Chosing a new PC

[tinnews]

No it doesn't, you just don't buy an OS with the system, I've done that two or three times now.

[Phil Addison]

If you care to build your own there is an excellent set of reviews of all the current cpu's (Intel & AMD), a decent selection motherboards to take them, as well as all the peripherals you need, and a decent bit on a solid state disk drive to use as a fast boot device - now reasonably affordable, in the current Computer Shopper mag, well worth a read for its decent explanation of the options. They trade off options for both budget and super-duper machines.

'm planning on building a budget one for my wife - which will easily out-perform my current machine - like this...

Budget (all inc. vat) CPU Athlon II X2 250 £45 Mobo MSI MicroATX 890GXM-G65 £97 RAM 4GB Kingston KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G £43 Case Antec Mini P180 £89 PSU 650W Antec TruePower £70 HDD 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 £41 Graphics On board mobo £0 Wireless TBD, say £15 Total £400

And my new one could be this CPU Intel Core i5-250K (sandybridge) £180 Mobo Asrock H67-GE/HT Micro ATX £89 RAM 8GB Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 £90 Case FractalDesigns R3 £92 PSU TBD, say £70 HDD 2TB 2 x Samsung Spinpoint F3 £82 SSD 64GB Kingston V+100 £116 CPU cooler TBD Graphics On board mobo £0 Total £719

Phil

[Phil Addison]

Looks pretty damn good, and previous model got a 5* best buy review 18 months ago

[Theo Markettos]

Just leave OS as 'None selected'. It Works For Me (TM).

(I think also that they don't assemble PCs you design there, you just get a bag of bits.)

Theo

[Theo Markettos]

Hmm... so it does. I think the issue is that they only allow one memory 'product' per selection, where a product is either a single or pair of DIMMs. But they don't sell DDR2 in more than 2GB DIMMs, so the max DDR2 RAM is 2x2GB. And the designer gets itself in knots as it doesn't seem to work out that 8GB requires DDR3, and thus to make appropriate choices based on that.

If I manually go into the designer and choose 8GB DDR3 to start with (you can choose components in any order), then the second cheapest mobo (Intel, the cheapest AM3 board doesn't give any processors for some reason), then there's a range of processors to pick from.

[Mathew Newton]

That reminds me of a similar situation. Sat on a beach in Greece when my home server sent me an SMS alert that a drive had failed. SSH'd in from my phone and was able to fix it with fsck, remount and we're back up-and-running before my girlfriend even got back with the ice creams. I was so impressed with what modern technology can do. She wasn't though... ;-)

Mathew

[Daniel James]

that there's some pro-intel bias, here ...

Note especially the first comment, which starts: | couldn't have picked a worse AMD pick than the x2 550 to use as | a comparison. Its essentially a X4 cpu that didn't pass the tests | and sold as an x2, efficient it is not ...

Indeed. Also -- a point that I consider important but you may not -- many AMD CPUs and most support chipsets allow the use of ECC memory, which you can't use with intel unless you go for a Xeon.

Cheers, Daniel.

[Daniel James]

You absolutely do not need a 650W PSU in that system. The components will draw so little power (less than 200W) that the PSU will not even be operating in its designed power range, and the efficiency will be awful.

The i5 system you're spec'ing probably also only needs 250-300W.

Cheers, Daniel.

[chris]

Off the top of my head, I remember reading ones by Phoronix at the time.

[John Stumbles]

Then it should return the cheapest kit that *does* work with 8G!

[John Stumbles]

I'd rather not. If, having bought all the bits, they don't work, then what do I do? I don't have enough swappable bits around to isolate one duff component, or know enough to sort out a configuration/compatability problem.

[Davey]

My feeling exactly. Years ago, I bought a Heathkit computer, but they gave the guarantee that they would fix it if it didn't work. They knew what was in it; build-your-own sounds great, but if you're not a full-blown computer geek, and it doesn't boot, then what?

[Clive George]

I'm reading this in uk.d-i-y, not uk.get-somebody-else-to-build-it :-)

(I can build computers, but haven't bothered for a long time, and that's not solely due to using laptops for a while)

[Davey]

Well pardon me for trying to add something to the conversation.

[Clive George]

You're obviously reading something into my post which isn't there.

[The Natural Philosopher]

That's why the 'get someone to build t for you' sites are so good.

At least it comes screwed together and demonstrably able to boot, if not the OS of choice, at least something.

That's why I love my supplier. I pick what he stocks, ask advice, tell him what IO want, listen while he goes through the possible options and when its built, I go in and install Linux on their network in the workshop. And last time I was glad I did, as it turned out that the onboard Ethernet didn't work at all, even with Windows..

So I got a new motherboard FOC as well. Not the cheapest, but my base computers are generally sub £250. Because they only contain what I need, not what someone else has decided I want, including Windoesn't.

[tony sayer]

In article , Daniel James scribeth thus

Why should that be then?..

[tony sayer]

Find out were U went wrong its not rocket science..

LOL!.. couldn't make it up;)...

[Davey]

It sounded to me like a rebuke for going off-topic.

[Clive George]

Did you see the :-) ?

It wasn't a rebuke for going off topic, it was a remark on the humour of people posting about how they wouldn't diy on a diy group. Now I sort of wish I hadn't bothered.