PC types - whats the average cost for a decent machine these days? -- also PC death content

thomasross20

I can get for £750:

Inspiron (smaller footprint) i7 (8MB cache, 3-3.6GHz)
16GB DDR4 RAM (don't think this is up-gradable... 16GB is huge, though).
128GB SSD + 1TB HDD (7.2k)
NVIDIA GT750Ti & 2GB DDR5 graphics memory

Typical ports and.... 2 UDIMM slots!? What are these?
Not overly up-gradable, but then I rarely do that. 


OR.... It's £850 for:

XPS i5 (bigger footprint) - 6MB cache, up to 3GHz (so less powerful). 
8GB DDR4 (but up-gradable to 64GB). 
32GB (so less) SSD & 2TB HDD (7.2k)
GTX1050Ti & 4GB DDR5 graphics memory. 

Way more ports and also 2 DIMM slots (?), 4 PCIe slots.


So the Inspiron has a better initial spec (other than the graphics card & graphics memory) for less money but is more "fixed."


An i7 XPS costs £1300 for the tower alone and while better than the Inspiron, feels a bit much....!!

I'm leaning toward the Inspiron here...  

---->>>> HP AIOs look good and have HDMI in (yay!!) so will also check these out.
---> OUCH! Not cheap, starting at £1500...

ThePrettyDamned

thomasross20 said:

Never knew about the outlet, thanks!
Good to know about PCSpecialist.

Dell are doing 10% off Inspiron right now.....
Tricky to decide between an i7 Inspiron with 10% off or just go the full hog with an i5 or i7 XPS (with no deal). The i5 XPS is the same price as the i7 inspiron but is more upgradable. 

The Dell AIOs look pretty, good , too...... perfect other than you can't use the screen as an input... grr..

To be honest, AIO are quite limiting - apple ones (even the new spec) are underspecced (for the price) computers, and Dell/Asus ones are more expensive than equivalent tower+monitor and harder to upgrade. 

A 128gb Samsung pm961 (not anywhere near most current or top of the range) will make your computer feel way faster and smoother, excellent boot up times etc for all of about £70 retail (shop around). All it needs is a motherboard with a Pci-e m.2 slot. I've got a 256gb one in my alienware and boot up is very quick, mere seconds after the BIOS. And I haven't yet cleaned up my start up so I could probably fix it up to be even quicker by disabling start up programs. 

Fixed this up this morning. I'd ask @Myranda or others what they think, but if you've already got a tower you've shaved a few bob off already. 

Edit: linky no worky 

No idea if that link works... It's an i5, small m.2 Pci-e ssd (even a slightly cheaper, normal ssd is well worthwhile!), big hard drive, decent enough PSU, a graphics card (not top end but will run most stuff in HD if not on ultra), 8gb ram etc. Decent spec seemingly. Comes in at £700, without operating system. 

I can't stress enough how much of a difference that ssd makes. Mine is 256gb and houses OS and most apps (Lightroom, photoshop, Office, antiviral stuff, that's about it!). The rest is used as cache space for Lightroom and photoshop (they're not brilliantly well optimised apps). The big hard drive holds photos, videos, games. 

thomasross20

Yep... Aio limited. If you were minted the high end Ives look great, though.

For £750 the inspiron I mentioned seems to be seriously good... Just not upgradeable.. 128GB SSD included but not upgradeable (unless udimm slots are for that).

In 10 years time do I want to upgrade anyway.. probably want a shiny new thing with new OS. So wondering if I should be bothered about upgradability with such a good initial spec, anyway

Myranda

ThePrettyDamned said:

thomasross20 said:

Never knew about the outlet, thanks!
Good to know about PCSpecialist.

Dell are doing 10% off Inspiron right now.....
Tricky to decide between an i7 Inspiron with 10% off or just go the full hog with an i5 or i7 XPS (with no deal). The i5 XPS is the same price as the i7 inspiron but is more upgradable. 

The Dell AIOs look pretty, good , too...... perfect other than you can't use the screen as an input... grr..

To be honest, AIO are quite limiting - apple ones (even the new spec) are underspecced (for the price) computers, and Dell/Asus ones are more expensive than equivalent tower+monitor and harder to upgrade. 

