Colinjb Posted 15 May, 2014 Share Posted 15 May, 2014 I'm after a new unit to replace my now creaky 5 year old thing. Just need it to support my mobile devices, music, play Football Manager and browse the interwebs. I am open to suggestions but have found this: http://www.ballicom.co.uk/e4z60etabu-hp-prodesk-600-g1--tower--1-x-core-i3-4130--34-ghz--ram-4-gb--hdd-500-gb--dvd-supermulti--hd-graphics-4400--gige--windows-7-pro-64bit--8-pro-64bit-downgrade--preinstalle.p979842.html Frankly, is it any good? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saintdarlo Posted 15 May, 2014 Share Posted 15 May, 2014 No, not for that kind of money http://m.ebuyer.com/614242 This is much better but you'll need ti buy Windows as well. Still works out cheaper! Sent from my ST26i using Tapatalk 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pap Posted 15 May, 2014 Share Posted 15 May, 2014 (edited) Go to Chillblast, Col. Very highly rated by press; got my PC from them last year and they're great. This kicks the shít out of it, has a very nice GFX card and is £100 more expensive. http://www.chillblast.com/Chillblast-Fusion-Asgard-2.html Edited 16 May, 2014 by pap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angelman Posted 16 May, 2014 Share Posted 16 May, 2014 I just nipped down to PC World for my work PC and got an HP Envy 700 i7-4770 3.40GHz 16GB RAM Win 8 2TB NVIDIA GTX660 Seems to do what I want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buctootim Posted 16 May, 2014 Share Posted 16 May, 2014 Either of the two Pap or Saintdarlo are better options, but this is better than both for what you want it for. http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/desktop-pc-monitors/desktop-pcs/refurbished-pcs/hp-pavilion-500-120ea-refurbished-desktop-pc-21832065-pdt.html Quick processor, lot of storage, windows, good memory and the best price. The reason is the machine is 'refurbished'. What that means in practice is that it was bought at PC world and returned - either for a fault which has now been fixed, or just because the customer changed their mind. You still get a full 12 month guarantee. I have bought three from them over the past 10 years and all have been total bargains. I have just replaced a HP machine which was 5 years old, used 8 hours every day and was still faultless. Replaced it with another HP refurb machine from PC world. The machine Pap recommends does have a £100 gaming graphics card which this one doesn't, but you don't need it "to support my mobile devices, music, play Football Manager and browse the interwebs". Anyway if you wanted you could add it and a new psu and still be £150 better off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pap Posted 16 May, 2014 Share Posted 16 May, 2014 Either of the two Pap or Saintdarlo are better options, but this is better than both for what you want it for. http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/desktop-pc-monitors/desktop-pcs/refurbished-pcs/hp-pavilion-500-120ea-refurbished-desktop-pc-21832065-pdt.html Quick processor, lot of storage, windows, good memory and the best price. The reason is the machine is 'refurbished'. What that means in practice is that it was bought at PC world and returned - either for a fault which has now been fixed, or just because the customer changed their mind. You still get a full 12 month guarantee. I have bought three from them over the past 10 years and all have been total bargains. I have just replaced a HP machine which was 5 years old, used 8 hours every day and was still faultless. Replaced it with another HP refurb machine from PC world. The machine Pap recommends does have a £100 gaming graphics card which this one doesn't, but you don't need it "to support my mobile devices, music, play Football Manager and browse the interwebs". Anyway if you wanted you could add it and a new psu and still be £150 better off. It's not just about gaming; although Football Manager will partially benefit. The greater benefit is having a load of independent VRAM which is purely there for your graphics. A lot of other solutions involve sharing your main RAM, which is typically slower, and of course, takes memory away from other tasks. As soon as you run out of physical memory, your computer will start pretending your hard drive is also memory, making access to applications that much slower ( they have to be streamed back in to physical RAM, other tasks need to be streamed out to disk, etc ). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colinjb Posted 16 May, 2014 Author Share Posted 16 May, 2014 Taking inspiration from above I have now speced the components to build my own PC for the price that pap quoted as being excellent for my purpose. The components are (in a nutshell) AMD Vishera 4.2 GHz processor. Asus M5A97 Motherboard. XFX 2 Gb AMD Graphics card. Crucial Ballistix Tracer 16Gb DDR 3 ram 1 TB Hard Drive with 60 Gb solid state to run the OS. XFX 650w Power supply. Should be more then enough to keep me going (And make my desire to buy an Xbox One redundant? That's a topic for a different fractious thread)! Now to build the thing. Never done this kind of thing before.... should be interesting! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colinjb Posted 16 May, 2014 Author Share Posted 16 May, 2014 Well, that was easier then I expected! Aside from being one SATA cable short (for the 1 Tb hard drive) and needing a HDMI to VGA adapter (I'm running this through my television, VGA out in either the motherboard or graphics card) it fitted together easily and runs like a dream! Having RAM with green LED's attached to it may become rather tiresome though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonnyboy Posted 16 May, 2014 Share Posted 16 May, 2014 Well, that was easier then I expected! Aside from being one SATA cable short (for the 1 Tb hard drive) and needing a HDMI to VGA adapter (I'm running this through my television, VGA out in either the motherboard or graphics card) it fitted together easily and runs like a dream! Having RAM with green LED's attached to it may become rather tiresome though. What's the total damage? