce the warranty to 90 Day Collect and Return Service. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedM Posted May 22, 2005 Author Share Posted May 22, 2005 Forget all the advice above from all these so called IT experts THE best thing you can do is to buy one of THESE. It will fit your current monitor, keyboard and mouse (if they are USB.) I guarantee once you get use to the superior OS, are shocked at how user friendly and how quick it is, you will be thanking me and begging to send me the money you save out of your £700. The page had timed out but I'm guessing you are on about the Mac Mini. We'd need a new monitor (or connector), keyborad and mouse and I saw something on The gadget Show about how expensive they are when you start to upgrade them. But, I would love a new Mac. Sold old Ibook to help the Supra fund (still accepting donations:D) and do like the OS. AS I've already mentioned, my partner is paying and she is insisting on a PC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedM Posted May 22, 2005 Author Share Posted May 22, 2005 Michael, What is that evalue thingy? I can't work out which part to enter in which box. Also, can't seem to buy a Dell without a monitor! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake Posted May 22, 2005 Share Posted May 22, 2005 Dell Dimension 3000 Pentium 4 Processor 17" TFT Flatscreen Monitor 512MB Ram 160GB Hard Drive Only £385 when I last looked. Enter code d-d05302b as your evalue code and reduce the warranty to 90 Day Collect and Return Service. I need a new PC for our youngest and that one would be perfect. I can't see one for that price on the Dell web site though. The Dim3000 with 80Gb HD seems to be £479 by the time I've added on the (ripoff) £49 delivery charge. Could you have a butchers at their web site for me to make sure I'm not going blind? Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedM Posted May 22, 2005 Author Share Posted May 22, 2005 I can't do it either. I just want a new pc with NO monitor. How hard is that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedM Posted May 22, 2005 Author Share Posted May 22, 2005 What about this? http://pcs.tiny.com/pc_specification/web_only/14812/61312/Tiny_PCI_Express_630 Seems like a lot of PC for the money. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jake Posted May 22, 2005 Share Posted May 22, 2005 Found this one for £385 delivered : Intel® Pentium® 4 processor (2.80GHz, 533fsb, 1MB cache) XP Home Edition SP2 512MB Dual Channel DDR333 (2x256MB) 17in Value Midnight Grey Flat Panel 160GB (7200rpm) IDE Hard Drive That'll do for me. Cheers Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nic Posted May 23, 2005 Share Posted May 23, 2005 The page had timed out but I'm guessing you are on about the Mac Mini. We'd need a new monitor (or connector), keyborad and mouse and I saw something on The gadget Show about how expensive they are when you start to upgrade them. But, I would love a new Mac. Sold old Ibook to help the Supra fund (still accepting donations:D) and do like the OS. AS I've already mentioned, my partner is paying and she is insisting on a PC. Yes it was a link to the Mac Mini. Take her to a Mac shop and show her how it looks that'll persuade her Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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