Any advice on Desktop PC spec gratefully received!

K

kerapt

Member
Hi Folks.
I have done a fair bit of reading on this - but am really just a beginner - so - if anyone has the time to have a look at the following I would be most grateful.
I know it's important to say what use it will be put to - so: mainly internet research (often multiple pages open), emailing, some photo & video storage. Not done any gaming - so don't know if I will. Long distance from exchange so broadband SLOW (approx 1 MB/s - on a good day!) so trying to make sure everything happens as quickly as possible once it finally gets through the wire. Have had to replace PSU in past so want good quality. Had hard-drive problems so like speed (& reliability???) of SSD. Want it all to be future proof for a while (none of us are getting any younger - so won't say how long!!!)
OK here goes : (please don't laugh too loud - I can already hear the 'why do you want it that big/fast???'[rollinglaugh])

Case
CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ 400R MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500k Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3: PCI-E 3.0 READY, SLI, CROSSFIREX***SPECIAL***
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
INTEGRATED INTEL HD GRAPHICS (HDMI, DVI, 1920 X 1200)
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB INTEL® 330 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 500MB/sR | 450MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
500GB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 16MB 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
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
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 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS & UK OFFSHORE ISLANDS / N IRELAND (£12)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £884.00 including VAT and delivery.
 
MadMan

MadMan

Super Star
if your not doing any gaming then it looks great. For a second hard drive i'd opt for a caviar black as its the fastest hard drive and 120gb isnt much space. If you want a reliable power supply then a Corsair psu is what you want. Theres no need getting an expensive motherboard if you aren't going to use the features like crossfire or sli as you haven't selected a gpu.
 
K

kerapt

Member
MadMan
Thanks for that - appreciate you taking the time.
Have changed 2nd HD to your suggestion.
Re. Mob - have had Asus in past & like reliability etc. - Would you have any suggestion for alternatives if the one I picked is too high a spec? Depending on how much I save I guess I may have to think about whether I ever might try gaming - in which case presumably I could just add graphics board (think that's what GPU is on?) if I keep to this Mob??
 
Buzz

Buzz

Master
Save few quid drop the CPU to a non K. The K versions are for overclocking. Which from the above post you wont be doing any of.

no need getting an expensive motherboard if you aren't going to use the features like crossfire or sli as you haven't selected a gpu.
Click to expand...
Agreed.

Want it all to be future proof for a while
Click to expand...
I would higher the power supply to a 750W min.

Long distance from exchange so broadband SLOW
Click to expand...
If your far from the exchange then your connection does stand higher chance of being slow. I would however get a better network card for stability.

(To higher your chance of a good connection)
Get an old lamp shade or a box, Wrap the lampshade/box in good quality Tinfoil and make sure there are no creases in it.
Place your wireless receiver inside, right in the middle. The tinfoil helps catch the signal and gives it a little bit of a boost. I have tried and tested this. To move the router to a better spot just use a usb extension cable and find a good spot for the router which gives the best signal. Sorry, was little off topic.
 
K

kerapt

Member
Hi for_the_buzz - thanks
Jeez - thought you were winding me up with lampshades at first!!
Router ethernet connected to BT main socket(???) PC wired to router - I guess you thought I was on wi-fi??
I accept what you say about overclocking - but sounds interesting so don't count me out on that.
 
Buzz

Buzz

Master
Ah yeh sorry, I was assuming you where using a Wireless connection with your router. My bad. Still, it still stands for future reference. No joke. My wireless router used to be downstairs and the house has solid concrete walls. Signal was dire. Tinfoil worked a treat. :)
 
K

kerapt

Member
Hi Vanthus - thanks for looking.
I'm on XP at moment and would dearly love to keep OE for emails so just thought might look into virtual XP facility which I think only comes with professional & ultimate versions of W7. If that doesn't work OK will maybe try Thunderbird (Off-topic -sorry)
 
R

Raptor

Enthusiast
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-home-office-pc/

£777

Case
CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ 400R MID TOWER CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2400 Quad Core (3.10GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics (if you don't plan to do any gaming this will be future proof enough, 2500 are mainly for gaming... otherwise there's only a tiny bit difference between 2500 and 2400 in normal day use)