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colinjb Posted 16 May, 2014 Author Share Posted 16 May, 2014 What's the total damage? Just under £600 including operating system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonnyboy Posted 17 May, 2014 Share Posted 17 May, 2014 What's the cheapest I could spend for something to play Elder Scrolls Online? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colinjb Posted 17 May, 2014 Author Share Posted 17 May, 2014 (edited) Ok, all cables secured, but: The hard drive is not being recognised by the computer. The only thing missing is a four pin attachement next to the power supply and sata cables on the back of the unit. Model is a Seagate Baracuda St1000dm003 1Tb I've been into the BIOS and it has detected that it's there, but go into Windows Explorer and it isn't there. Any ideas? Edit: All sorted, hadn't realised that I needed to go into Disc management and Initialise the thing. All taken care of now. Edited 17 May, 2014 by Colinjb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colinjb Posted 17 May, 2014 Author Share Posted 17 May, 2014 What's the cheapest I could spend for something to play Elder Scrolls Online? Well, here's the system requirements. http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?g_id=3734&game=The%20Elder%20Scrolls%20Online Check Eclipse Computers (Google them) and you can spec a system as you wish. They are the firm I bought my components from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pap Posted 17 May, 2014 Share Posted 17 May, 2014 That's a decent enough rig, Colinjb. I expect that the next seven nights will involve:- 1) Looking through Steam library 2) Identifying games that ran like poo on your old PC 3) Installing games 4) Playing for 5 minutes and thinking "ooh, that's nice" 5) Uninstalling 90% of installed games. Fun times! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colinjb Posted 18 May, 2014 Author Share Posted 18 May, 2014 Any good game demos around where I can test the graphical capabilities of this rig? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buctootim Posted 18 May, 2014 Share Posted 18 May, 2014 What's the cheapest I could spend for something to play Elder Scrolls Online? I might have something you could use. Ive just upgraded my desktop and Ive got a spare HP with Q6600 processor, 3 mb ram and HD5570 graphics card running windows 7. Its got a little buggy and could do with a clean install but I've got the licence number. Its six years old but works fine and matches the 'recommended' spec for Elder Scrolls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonnyboy Posted 18 May, 2014 Share Posted 18 May, 2014 I might have something you could use. Ive just upgraded my desktop and Ive got a spare HP with Q6600 processor, 3 mb ram and HD5570 graphics card running windows 7. Its got a little buggy and could do with a clean install but I've got the licence number. Its six years old but works fine and matches the 'recommended' spec for Elder Scrolls. Hmmm you had me until the "6 years old" lol, how much do you want? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buctootim Posted 18 May, 2014 Share Posted 18 May, 2014 Hmmm you had me until the "6 years old" lol, how much do you want? You can have it if you want to pick it from near Brighton - or wait till Im back in Southampton (I was there today as it happens). Its old but fine - it was a quick machine in its day. Probably equivalent to about a mid spec I-3 machine now. As I said it would benefit from having windows reinstalled - both to get rid of a couple of annoying bugs and also because its running a 32 bit version atm and it would benefit from getting the 64 bit version. http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core2-Quad-Q6600-vs-Intel-Core-i3-530 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonnyboy Posted 18 May, 2014 Share Posted 18 May, 2014 You can have it if you want to pick it from near Brighton - or wait till Im back in Southampton (I was there today as it happens). Its old but fine - it was a quick machine in its day. Probably equivalent to about a mid spec I-3 machine now. As I said it would benefit from having windows reinstalled - both to get rid of a couple of annoying bugs and also because its running a 32 bit version atm and it would benefit from getting the 64 bit version. http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core2-Quad-Q6600-vs-Intel-Core-i3-530 Well that would be awesome next time your down Southampton way! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buctootim Posted 18 May, 2014 Share Posted 18 May, 2014 Well that would be awesome next time your down Southampton way! Sure. I'll give you a pm next time Im down - probably a couple of weeks. I need a few days to clear all my stuff off of it. Actually its still faster than I said - Passmark score 2977 on this (high mid range table of processors). http://cpubenchmark.net/mid_range_cpus.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonnyboy Posted 18 May, 2014 Share Posted 18 May, 2014 Sure. I'll give you a pm next time Im down - probably a couple of weeks. I need a few days to clear all my stuff off of it. Actually its still faster than I said - Passmark score 2977 on this (high mid range table of processors). http://cpubenchmark.net/mid_range_cpus.html Good man. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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