Computer for Uni - £500

Mark101

Mark101

Mark101

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Joined
16 Jun 2011
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40
Hi,

Pretty soon I'll need to buy myself a computer for uni. I've not yet decided whether to get a laptop or a desktop; if the latter I will build it myself.

I already have a 1080p monitor, I'll get a proper keyboard/mouse either way and I'll get office software separately.

Uses: Office apps, MATLAB coding, gaming when I'm at home (Battlefield, Skyrim etc.)

Budget: I can get a student OS for cheap, so £500 absolute max. without OS.

For £509 I found a Dell Inspiron 15R laptop with these specs:

Processor Intel Core i3-2370M
Display 15.6in (1366x768)
Memory 6GB2 DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz
Hard Drive 1TB (5,400rpm) SATA
Optical Drive 8x DVD+/-RW Optical Drive
Video Card 1GB AMD Radeon HD 7670M​

Obviously a laptop is more portable and would mean I could have dual screens, but how much more power could I get with a desktop? Would like more gaming power than the laptop, but a balanced system overall rather than GPU heavy. I only really need 500GB storage.

Thanks :) Any input greatly appreciated.
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the reply.

I've amended the first post re. the OS; I can get it cheaper as a student, but would then certainly not want to go over £500 on the rest of the build (even that is stretching it but probably feasible). I've tried the Windows 8 preview but kinda hated it... :p

I have an i5-2500 and a 6850 in my home build, although that runs at 1680x1050 so presumably the frame rate drop with the same card would be significant when at 1080p. Is there anything in between the 6850 and the 7850 by price (6870's, 550Ti's, 460 Superclocked, 560's, 560 OC's) that would make sense as an intermediate option? Cards around £140 would push that build within the limit...

A couple of other thoughts:

How does the i3-2100 compare to the mobile chip in the laptop spec (i3-2370M)?

I have an OCZ ModXStream 600W which is (now) also £60 in my home build. How does that compare?

And I didn't realise hard drive prices were still up :( My 500GB was £30...
 
The rig at home is a family computer that I built. Being shared between several people, gaming is not always possible...

That build looks nice. The laptop is indeed a one-year warranty, and laptop repairs are often notoriously expensive (and sometimes impossible to accomplish at home).

I'm guessing that Intel's M chips are not as powerful as their desktop versions too... so the desktop becomes very tempting.
 
While that is certainly an interesting idea, I'm not sure I could get them to agree to it :p

I would have a hard time persuading them that a laptop was even comparable to desktop. I mean, it has lights and everything. And it's bigger.
 
Hmm, the Z77 board is good... but I'm not sure about the Pentium, especially with the 7850. For about half of the year I won't be gaming much, and might need power for stuff like writing MATLAB code, photoshop work and so on. Also, when I am gaming, I play Skyrim a lot. Are we entering the realms of CPU bottlenecking?
 
No, certainly the more ideas the better!

It's good to consider all of the options before buying... that SSD is very nice looking, presumably enough capacity for the OS and perhaps a couple of programs? Certainly hadn't even considered that one...
 
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