new computer quote

[devonwoody]

What are your views?

Quote

I have looked into some AMD prices which you can find below. I have priced in that we would use your existing: Case, DVD/CD Drives, Power Supply (I expect it is powerful enough, would have to check), Keyboard, mouse, 3.5 Floppy Drive.

The new components would include:

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Socket AM3 3.2GHz 8MB L3 Cache - 4 Core Processor
Asus M4A87TD/USB3 870 Socket AM3 8 Channel Audio - Very good motherboard, includes the new USB3 standard and DDR3, can go for a cheaper one, but would be DDR2, so last generation memory. It also has a PCI-E graphics input and many other modern inputs.
Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 Memory - Matches the DDR speed of the motherboard, maintaining the system speed to optimum.
500GB Seagate SATA2 7200rpm 16MB Cache Hard Drive - Can use your existing drive - or you could consider one of the SSD (Solid State Drives) which are the fastest drives around at the moment, average boot time of approximately 30 seconds and most common tasks are almost instantaneous.
Sapphire HD 5450 PCI-E Graphics Card with 512MB DDR2 Memory - Maybe able to use your existing card, depends on the interface. Good fast card, you could upgrade to a newer DDR5 memory graphics card, all depends on your graphical requirements.
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64Bit Edition

The total cost for this system would be £532, which includes a One year service and labour warranty and in home setup. Various parts can be upgraded in downgraded as this is a custom build.

To make this a duel boot system, we may possibly be able to get your existing XP installation to boot up, it all depends on the motherboard chipsets backwards compatibility. To ensure compatiblity it would require a fresh installation which would be £65.

Have a think through your options and please do not hesitate to ask any questions, you can change components to suite your requirements.

 

[cambournepete]

I like the idea of the "duel boot system" - brings up visions of the 2 OS's fighting for supremacy when you turn it on...

You can get a very similar completely new Dell (exc fancy audio card) for the same or less money and other makes are likely to be cheaper, so I'm not sure the upgrade route is cost-effective...

 

[RogerS]

Are you sending them all the bits, dw, or are they expecting you to put it all together?

 

[Chems]

Lol what exactly is it your doing that you need a new computer for?

 

[monkeybiter]

I just priced up all the quoted components and OS from Aria, £400 inc vat. So if they're building and guaranteeing it doesn't seem too bad.

 

[Dibs-h]

Lol what exactly is it your doing that you need a new computer for?

I'm with him - what are you intending to do with it? Running a backup site for Mission Control or something?

I just went and got a used P4 3GHZ machine for £100 - happy as Larry for the home general purpose PC.

HIH

Dibs

 

[Chems]

Another thing,t those sort of pc's is that they never run as well as a dell machine or other big brand. Getting components to work well is more than chucking them all in in a case an hitting the power. Word of warning is all.

 

[RogerS]

Another thing,t those sort of pc's is that they never run as well as a dell machine or other big brand. Getting components to work well is more than chucking them all in in a case an hitting the power. Word of warning is all.

Spot on. Too easy for the suppliers to say 'it's their fault'. If you buy it all from one place then it's down to them.

 

[Pvt_Ryan]

change the graphics card. I have never had any but problems with ATI(now AMD)

also the intel i5 processors out perform the AMD ones but you pay for them..


What is the PC for gaming? word processing ?

 

[Chems]

also the intel i5 processors out perform the AMD ones

Also true, AMD have recently fallen behind.

DW I'm sure the basic Dell Inspiron 560 would do you fine. Its a dual core, onboard graphics, big hard drive, 2gb of RAM for £349. More than enough unless your planning on DVD editting or taking up powerful 3D packages. Regarding the dual boot, if you currently have a computer then you have a spare hard drive going, set up the second hard drive as an XP boot and save putting un-necessary partitions on your main drive. You know it'll work nicely and have a big company warranty to fall back on if it breaks.

I honestly think your being taken for a bit of a walk in the park it wouldn't be what I'd recommend knowing your computer use.

 

[devonwoody]

Thanks for all the advice above, and the view seems to be it would be a waste.

