Help me purchase a PC

i personally wouldnt try my luck with that company, but if the price is right...

Actully, I'm hearing good things. New management and stuff. They're all in rage in disposable PCs. But I could be wrong.

Their systems are basically the same price as if you ordered every piece individually from the cheapest online merchant.

Oh! Oh! A 19" monitor! I may do that tandem monitor thing with my old one. Two screens! OMG I will rock! Rock cheap!

The prices are sooo right, and the specs are great, but is it possible to get a box that doesn't look fucking stupid? I'm not 15.

(when they want customer support, though, they just ask me to fix it)

A Radeon 9200 isn't great if you want to play new games, neither is 256MB RAM.

I do wonder whether I'll really get it in 1-2 business days. I have my doubts about that.

Pentum 4 LGA 775 530
1024mb ddr 400 ram
400gb hd
256mb ati x600
nec dvd rw + additional dvd rom
wi-fi soft router
cordless kb and mouse
pc-tv tuner and radio
integral ethernet

£800

but i think i might want dual processors, and it has stupid dials on the front of the case

hullo ilx i am asking you for advice

the second-hand mac laptop i bought from a friend about 18 months ago seems to be dying, and since new HD + new RAM would be more than i paid for it i want to replace it, for various reasons i have decided i want to replace it with a desktop pc instead

i kind of want one of these dell inspirons because of the form factor - this is about eight inches square and not hideous, whereas the acers the same size look like robotnik pooped, & i don't know of anything else as small whilst still not hugely expensive

http://i.dell.com/das/xa.ashx/global-site-design%20WEB/73d0d864-29c9-3fb7-76ff-efcdd9ba1e1c/1/OriginalPng?id=Dell/Product_Images/Dell_Client_Products/Desktops/Inspiron_Desktops/Inspiron_Zino_HD_410/hero/desktop-inspiron-ZinoHD-blue-hero-504x350.png

AMD Athlon II X2 P360 (2.30GHz, 512kx2), 3072MB Dual Channel DDR3 [1x2048 + 1x1024] Memory, Integrated ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250, windows 7, £299. is this okay? would i be letting myself be ripped off? i have a vague feeling this is more like a last-year middle-of-the-range laptop spec than anything, but i am going to be word processing and not wanting to play any games less than about four years old so whatever. also various people i know say DELLS ARE SHITTY but i don't know if that's just misplaced kneejerk nerd-elitism or what

I need a super cheap PC to run some PC software on (including a piece of mass email newletter software that only runs on the PC) - can anyone recommend something? Really the cheaper the better as long as it's functional.

http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ideacentre-Stick-Computer-90F20000US/dp/B014644NPI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450372426&sr=8-1&keywords=lenovo+stick+pc

for real? it looks absurd but if it works...

I've heard a couple good reports, not a lot of detailed usage feedback, though

have you tried to find a used one on kijiji?

You might also consider this.

So many people have old computers laying around. There ought to be a way to get one for free.

I have about 3 computers I would give away.

craigslist.org

seriously, if you need something super cheap, the brand/model doesn't matter

Company presario 1400 probably won't do it

Compaq obv

We are familiar with their famous presarios

Lenovo stick is (and some other sticks are) completely legit; we really are at that point in the miniaturization of the hardware, and Windows 10 is pretty well-optimized for computers both weak and strong. I've been a Windows hater for a looooong time, but for work I've been putting it on a bunch of (at least) 6-year-old computers and it's really zippy in comparison to previous versions. If you find a free old semi-junker that still works but is just barely chugging along and has a Windows 7 license attached to it, snatch it up and do the free upgrade, then do a "Reset" from the recovery partition, and it'll probably work great for any non-intensive use.

That's my main work/web browsing/blogging computer right now, a 2008 HP that was low-end consumer-grade when it was brand new, and I haven't gotten frustrated with the speed once.

feel like mordy could actually spec his requirement to the degree required to help him. otherwise he is probably wasting everyone's time and he could be clusterfuckin' ILX for our enjoyment.

nah, that wasn't my intent. i do have specs but i seem to have misplaced them. anyway, i ordered this thing bc my boss was skeptical about the leveno stick:
HP Stream 13.3 Inch Laptop (Intel Celeron, 2 GB, 32 GB SSD, Horizon Blue)

seemed to have ok reviews and the impression i got was that if i wanted something cheap it kinda didn't matter what it was. thanks for the help all.

