Advice on spec., please

[Fulham]

Hi,

We have had a pcspecialists pc for about four years, it still works well and my son has just finished the first draft of his second book on it.

But I use it for two purposes over and above wp, emailing and browzing, namely running quite hefty Excel worksheets (not far short of the maximum 65,000 rows on my version of Excel) and for watching football match streams on the monitor (an IlyamaAS4315UK BK). As my Excel databases have grown, the current pc labours a bit with certain functions such as sorts, and the football match streams don't flow all that smoothly as every few minutes the pc seems to need to buffer.

We don't use the pc for gaming.

I'd be grateful for advice as to the spec. I should now be ordering for a new pc that will handle my Excel work more quickly and give a smoother view of football matches. Money is not much of an issue, though while I want a machine better able to handle the requirements I don't want to pay a lot for just a marginal improvement - so I'm looking for the "best buy" spec. that gets me close to the best possible without necessarily wanting to pay a lot more for an additional marginal increment of improvement.

Thanks in anticipation for any suggestions.

 

[Gorman]

hmm, would it be possible to send me a private message with your previous order number?

Would be a great starting point where i could spec a more powerful machine in the areas the old one may be lacking.

 

[Phoenix]

Slow buffering times would be due to your download speed.

 

[Gorman]

I wouldnt be so sure Phoenix, check the spec out:

CPU
INTEL® PENTIUM® 4 630 (64 BIT) @ 3.0GHZ 800mhz FSB/HTT/2MB

Memory
1024 MB DDR400 PC3200 WITH LIFETIME WARRANTY!

Motherboard
HIGH END ASUS® MOTHERBOARD WITH DUAL DDR, 3 PCI ETC.

USB Options
SIX USB 2.0 PORTS (4 REAR + 2 FRONT)

Hard Drive 1
SATA 160 GB HARD DISK @ 7200rpm 8mb cache (Special Offer)

Hard Drive 2
NONE

Raid
NONE

CD Writer/Combi Drive
16X DVD ROM WITH 48X CD ROM

DVD ROM
NONE

CD/DVD Writer
52X 32X 52X CD WRITER

Graphics Card 1
INTEGRATED SIS REAL 256E GRAPHICS

Graphics Card 2
NONE

Sound
HIGH END ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL SOUND (RECOMMENDED)

Modem
56K MODEM

Network Facilities
10/100 NETWORK CARD FOR BROADBAND - AS STANDARD

Floppy Disk Drive
1.44MB FLOPPY DISK DRIVE

Memory Card Reader
NONE

Case
Beige Stylish Case + 2 Front USB

Power Supply & Cooling
Silent 400W PSU + 120mm Fan + 19.2 dBA CPU Cooler! Super Quiet! £32

OS Required
MICROSOFT® WINDOWS® XP HOME (inc. original CD & licence) (£59)

If it hasnt had reload of XP (or several) then it could be crawling a bit nowadays, especially with one or two bits of modern software trying to grab that 1gb ram.

So here is a nice modern office machine, a basic quad with loads of ram and storage. A stand alone gpu just in-case its needed one day but can be removed.

Case
FRACTAL DESIGN R3 - BLACK PEARL ATX CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-760 Quad Core (2.80GHz, 8MB Cache) + Turbo Boost
Motherboard
ASUS® P7H55-M SI: MICRO ATX VALUE MAINBOARD,USB 2.0 & SATA 3.0Gb/s
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GT430 - DVI,HDMI,VGA - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
500GB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£29)
Processor Cooling
INTEL SOCKET LGA1155/1156 STANDARD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 11 to 13 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £735.00 including VAT and delivery.

Of course the spec can be more basic or more powerful from here.

 

[Fulham]

Gorman/Phoenix

Thanks for your replies.

I have re-installed XP on a couple of occasions, the last about nine months ago.

I've checked my download speed a couple of times today using the pcpitstop tool, and on both occasions it has been given as 1.23mbps. My ISP, Zen, have recently advised me that, from 1 July, my local exchange will be offering fibre optic connection and for a somewhat higher monthly fee, I could switch to supply by that, with a "minimum" download speed of 12mbps. Presumably that will have a beneficial effect on buffering.

In the spec. Gorman has suggested I note that Windows 7 is advised. Would it be daft to stick with XP (if indeed that is still possible)? The reason I ask is because I download data every day from a website into an Excel sheet using the Excel new web query function, and having checked every version since on no version of Excel is that function easier and more efficient than with Excel 2000, which won't run satisfactorily under Windows 7. There are of course some advantages to upgrading to the current Excel, not least the ending of the maximum 65,000 rows of Excel 2000 and several subsequent versions. But for my use there is that the one large disadvantage.

 

[Gorman]

Windows 7 is a major part of the upgrade and is absolutely recommended.

If you must use Office 2000 then simply get Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate with XP mode, this will allows Office 2000 to run in a virtual XP sandbox, you will not be able to notice the difference.

[video=youtube;UcvX3wwVK84]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcvX3wwVK84[/video]

The CPU hardware virtualization requirement he mentions has since been removed.

This vid gives a good view of it in action

[video=youtube;qhWLOEejHsg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhWLOEejHsg[/video]
wow the guy in that vid needs a faster pc!

 

[Fulham]

Gorman

Thanks. I must explore the feature you refer me to. I have a cut down version of Windows 7 on a notepad, but will find a friend willing to let me test the water on one of the versions you mention.