I had a router fitted this week and the connection played up, (in fact virgin even sent me a new modem) and the new modem fairs no better than the older version, I have to disconnect the power supply from the router and then reconnect to get on line)

so I thought perhaps my old desktop is getting a bit creaky like me, and got the engineer to give me a quote for a top spec.

If things get worse, I shall most probably go for the Dell 560, but not happy with W7 home edition, I would want higher after laptop experience on the wifes machine.

BTW no email notification again came in on this thread.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Chems]

I have that same sort of problem with my router. If you first turn on your PC and don't get a connection, try refreshing the network adaptor/wireless card. If that works you have the same problem as me, its a bug with Vista/Win7 and certain routers. I wrote a small program that runs when the computer starts up that refreshes the adaptor meaning its straight online when it comes on.

 

[Pvt_Ryan]

Tip.. Never use the routers given by the isp..

If you are not into really playing with your network then get a linksys wag120N (adsl) or a linksys wrt120N. Both are low end but will do the job..

When I had virgin cable I used the wrt54gs which was a cracking bit of kit when coupled with dd-wrt, but sadly I moved house and dropped form 20mb cable to 5mb adsl. The wag120N does the job but if i could do it again I would buy the 320N instead for the extra features.

I agree with the dell insp 560 but I would up the ram from 2gb to 4gb. No point in running a 64bit OS with less than 4gb (or a 32bit OS with more than 3gb)

 

[devonwoody]

OK Chems.

I switched off my desktop at the mains around 10.30am this morning and went out to do some shopping, I switched the desktop and cable back on around 11.50 but did not actually use the computer for around 40minutes and that is the first time that the router connected without pulling the power plug out to get going.

So it looks like things are just a little slow but mine refreshes itself automatically if left alone long enough.

 

[Chems]

I agree with the dell insp 560 but I would up the ram from 2gb to 4gb. No point in running a 64bit OS with less than 4gb (or a 32bit OS with more than 3gb)

No need to use internal RAM, stick in a big pen drive and use ReadyBoost, 64bit can handle up to 8gb of RAM and if its a good quality pen drive it will have very quick flash speeds. But I do agree, 4gb should be the min for the new windows.

I've got a Virgin Cable Router at the moment and its very good, its actually a netgear model the same as the one I bought a few months back for my non-cable place and that cost £100. So not bad for free. It also has a neat function for setting up a guest wireless for people when they come around.

Thats good about the RouterDW, if your really in for a bargain check the Dell Outlet, there was a good machine going on there last night for £320.

 

[Pvt_Ryan]

No need to use internal RAM, stick in a big pen drive and use ReadyBoost, 64bit can handle up to 8gb of RAM and if its a good quality pen drive it will have very quick flash speeds. But I do agree, 4gb should be the min for the new windows.

No get internal ram. Readyboost is crap in comparison for a start instead of having a direct bus to the CPU it is going over usb2.0. Generally speaking going from 2gb to 4gb when buying a new system adds ~£30 to the cost..

I've got a Virgin Cable Router at the moment and its very good, its actually a netgear model the same as the one I bought a few months back for my non-cable place and that cost £100. So not bad for free. It also has a neat function for setting up a guest wireless for people when they come around.

Thats good about the RouterDW, if your really in for a bargain check the Dell Outlet, there was a good machine going on there last night for £320.

I don't know what virgin are offering now but when i was with them you got a cable modem and that was it. I have been with several providers and I have found my own equipment is more functional and generally more reliable than any of theirs. Linksys which I recommend are the consumer arm of Cisco who are the top dogs in computer networking.

 

[Chems]

I don't know what virgin are offering now but when i was with them you got a cable modem and that was it. I have been with several providers and I have found my own equipment is more functional and generally more reliable than any of theirs. Linksys which I recommend are the consumer arm of Cisco who are the top dogs in computer networking.

Exactly I was very surprised when it arrived. Obviously they must have had complaints. Every provided modem/router I've ever had or installed for anyone else has gone straight in the bin.