I'm sure I've asked this many times over the years. Apologies if you've replied before!

I'm looking for a new PC - not a laptop (my experience from work is that I break them) - for home use. Generally emails and the internet. I do tend to "hoard" stuff - photos, generally - and I like to be able to save some music and burn CDs. I realise I could just buy a separate CD burner (I currently have a £20 one which is slow but all right-ish). Would quite like it to look reasonably "nice" as its taking over part of a room at home.

Does a budget of £1000 seem reasonable and any suggestions?

Ta.

Doesn't sound like you have a need for a dedicated graphics card so that should be plenty of cash. Have gone laptop for so long (usually just attached keyboard/mouse/monitor at home, little chance of smashing it) that I don't have much advice about a tower. Bookmarking out of interest.

Is your burner something that would fit into a new build if it were taken out of its enclosure?

£1000 is a huge budget tbh, think you could futureproof your needs for year (based on what youve set out there) for around half that, with potential to add on extra drives for storage if needed if you are really using up that much space

but do you need monitor/keyboard/mouse etc or are we talking literally the box?

Ta, all.

I've got a monitor, keyboard, mouse etc. Would be quite open to buying "new", though.

x-post - my previous PCs have tended to last six years+, my laptops much less (though different use).

Wife just stopped using a Macbook Air from 2012, I don't know how she kept it in such good shape (only real wear on it is some of the letters on the keys are worn off!)

Conversely, buying myself a gaming laptop a few years ago was a bit of a waste. I thought I would be on the go with it more, in and out of the house. In-home streaming (over ethernet) is so good now that I have no reason to move it in the house (almost better off gaming from another room so I don't hear the fans). And it feels a bit fancy (and clunky) to take out of the house much.

You could fit a real nice display within budget.

I've got a 2nd hand reconditioned Dell ordered with all brand new shit inside it; Intel Core i7, 1TB SSD, 2TB secondary storage*, RAM: 32GB DDR3 for £280. I bought my last cheapie but goodie pc from the same Birmingham company called Skytech and it still works -just wanted another to replace the upstairs one that died.

*don't even know what "secondary storage" is, but sounds fab.

What I'm curious about are these mini pcs. Like when you read about them it seems the idea is they are fine if you aren't expecting to do high performance gaming stuff on them. But then you see high end mini pcs going for a grand plus that are billed as "gaming pcs".

i think those have the same guts as gaming laptops. you get a dedicated video card but it's a significantly scaled down version of its desktop equivalent so that it a) fits in the case and b) doesn't overheat

a gaming pc for ppl that only play stuff like FTL and 2d Tower Defense games!

they are smaller, yet run more efficiently/quieter and don't require fan cooling, that sounds great - but also too good to be true. What I imagine what gets sacrificed here is longevity, but I could be wrong.

surely they have some fans otherwise i'd be very suspicious yeah

even gaming tablets like switch or steam deck have little fans in there

Anyone feel able to suggest a particular PC, as a starting point?

if we're not getting into part and case recommends to put this all together yourself,ima unbookmark lol. Nah tho someone else can probably help with that.

calz: secondary storage would be a second, most likely slower hard drive. Maybe like primary is solid state and secondary is mechanical (best suited to media storage and whatnot... though I mean I run some pretty demanding games from my secondary just fine).

ah, of course just an SSD and a seperate HDD -SSD being the much faster flash memory thingy. Shit I used to know but my old brane has forgot!

x-post. I felt genuinely pleased that someone was bookmarking a conversation I'd started. Ah, well.

lol I'm hanging in

we're going to livestream a build yet

direct from a manufacturer: https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/desktops/subseries-results/?visibleDatas=2508%3A16%2520GB%3B2769%3ASmall%2520Form%2520Factor

the above lets you configure the PC with a DVD burner for only 20 quid more, which is nice. i didn't think any PC makers still included optical drive slots in their PCS

figure out how much storage you might need and get that as internal storage. and then get an external hard drive to back up your data. it may also be cheaper to go with the default internal storage size of 256GB and to buy two external hard drives, one to store your data and the other to backup the first hard drive...

you might want to jump up to 16 gigs of RAM from the default 8GB if you think you'd ever do anything more intensive than surf the web. although that's probably something you could upgrade yourself in the future. i dunno, depends on how handy you are....

