PC Ten Years Old Need Tower Only

axel

axel

axel

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I need to upgrade from a top spec PC which is now ten years old. I have a new monitor and all peripherals so only need the PC unit. I do not do gaming so just looking for a top end future proof home PC to last for the next few years.

Dell no longer offer customised PCs so looking for something similar from a reputable company to choose my options Intel i7 processor, minimum 8GB memory and a good graphics card. No monitor or peripherals.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Axel
 
Hi,

What resolution is your monitor?

If you dont game why the "good graphics card"?

Pre-built or DIY?

Need an OS?

And budget? otherwise things could get out of hand.
 
Monitor is a Dell 220WA(Digital) set at 1680x1050(recommended).

I do not want a "bad graphics card" so "good" would be fine.

Prebuilt with Windows 10 OS and basic warranty. Budget, thinking around £500, but flexible to future proof PC.

General internet use, online video slots and casino offers, bookmaker sites for online matched betting, occasionally play Flight Simulator, currently using Office 2007 for Word and Excel spread sheets, but probably need to upgrade Office shortly.

Axel
 
You have no reason to get a graphics card besides that you just mentioned you play Flight Sims. The onboard would suit you just fine for the most part, bar the game. You also have absolutely no reason to get an i7, that's just money thrown down the drain.

I'd suggest taking a look at the pre-built rigs from here, but remember that an OS will cost you approximately 1/5th of your overall budget. That's not a lot of room to play with.
 
I think the best thing that youll notice to have a snappy quick home pc is an SSD drive, even then a core i3 or so would be more than youll ever need. 400w psu's at most are cheap even decent brands.
 
As others have said, an i7 is overkill for your needs. An i3 or i5 would be just fine. Any money saved here would be much better invested in a SSD as your main system drive, as this will give you far more of a performance boost than stepping up to an i7 for your intended usage.

If you get a Skylake CPU the integrated graphics on the CPU should be plenty good enough for the uses you've described, apart perhaps from the flight simulator (although at your monitor resolution it's likely fine).

8GB memory is fine, but DDR4 is cheap currently and so it might be a good time to get 16GB for a bit more future-proofing.
 
I already have Windows 7 so can I save £80 by ordering without an OS and installing W7 (providing I wipe it from my old computer) then upgrade to W10 for free?

Axel
 
axel said:
I already have Windows 7 so can I save £80 by ordering without an OS and installing W7 (providing I wipe it from my old computer) then upgrade to W10 for free?

Axel
Click to expand...

Depends if your Windows 7 is an OEM or retail edition. If retail, then yes you can transfer the license to a new computer and then upgrade it to Win 10.

If you aren't sure if yours is OEM or retail there's some useful information on how to find out here.
 
An i3 and modest GPU are plenty assuming you're talking about Microsoft FSX:


That's an i3-3220 and an HD 7770.

A Skylake i3 and GTX 950 or R7 370 would be my recommendation.

UNLESS you're talking about the upcoming FS release this year, but I've no idea what the specs for that are.
 
Cern said:
Depends if your Windows 7 is an OEM or retail edition. If retail, then yes you can transfer the license to a new computer and then upgrade it to Win 10.

If you aren't sure if yours is OEM or retail there's some useful information on how to find out here.
Click to expand...

In reality, he'll be able to use his key, not technically supposed to if its an oem key but we all know Ms will activate it without much argument.
 
It is a retail version and I have original box, licence key and DVD discs.

I have now been looking at configurations on here and have a few questions.

1. If I buy a new computer without the OS, how do I get my copy of W7 on unless I also buy the DVD read/writer? I already have one on my existing computer, which I rarely use, and can transfer it over, but not sure how I can do that and get it up and running without an OS installed?

2. I also have a fairly new 1TB hard disk on my existing computer with W7 on it and all my programmes and files. Is it possible to buy a new PC without the HDD then swap over the HDD from my old computer and fire it up? Could it be that simple?

Many thanks for all the help and suggestion so far.