Not sure about the RAM, I think your right in that it wouldn't help on the boot as obviously its something that runs within windows. But I think once in Windows its meant to be pretty good. I'll let you know in a few weeks, they are just teaching us all about RAM at uni, I'm sure it will come up. A lot of the initial stuff about ready boost with Vista was quite split, some saying it was the dogs and other saying it was a waste. For DW I bet it would be ok, unless hes going to take up playing something on the crysis engine next week

 

[Dibs-h]

I don't know what virgin are offering now but when i was with them you got a cable modem and that was it. I have been with several providers and I have found my own equipment is more functional and generally more reliable than any of theirs. Linksys which I recommend are the consumer arm of Cisco who are the top dogs in computer networking.

Exactly I was very surprised when it arrived. Obviously they must have had complaints. Every provided modem/router I've ever had or installed for anyone else has gone straight in the bin.

Not sure about the RAM, I think your right in that it wouldn't help on the boot as obviously its something that runs within windows. But I think once in Windows its meant to be pretty good. I'll let you know in a few weeks, they are just teaching us all about RAM at uni, I'm sure it will come up. A lot of the initial stuff about ready boost with Vista was quite split, some saying it was the dogs and other saying it was a waste. For DW I bet it would be ok, unless hes going to take up playing something on the crysis engine next week

Pvt_Ryan's explanation is valid - traditional RAM is on the main bus with transfer speeds at fair higher rates. The ReadyBoost stuff is effectively the same as a PageFile - i.e. disk masquerading as memory. Better than nothing, but bloody slow compared to normal memory.

DW - at the risk of asking a daft question, what do you actually want to do with your PC? Is it anything computationally intensive like video editing, 3D CAD, etc.

Dibs

 

[Pvt_Ryan]

Actually the RAM will be useful if running office. Esp if he likely to be running several programs at once..

readyboost will be noticable on a machine with ~512mb ram but above that it will add little as the os will favour the ram.

With readyboost the OS should use "ram" in the following order: RAM > Readyboost > pagefile. The reason being the pagefile is located on the physical disk so using it is "expensive" both in latency and in I/O as the user/applications will also be writing to disk, so it will have to wait it's turn.

All readyboost does is provide an extra pagefile that is not on a disk that is in use. This has been possible for years before vista MS are just rebranding and marketing a feature you could do if you knew how as a new thing for those that didnt.

The way to do this properly is go out and by a 2nd Hard disk smallest you can find so say 20GB.
Now there are 2 ways one I know works and the other that should work but I have not done it.
1) format the new disk ntfs then assign the whole disk as one large static page file.
2) leave the disk unformatted and windows should automatically use it as a pagefile.

To get top performance, get a solid state disk for your os and then a 2nd solid state disk for the pagefile.. Or better just get the two and raid 0 them.. but this setup is > £200 for disks alone.. so not for the faint of heart or short on cash.

 

[Dibs-h]

Actually the RAM will be useful if running office. Esp if he likely to be running several programs at once..

readyboost will be noticable on a machine with ~512mb ram but above that it will add little as the os will favour the ram.

With readyboost the OS should use "ram" in the following order: RAM > Readyboost > pagefile. The reason being the pagefile is located on the physical disk so using it is "expensive" both in latency and in I/O as the user/applications will also be writing to disk, so it will have to wait it's turn.

All readyboost does is provide an extra pagefile that is not on a disk that is in use. This has been possible for years before vista MS are just rebranding and marketing a feature you could do if you knew how as a new thing for those that didnt.

The way to do this properly is go out and by a 2nd Hard disk smallest you can find so say 20GB.
Now there are 2 ways one I know works and the other that should work but I have not done it.
1) format the new disk ntfs then assign the whole disk as one large static page file.
2) leave the disk unformatted and windows should automatically use it as a pagefile.

To get top performance, get a solid state disk for your os and then a 2nd solid state disk for the pagefile.. Or better just get the two and raid 0 them.. but this setup is > £200 for disks alone.. so not for the faint of heart or short on cash.

Option 1 - done it many times.
Option 2- left it unformatted and it's never done that.

TBH with disk performance these days - for the typical home user, I would say even a single SATA drive is more than fast enough. Anyone with a PC less than say 3yrs old with < 1GB ram - you tight @rse!

The biggest bit of advice would be to backup, backup and backup. Hands up those that haven't and suffered. #-o Been there done that.

Dibs