also i'd probably go with the one that has an AMD processor as opposed to an intel processor. but that's the nerd in me speaking, probably wouldn't make a difference to you

full disclosure i'm not a britisher so i don't know where else you'd go to buy a PC. some googling suggests that there is a man named john lewis who enjoys selling PCs. perhaps you could give him a call?

i have a mini pc, no dedicated graphics card, small fan, its a great piece of kit but definitely not for gaming, i use it for network file storage, plex hosting, and storage besides. its always on and i expect it to last years.

the only reason i wouldnt specifically recommend it is that its an i3 and even with 16gb ram i think maybe......mayne just a bit thin on punch for "browsing" because browsing can be anything these days....but i might be overengineering even at that

ok

if you were asking me what is needed for this, id say i5 just for the sake of it, the highest generation within budget. drives aint shit but one with a primary ssd of 128gb for OS and space or a HDD already in for however much else you need. agreed with mlearned colleague above that an external hdd of the same size for backups is always a good idea.

i dont know if internal vs external dvd/cd burner makes much difference im sure a google would tell you

i would absolutely look second hand for your spec but even new or refurbished i think youd find an i5 recent gen within budget

im not saying _buy this_ im saying

https://www.laptopoutlet.co.uk/acer-conceptd-100-intel-core-i5-12400f-8gb-ram-1tb-hdd-512gb-ssd-nvidia-quadro-t1000-windows-11-pro-tower-desktop-pc6144-rfb-dt-c0bek-002.html

its a 12th gen i5 refurbished with everything you need with proviso that*

*i havent checked how much RAM you could load in, what slots remain to add in dvd/cd drive

etc

i merely post to show you that your budget is very high and by all means go nuts and spend it but for what you need i think youd get something that would last you years by going back one or two generations of processor and refurbed

if you are at all useful then half the satisfaction is upgrading or adding bits as you go and again, if you dont need cutting edge then buying two year old stuff on ebay or wherever to add storage, more ram or whatever isnt a pricey game at all

most budget PCs will be fine. only thing i recommend is going SSD all the way. get an m.2 SSD and put it on either the motherboard or a PCIe card. so much faster than hard drives.

i was going to post a third post in a row to say similar

if a lot if your usage is writing to or reading from disk then nvme m.2 is prob a spec well worth seeking

one in the connector one is the form type, i *think* there are reasons to go for both but if pushed i think the nvme is the performance boost??? open to correction

Nvidia is releasing a new type of AI PC. Unlike the offerings from Microsoft and others, this will be a mini supercomputer in your home able to run even the more advanced AI models offline.

Announced at CES 2025, Project DIGITS uses the new Nvidia GB 10 Grace Blackwell Superchip with a supercomputer level petaflop of AI computing.

It comes with a hefty price tag, starting at $3,000, but Project DIGITS will allow users to run models with up to 200 billion parameters. This means models previously requiring expensive cloud infrastructure can run on your desktop.

Each machine will include 128GB of unified, coherent memory and 4TB of storage. Users can even link two together to run 405 billion parameter models, previously only the reserve of the big AI labs

fuck me, perhaps just hang fire until this comes out, then for a few grand you can have Hal 9000 on your desk.

(Just to note, a grand was a guess ... I'm obviously happy to spend less).

Thanks for the ideas so far.

how much storage do you need? have you looked at what your current data hoarding takes up?

i agree with my esteemed colleague that (i) PCs retain their value terribly and (ii) PC tech hasn't really advanced that much in the past 5 years so a secondhand one is good with me

i'd really want 16 gigs of RAM tho

im now invested in proving the case (arf) for a small form factor or mini pc just for the sheer hell of it

a NUC with decent punch ito processing and an nvme drive or two, with external cd drive and additional external caddy......i reckon its a good option

much tidier than a tower especially if gfx card and associated cooling isnt needed

let's talk NAS

Obv mini pc tech is the future, but for now I don't trust it.

I received my thrown together in some Dell husk pc today. Delighted with it for less than £300. First time in my life I have owned a pc with 32gb RAM. I can actually run the engineering geek game Satisfactory on this baby!

nice

cmon all the specs pls we must feast

let's talk NAS

― maf you one two (maffew12), Thursday, 9 January 2025 17:52 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

never done this formally but have the NUC serving the purpose

i read and poked a bit into setting up something using all my old various old drives just out if interest but tbh a dedicated NAS with bays and the same brand/size/speed disks in whatever RAID seemwd like the most obvious way to go so i lost interest because boring

this is what I got for £279 (inc delivery)

Intel Core i7-6700 CPU @ 3.40GHz 3.41 GHz
Installed RAM 32.0 GB (31.9 GB usable)
storage 1 TB SSD. 2 TB HDD
Intel HD Graphics 530

probably a rather mediocre graphics card, but fast as fuck compared to last one I had and fine for my purposes.