Motherboard
ASUS® P8H77-M: M-ATX, DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0Gb/s, CrossFireX™ ( For your needs you don't need a hightech gaming board and will still be useful for several years )

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB) (there's not a lot of difference between 1333 and 1600 and personally if you don't game you can even drop it down to 4GB )

Graphics Card
INTEGRATED GRAPHICS ACCELERATOR (GPU)

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB INTEL® 330 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 500MB/sR | 450MB/sW)

2nd Hard Disk
750GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD7502AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm) (you can opt it to 1tb but i think the 750GB would be sufficient enough and fast enough )

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) ( If in future you decide to do some gaming, 450 would be enough for a single AMD 6870 and 7870 but if you do plan to go for 7870 in future ... might as well change the CPU to 2500 instead of 2400 )

Processor Cooling
INTEL SOCKET LGA1155 STANDARD CPU COOLER

Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs (the bigfood lan port would be useful mainly for gaming if you're getting low speeds through cable then it's not the computers fault and no add on will solve it)

USB Options
4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109) ( i have windows Pro 64bit and yes you can download a virtual windows xp from windows website which will work as a virtual box )

Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)

Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Delivery
SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS & UK OFFSHORE ISLANDS / N IRELAND (£12)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity 1
 
Last edited:
R

Raptor

Enthusiast
AMD Choice
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/amd-llano/
£706

Same pointers about power supply as for Intel version but this one will only support the 6870
I don't know if it'll bottleneck 7870 or not though

Case
CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ 400R MID TOWER CASE

Processor (CPU)
AMD A8-3870K APU (3.0GHz, 4 Cores) & AMD Radeon™ HD 6550D Graphics

Motherboard
ASUS® F1A75-M: FM1 A-SERIES, SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)

Graphics Card
Integrated AMD Radeon HD 6000 Series Graphics

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB INTEL® 330 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 500MB/sR | 450MB/sW)

2nd Hard Disk
750GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD7502AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)

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
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER

Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
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 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)

Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)

Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Delivery
SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS & UK OFFSHORE ISLANDS / N IRELAND (£12)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity 1
 
K

kerapt

Member
Hi Raptor
Thanks for going through the spec.
I tried looking for your suggested Motherboard, but it didn't come up as an alternative (even with the altered processor).
Thanks for confirming about the XP possibility.
Not sure about RAM - deinitely no improvement with 1600MHz?? (£11 = 3 pints & maybe some crisps)
 
Buzz

Buzz

Master
so like speed (& reliability???) of SSD
Click to expand...

Your choice 120GB INTEL® 330 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 500MB/sR | 450MB/sW)
Add £25 and choose the 120GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)

Faster Read/Write speeds.

1600Mhz Ram you will see no visual or obvious differences compared to the 1333MHz
 
K

kerapt

Member
HI All
Thanks for all the help & advice - head now buzzing a little.
Raptor - my post 'jumped' your last so apologies - it related to your previous (not AMD one).
Know I said £11 is only a little - but total is now getting near £1k & I would like to stay married a while longer - so will have to reign things in a bit (eg Intel 520 SSD - although will look at what price results from changing RAM to 1333 & see if that means I can go to a 520 . . . thanks f_t_b - Ill blame you!)
Looks like I'm getting near finalising though - really grateful for confidence gained from speaking with you all.
Will need to check warranty situation with PCs as am 'offshore' - oh the joys . . .
 
R

Raptor

Enthusiast
kerapt said:
Hi Raptor
Thanks for going through the spec.
I tried looking for your suggested Motherboard, but it didn't come up as an alternative (even with the altered processor).
Thanks for confirming about the XP possibility.
Not sure about RAM - deinitely no improvement with 1600MHz?? (£11 = 3 pints & maybe some crisps)
Click to expand...

Maybe it was removed by the time i posted however look for lower rams that have 6.0.GB and 3.0 usb
those will support the things you'll need

You would literally not notice any performance difference between 1600 and 1333... even in future..
 
MadMan

MadMan

Super Star
The reason i didn't say change from the 2500k is because it has a superior integrated graphics compared with the 2500.
 
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