New PC Purchase: Advice Please! :-)

get a fresh new pc and dump the old one

-any of the newer gen I3 and i5's are good (i7 is of course better but not needed)

-get at least 8gb ram (ram is cheap also more is better up to about 16gb after that its getting into overkill for non specialized work)

-get an SSD this is an absalute must and you (she) will never go back, have an ssd for the OS instal and most used programs and an HDD to store large amounts of date (its a pc you can almost always ram in more HDDs) again the bigger is better. you will see many pcs with 256gb ssd and 1TB hdd installed which is good but personally i'd go for a single 512gb ssd to start with since they are usually priced the same

-get an video card and dont opt for onboard graphics since they tend too slow down the pc considerably, anything from nvidia 750 and onwards is good (again the higher the number the better) I'm not familiar enough with AMD to give you advice on which model.


I used to work in retail IT for a while, if they offer a extra warranty that you have to pay for dont go for it, most manufacturers have a standard 1-3 year warranty on parts.
So even if shit breaks it goes though the manufactures warranty and the shop still pockets the cash

take a look at pre-build PCs since most of the time they will be cheaper than if you have one build to spec.

I'd go with 32GB of RAM while you're at it, just because RAM is so cheap & you'll need more if you plan on running several apps at once, VM's all that shit.

Even the newest pentium is much faster, that paired with an ssd is going to be a large difference over the current system she has.


http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Pentium-G4560-vs-AMD-Phenom-II-X2-550/3892vsm2418

Check out Chillblast, they've won multiple awards for their pcs over the last few years, using one at the moment, really pleased with it

ScreamingMidget, post: 10025820, member: 652322
What do people think of these?


From what I've seen, the processor in the OP isn't much slower than what's around now.

+1 for the acer,
aspire xc-780
but spend 10 pounds more to get the 3TB (instead of 1TB) option

First class
HTH

I would highly recommend using a AMD processor , you can pickup a FX6350 for around £80 , or if you want a higher upgrade a FX8350 is an awesome investment at around £110.

also definatly use an SSD, this will be the most important in my opinion.

I myself use a radeon r9 380 graphics card but as the PC is just for administration use this would not really be used to its full capacity, also i do reccomend 16GB of ram if within budget

Simple idea, I organised for my brother recently, new hard drive (as the older they get the response time drops off - I believe) and reformatting, so it responds as well as it did when new.

Failing that wired2fire.co.uk, great pcs and fast build time.

Anyone telling you to take more than 8 gb of RAM for what you want and are telling you it will speed up your pc do not know anything about PC's. It is a SSD that is going to make a world of a difference, not the ram or anything else.
SSD's are almost always 10x faster than HDD's, sometimes even more, especially with the new series like the Samsung 960 Pro/Evo.

I would suggest going with Samsung 850 evo 250 gb ssd, 8 gb's of ram, an i3 cpu should be fine but I recommend atleast taking an i5 for in case you decide to run heavier things on the machine. Since you are not looking to do heavy things when it comes to graphics a 70-130$ gpu would be good.

Kurdo said:

Anyone telling you to take more than 8 gb of RAM for what you want and are telling you it will speed up your pc do not know anything about PC's. It is a SSD that is going to make a world of a difference, not the ram or anything else.
SSD's are almost always 10x faster than HDD's, sometimes even more, especially with the new series like the Samsung 960 Pro/Evo.

I would suggest going with Samsung 850 evo 250 gb ssd, 8 gb's of ram, an i3 cpu should be fine but I recommend atleast taking an i5 for in case you decide to run heavier things on the machine. Since you are not looking to do heavy things when it comes to graphics a 70-130$ gpu would be good.

Click to expand...

16GB RAM is not required but others would still recommend, depending on the amount of work load that you have.... it may not speed up the PC but it is always good to have extra ram available for efficiency if you have abit of spare $

People should really stop skipping a great GPU..

Stewielenor said:

People should really stop skipping a great GPU..

Click to expand...

for daily work and browsing a great GPU just isnt needed and especially in a budget minded buy it's better to get one that's good at best and put the money elsewhere.
a nvidia GTX 750 2GB will happily take the load and the are cheap as chips new, however they are getting older now so future proofing may just save money in the long run, a GTX 1050 4gb would be a great buy for the next 4-5 years+.

it just depends on what OP wants and needs.

SSD. SSD. SSD. SSD. That is all.

If you want to bother with it and have time, doing clean install of Win 7 (or XP if have it laying around) might help. Registry could have errors, HD might needed to be defragged, too many programs on startup......etc, but might be easier to do clean install if you're not sure what you're doing. I have several systems that are used strictly for data entry / Office and basic browsing - somewhat similar setups and they are all fine. One system hasn't been touched in several yrs maybe (used just for office / browsing as well) and it's running fine (for those specific purposes only - I wouldn't do anything heavy on them).

I'd also take compressed air and do a quick cleaning of your fans and motherboard.

Otherwise, if you're still experiencing slow speeds, yes, go with SSD and min 8 ram (16 preferred). HD will help with faster startup, access programs/windows open faster, etc and ram will help with multiple browser tabs / multiple opened programs.

Thanks for all of the replies.

Just a quick question prior to going out and buying a new system.

Do you think upgrading the RAM from 4GB to 8GB will make a significant difference in performance?