How much is 279 pounds in real money

what i like about being miles behind the curve (where i like to be for tech tbh) is that an upgrade on your really old junk is still quite cheap

ive been running a playstation 2 emulator which is all i need tbh

i bought a base level actual gaming pc last january with an actual graphics card (first ever) and got bored tbh

What did you play

similar here on all accounts though it's nice to have the gaming thing that could last me another 5 years.

After a lot of half arsing backup solutions, I'm really glad to have a proper NAS. it's another expense but I've found it well worth doing.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/01/new-120-16gb-raspberry-pi-5-is-for-the-people-who-use-it-like-an-everyday-pc/

intel graphics are integrated into the cpu. it's not even a separate card.

lol, shows how much I know about graphics cards. But honestly it's still much better than my last non-graphics card.

a couple of years ago the onboard graphics cards for both intel and amd got good enough to cover (just about) my ps2 emulator needs

not sure if 7th gen would be quite there but....id also wonder calz if your new one could take a separate gfx card (even a basic older one) if something like that became an interest at any stage

the kind of boring games I like to install, my last pc couldn't handle the slightly more hardware-intensive ones - this one can. That is good enough for me, for now. I play boring shit like factorio and industry and really dumb, basic tower defense games. My taste in games is quite basic - not really into complex world-building games that are like fantasy movies or fast moving 3d platform games.

yeah tbh even after going through the trouble.... they're all too fuckin fast for me past about....1999 if im honest

Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 Arena and Need for Speed Porsche... the peak

since then there's been some pretty things lol

https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/p/desktops/thinkcentre/thinkcentre-neo-series/lenovo-thinkcentre-neo-50s-gen-5-intel-sff/12xfcto1wwgb2

add yr dvd rewriter for 20 quid in the options, thats you sorted for a decade imo

heh dyao posted probably quite similar above, i see now maybe?

but that there as is def meets use case and more for a long time into the future and options for adding extra processor, ram or storage oomph (only that last is in any way needed from what youve said above tho djh?)

whether the look of it is too officey for you is ofc a matter of taste

Thanks - appreciated.

seem to have managed to tear the thread of two screws on my laptop while checking a failing cmos battery, i might be back in the market myself soon

I got a NiPoGi Mini PC for my son for £150. It's a good price because the lizard eating freak is selling it for £200. His last pc was so huge it dominated his lovely ikea desk in such a horrible way, just so ugly. It was like a model of a multifloor car park. And I couldn't just hear the fucker from downstairs, I could feel the vibrations of its loud af fan.

This Mini PC is really great. All he does is go on tiktok and Youtube and looks at photos/vids. It's fucking silent and it works perfectly! I'm not sure how much space there is for his vids/photos folders, but for now I'm really impressed and even a little overwhelmed.

Lizard eating freak?

Bezos

some of them ship with limited amounts or a specific type of storage called emmc, or did when i first bought a NUC

this can fill up pretty quick, or slow down a lot pretty quickly.

swapping the main windows drive ive always found a real pain in the arse although all the how-tos are simple, but adding an additional drive in is usually cheap and very simple and most have space for this

tho the first one i see for £200 has 512gb m2 so should be no probs there if thats you

yeah has that much and a 5th of it is taken up by the OS. I'm just kind of thinking just keep it for youtube/tiktok because it boots up so fast and works so perfectly. Don't want to do anything more to something that works.

shouldnt even be a bother tbh, but go with what works. do well to put much of a dent in 400gb anyroad tbf

bump for io anyway

also to note my laptop clock has started to lose time and replacing the CMOS battery hasnt helped?

Hellooo thank you darra of this parish.

I'd like to buy a laptop, prefer an Mac for a lot of reasons but not least because I already have a formatted external hard drive with a lot of media on it. I don't game, I mostly use things on the internet. Honestly a rChromebook would also probably meet my needs but everything I already have is Apple-compatible. I want to access my music library, hook up to speakers, back up my iphone, etc.