A 128gb Samsung pm961 (not anywhere near most current or top of the range) will make your computer feel way faster and smoother, excellent boot up times etc for all of about £70 retail (shop around). All it needs is a motherboard with a Pci-e m.2 slot. I've got a 256gb one in my alienware and boot up is very quick, mere seconds after the BIOS. And I haven't yet cleaned up my start up so I could probably fix it up to be even quicker by disabling start up programs. 

Fixed this up this morning. I'd ask @Myranda or others what they think, but if you've already got a tower you've shaved a few bob off already. 

Edit: linky no worky 

No idea if that link works... It's an i5, small m.2 Pci-e ssd (even a slightly cheaper, normal ssd is well worthwhile!), big hard drive, decent enough PSU, a graphics card (not top end but will run most stuff in HD if not on ultra), 8gb ram etc. Decent spec seemingly. Comes in at £700, without operating system. 

I can't stress enough how much of a difference that ssd makes. Mine is 256gb and houses OS and most apps (Lightroom, photoshop, Office, antiviral stuff, that's about it!). The rest is used as cache space for Lightroom and photoshop (they're not brilliantly well optimised apps). The big hard drive holds photos, videos, games. 

Difficult to assess a spec without most of the missing info (what i5, how big a big hard drive, what GPU...

Quick hunt has found this for £680
http://www.ebuyer.com/761103-asus-rog-g20cb-gaming-pc-g20cb-uk007t

Add in a 128gb SSD for £70 ish and that looks like a good deal and it's not a huge footprint...
http://www.ebuyer.com/710446-corsair-force-series-ls-f120-120gb-sata3-2-5inch-ssd-cssd-f120gblsb

And a monitor (or two):
http://www.ebuyer.com/758330-philips-276e7qdab-27-ips-full-hd-monitor-276e7qdab-00

(or for 2560x1440 goodness http://www.ebuyer.com/719843-iiyama-b2783qsu-b1-27-qhd-free-sync-led-monitor-b2783qsu-b1 )

While it's only a 950Ti and a 6700 (both a generation old) it can be upgraded, and that cpu will definitely handle anything you throw at it, the GPU is fast enough to do some gaming on and it can be hidden away behind a monitor ... it's also possible to connect two (or more) monitors - something not all AIOs can do 

ThePrettyDamned

Myranda said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

thomasross20 said:

Never knew about the outlet, thanks!
Good to know about PCSpecialist.

Dell are doing 10% off Inspiron right now.....
Tricky to decide between an i7 Inspiron with 10% off or just go the full hog with an i5 or i7 XPS (with no deal). The i5 XPS is the same price as the i7 inspiron but is more upgradable. 

The Dell AIOs look pretty, good , too...... perfect other than you can't use the screen as an input... grr..

To be honest, AIO are quite limiting - apple ones (even the new spec) are underspecced (for the price) computers, and Dell/Asus ones are more expensive than equivalent tower+monitor and harder to upgrade. 

A 128gb Samsung pm961 (not anywhere near most current or top of the range) will make your computer feel way faster and smoother, excellent boot up times etc for all of about £70 retail (shop around). All it needs is a motherboard with a Pci-e m.2 slot. I've got a 256gb one in my alienware and boot up is very quick, mere seconds after the BIOS. And I haven't yet cleaned up my start up so I could probably fix it up to be even quicker by disabling start up programs. 

Fixed this up this morning. I'd ask @Myranda or others what they think, but if you've already got a tower you've shaved a few bob off already. 

Edit: linky no worky 

No idea if that link works... It's an i5, small m.2 Pci-e ssd (even a slightly cheaper, normal ssd is well worthwhile!), big hard drive, decent enough PSU, a graphics card (not top end but will run most stuff in HD if not on ultra), 8gb ram etc. Decent spec seemingly. Comes in at £700, without operating system. 

I can't stress enough how much of a difference that ssd makes. Mine is 256gb and houses OS and most apps (Lightroom, photoshop, Office, antiviral stuff, that's about it!). The rest is used as cache space for Lightroom and photoshop (they're not brilliantly well optimised apps). The big hard drive holds photos, videos, games. 

Difficult to assess a spec without most of the missing info (what i5, how big a big hard drive, what GPU...