Axel
 
Jamesyboyjim said:
In reality, he'll be able to use his key, not technically supposed to if its an oem key but we all know Ms will activate it without much argument.
Click to expand...

Have had mixed results with this, but it's certainly worth a try. MS seem quite desperate to upgrade everyone to Win 10 at the moment.
 
axel said:
It is a retail version and I have original box, licence key and DVD discs.

I have now been looking at configurations on here and have a few questions.

1. If I buy a new computer without the OS, how do I get my copy of W7 on unless I also buy the DVD read/writer? I already have one on my existing computer, which I rarely use, and can transfer it over, but not sure how I can do that and get it up and running without an OS installed?

2. I also have a fairly new 1TB hard disk on my existing computer with W7 on it and all my programmes and files. Is it possible to buy a new PC without the HDD then swap over the HDD from my old computer and fire it up? Could it be that simple?

Many thanks for all the help and suggestion so far.

Axel
Click to expand...

1) Since you have a retail version of Win 7, your best option here is to go straight to Win 10 on the new computer. Microsoft allow you to use a Win 7 retail key during a clean install of Windows 10. You are likely going to have to do a clean install anyway (see below). You can download Windows 10's Media Creation Tool here and this will allow you to create a Win 10 install DVD or USB stick.

Your best bet is to install off a USB stick, these are cheap to buy if you don't already have one. Or you can just transfer your DVD drive over from the old machine, the new machine will recognise it in BIOS and you can use it to install the new OS.

2) No it's not that simple. It very likely won't work because of driver issues. Windows 7 almost certainly will have all sorts of problems if you just move the HDD to a new machine. Some you can fix with driver updates, some are very very hard to fix. However, assuming you can at least boot you might be able to upgrade to Windows 10 and this should solve most of the driver issues. But a clean install is the best way really.

Treat yourself to a SSD. Seriously, you will thank yourself for the huge performance boost over HDD. It's the best 'bang for buck' upgrade you can do in many cases. A 250GB SSD is only around £60 - £70 these days - install Windows, programs and games onto this and you can use your HDD for file storage.
 
Cern said:
Treat yourself to a SSD. Seriously, you will thank yourself for the huge performance boost over HDD. It's the best 'bang for buck' upgrade you can do in many cases. A 250GB SSD is only around £60 - £70 these days - install Windows, programs and games onto this and you can use your HDD for file storage.
Click to expand...

Yes based on the support and suggestions here, this appear to be the way to go.

Many thanks.

Axel
 
axel said:
2. I also have a fairly new 1TB hard disk on my existing computer with W7 on it and all my programmes and files. Is it possible to buy a new PC without the HDD then swap over the HDD from my old computer and fire it up? Could it be that simple?
Click to expand...

Other than what Cern said you'll also have all sorts of permissions problems as the user accounts will be different.

Best route is to back up the data to somewhere outside of your user space (putting it in a "backup" directory in the root directory would be sufficient, or to another partition), do the clean install, and copy the data into the new user space.

If you've a lot of data you'll probably want it on the HDD rather than the SSD anyway. You can move your user area after installing.
 
OK

I will go for the 250GB SSD and a clean install of W10 using my W7 licence key.

I will then fit my existing 1TB hard disk which has two partitions and move all of the data I want to keep to the storage partition drive D: then format the current drive C: which has W7.

Does this sound right?

Axel
 
axel said:
OK

I will go for the 250GB SSD and a clean install of W10 using my W7 licence key.

I will then fit my existing 1TB hard disk which has two partitions and move all of the data I want to keep to the storage partition drive D: then format the current drive C: which has W7.

Does this sound right?

Axel
Click to expand...

Yep, sounds like a good plan. Your drive letters will change of course - the SSD will become the new C: drive and your old HDD will be assigned new letters for each partition.

Once you're happy with your new Win 10 install you have two options for what to do with the old W7 partition. Either format it, as you suggest, or delete it via Disk Management and then expand the storage partition to recover the space you've freed up.
 
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