I'm looking at certified refurbished, like from Back Market. Would this device be sufficient? MacBook Air Retina 13-inch (2019) - Core i5 - 8GB - SSD 256GB

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/apple-macbook-air-13-inch-apple-m2-chip-built-for-apple-intelligence-16gb-memory-256gb-ssd-midnight/6602763.p?skuId=6602763

$700 in your budget?

This is a PC thread

Here come the pc police

Some people can’t read

Not really? I was hoping to pay more like half that. Are you saying I should be looking for a newer processor and/or double the RAM?

We can also talk over in the laptop thread.

lol wins

yeah you need to be looking for something with apple silicon (m1, m2, m3 etc.)

https://www.backmarket.com/en-us/p/macbook-air-2020-13-inch-m1-8-core-and-7-core-gpu-8gb-ram-ssd-256gb/f7e3ca1f-c428-4a20-b0b1-4280d3ce116b?l=12#

this would be the minimum spec i could in good conscience recommend (there's a slightly cheaper one that has 128gb of storage but hearing about your music collection i'm thinking you'll want at least 256gb) xp

can try looking around on facebook marketplace to cut out backmarket as the middle guy

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1151973073131630/

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1152922176337616/

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/2162416380841452/

how big's your iphone that you're intending to backup? that'll impact how big an ssd you need

unfortunately these days apple is also pushing people away from backing up an iphone to their mac and trying to get you onto an icloud subscription plan. $1-3 a month for the privilege of backing up your phone and photos

ok i just came across 3 identical ads on fb marketplace with the same copypasta text, low price and recently created account with a pfp of a beautiful person. be careful out there!

My phone is a 256Gb iphone and I guess people don't back them up anymore. I still have half of it free.

Okay, for my purposes maybe I should just get a cheap Chromebook for now. It won't do everything I want but I need something that's not a work computer.

well if it's between a chromebook and an intel macbook air i'd make an exception and let you get the macbook air

it won't be *that* slow hopefully

I have a strong feeling the slowness of my internet connection is far more relevant than computing power in almost everything I care about or am likely to experience. (There's no Fios where I live and I'm about to sign up for the NY mesh network bc our internet is trash.)

(And it's $90 a month.)

what are your https://www.speedtest.net/ results?

84/31 according to that?

that's pretty bad! do you get the same results when your device is close to your wifi router?

(There's no Fios where I live and I'm about to sign up for the NY mesh network bc our internet is trash.)

Look into AT&T's Internet Air service. I got it as a backup because my CenturyLink service went out for almost two weeks (yay, rural life!) and wound up keeping both. It's cheap — under $50 a month — and surprisingly strong.

ah yeah 5G home internet is real and something that your cell phone company may offer.

when you run speedtest.net on your phone over 5G (assuming you have 5G) what numbers do you get?

37.8 Mbps download speed on my phone.

That first read was on my less than 2-years-old work laptop only one room away from the router, with an open door, in a straight line. (I do have range issues if I go further away so I assumed that affected things.)

With phone on 5G, I get 310. Huh!

Verizon offers home internet but it would be a minimum of $70 to get a chance at over 100, and I assume that doesn't include taxes and fees, so it's probably about the same as Optimum.

310mbps down is really good!

if you are already paying verizon for cell service they should offer you a bundle discount to get 5g home internet with them too. and since you're looking to switch they usually throw in other goodies as well. give em a call!

I'll try that tomorrow! Ty for the good advice!

fb let me know this morning that one of those m1 macbook airs is now around $300 https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1152922176337616/

kinda beatup but looks like a real person and they have no moving parts so nothing to get banged up inside

old laptop calved i got

ASUS Vivobook S 15 S5506MA 15.6" Laptop - Intel® Core™ Ultra 9, 1 TB SSD, Blue
CONNECTIVITY
Ports
- USB 3.2 x 2
- Thunderbolt 4 x 2
- HDMI 2.1 x 1
- 3.5 mm jack x 1
WiFi
- Dual-band AX WiFi 6E
- 2x2
Ethernet
No
Bluetooth
Bluetooth 5.3
Graphics card
Intel® Arc™ graphics card
Storage
1 TB SSD
RAM
32 GB LPDDR5
Processor
- Intel® Core™ Ultra 9-185H Processor
- 16-core
- 2.3 GHz / 5.1 GHz
- 24 MB cache

she is beautiful we are both very happy together

I paid extra to get 1TB SSD in mine but would prefer to have 2TB or really 5TB, video and audio files are big. But can't seem to easily find such a thing at an acceptable price. HDDs of that size I can find but do not want.