New PC after years in the mac wilderness

Ripper

Ripper

Ripper

Soldato
Joined
25 Jan 2003
Posts
11,550
Location
Newark, Notts
I'm looking to buy a new desktop PC. For the last 5 years I've had iMac's but with my job getting more and more serious I find myself more comfortable (and efficient/productive) working on a PC at work than I do at home on my mac. Therefore I'm flogging the iMac and buying a new PC..!

I want something that is:

  • Cheap - Looking to spend maximum £700 - £750
  • Include a monitor (23" if possible)
  • Quick! - I hate waiting for things to load or things slowing down when I have loads open. I assume that will mean an SSD drive being part of it along with plenty (8GB?) of RAM.
  • Future proof - I want something relatively high end that will last a good three years or more
  • Games - Not the primary reason for purchase but it would be nice to comfortably play a few games here and there (Battlefield 3 for example)
  • Ready to go out the box - Haven't built a PC in about 7 years and don't have the time to do so really

I'm completely out of the loop with PC parts these days, am I asking too much for the price? Have been looking at some Vostro's but i'm not sure if the GFX cards are up to much.

Any help would be greatly recieved!
 
OK, I'll start off.

YOUR BASKET
1 x "Titan 8000i Xenomorph" Intel Core i3 2100 3.10GHz DDR3 Dual Core System £359.99
- 1 x MSI HD 6850 OC 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £83.99
- 1 x System 12 Months Standard Warranty £0.00
- 1 x FREE PANDA 180 Day Trial Anti Virus £0.00
- 1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £83.99
- 1 x No Hard Drive Upgrade £0.00
- 1 x Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Case - Black £59.99
1 x Samsung S23A350H 23" Widescreen LED Monitor - Glossy Black £101.99
Total : £713.64 (includes shipping : £19.75).

 
If you're comfortable building a system, it will end up costing less and being less hassle with warranty (unless you buy from a component shop such as OcUK, who will probably be more flexible if any problems arise; you won't have to send the whole system back for a graphics card issue, for example). However, of course, if you aren't comfortable, just don't.

Also worth checking, what will the system be used for? While going for an IB i5 won't cost that much, you may be able to save money if it's more powerful than your uses require.

Finally...which iMac do you have? If you still like Mac OS X it may be worth grabbing an OEM copy of Windows, depending on how recent the machine is. For example, if it were my iMac, I'd probably not bother buying a whole new system, taking into account the hassle.
 
I suppose building it isn't out of the question if the cost is significantly less.

I'll use the system for bits of photo/video editing every so often along with the odd game here and there.

The iMac is a 2009 2.93ghz Core 2 Duo / 4Gb DDR3 / GeForce GT120 256mb / 640GB HDD
 
Ripper said:
I suppose building it isn't out of the question if the cost is significantly less.

I'll use the system for bits of photo/video editing every so often along with the odd game here and there.

The iMac is a 2009 2.93ghz Core 2 Duo / 4Gb DDR3 / GeForce GT120 256mb / 640GB HDD
Click to expand...

that is horrible :p

let me get to work speccing...
 
Here is my offering... 6850 OC for gaming, 3570K and a Z77 board as they are the latest and greatest intel technologies, an aftermarket CPU cooler (purely to make the system quieter). The K series CPU and the cooler will also allow for some moderate overclocking (perhaps to 4.2 - 4.4GHz) but if you do not wish to do this, the option is still there in a few years when you want a little more oomph.

I have included a large HDD and an SSD so that you can store your operating system and applications on the SSD, because that will greatly reduce the startup times of the system and of intensive applications like photoshop, and we all know how long they take to open. You could also setup SSD caching so that everything is installed on the hard drive, and the most frequently accessed programs and files are cached on the SSD.

A smart little case and monitor, no horrible unbranded tat to be seen here.

8GB of quality RAM, and a quality PSU with some power headroom to ensure that you have no surprise firework displays.

sdhguop.jpg


ah, i seem to have ommitted the operating system... i dont have time to re-do this right now, but i'll get back on it if needed... >.<
 
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