Quick hunt has found this for £680
http://www.ebuyer.com/761103-asus-rog-g20cb-gaming-pc-g20cb-uk007t

Add in a 128gb SSD for £70 ish and that looks like a good deal and it's not a huge footprint...
http://www.ebuyer.com/710446-corsair-force-series-ls-f120-120gb-sata3-2-5inch-ssd-cssd-f120gblsb

And a monitor (or two):
http://www.ebuyer.com/758330-philips-276e7qdab-27-ips-full-hd-monitor-276e7qdab-00

(or for 2560x1440 goodness http://www.ebuyer.com/719843-iiyama-b2783qsu-b1-27-qhd-free-sync-led-monitor-b2783qsu-b1 )

While it's only a 950Ti and a 6700 (both a generation old) it can be upgraded, and that cpu will definitely handle anything you throw at it, the GPU is fast enough to do some gaming on and it can be hidden away behind a monitor ... it's also possible to connect two (or more) monitors - something not all AIOs can do 

@Myranda ;This was a self build option with 128gb Samsung pm961 pci-e m.2, i5 6500, 8gb ram (2x4gb), Z270 pro mobo (unsure what z270 Vs 170 is but the price was the same), Seagate 2tb HDD, gtx 1050 and a 450 watt semi modular PSU. You could get a cheaper mobo if you wanted, I think z170 gets you pci-e speeds for one ssd. 

That Asus looks great. I run a gtx960 on mine and it runs doom on high/maxed settings, once you've tweaked the actual graphics card settings.

PolarityMan

What is the benefit to modular psu btw?

Myranda

PolarityMan said:

What is the benefit to modular psu btw?

It's easier to cable manage ... which makes it look pretty, and may potentially in an average case account for a degree of improved cooling, or in a big case no difference to cooling at all... in the tiniest of cases it could make a significant difference in temps, and potentially really small cases can be easier to cable with a modular kit - my little server is in  an mITX case and has a non-modular PSU and is a pain in the bum to cable where my gaming machine is a proper modular unit and is easy as pie to cable

piercelmno

keep refreshing the dell outlet deals. earlier this year (January) I got my machine for £850 which was an XPS:

I7 6700
256 SSD
2TB HD
8GB GTX 1070
16gb Ram

- the machine is rapid and at the time I couldn't get anywhere near this price using the pc part picker tool, in fact the 1070 was almost effectively 'free'. 

ThePrettyDamned

piercelmno said:

keep refreshing the dell outlet deals. earlier this year (January) I got my machine for £850 which was an XPS:

I7 6700
256 SSD
2TB HD
8GB GTX 1070
16gb Ram

- the machine is rapid and at the time I couldn't get anywhere near this price using the pc part picker tool, in fact the 1070 was almost effectively 'free'. 

That's ridiculously good. Jesus, I thought mine was a sweet deal (I'd rather ram than a mad graphics card, but graphics chips are expensive!). 

Great find! 

Drew_TNBD

I've got over a grand wrapped up in my i7 machine, coz I added parts over time. Fucking motherboard died on me this weekend, so that's another £50 or so!

I really fancy an iMac at this point. Sexy 5K retina screensssssssss

PolarityMan

Drew_TNBD said:

I've got over a grand wrapped up in my i7 machine, coz I added parts over time. Fucking motherboard died on me this weekend, so that's another £50 or so!

I really fancy an iMac at this point. Sexy 5K retina screensssssssss

What have you done noise wise?

Drew_TNBD

PolarityMan said:

Drew_TNBD said:

I've got over a grand wrapped up in my i7 machine, coz I added parts over time. Fucking motherboard died on me this weekend, so that's another £50 or so!

I really fancy an iMac at this point. Sexy 5K retina screensssssssss

What have you done noise wise?

Bought a Fractal Design R2 years ago, which is very good for noise. Also over time I'm replacing all my mechanical HDD's with SSD's.

PolarityMan

Drew_TNBD said:

PolarityMan said:

Drew_TNBD said:

I've got over a grand wrapped up in my i7 machine, coz I added parts over time. Fucking motherboard died on me this weekend, so that's another £50 or so!

I really fancy an iMac at this point. Sexy 5K retina screensssssssss

What have you done noise wise?

Bought a Fractal Design R2 years ago, which is very good for noise. Also over time I'm replacing all my mechanical HDD's with SSD's.

Was looking at the r5 based on this guide already

http://www.silentpcreview.com/4K_Gaming_Build

Looks pretty decent for 82 quid.

thomasross20

piercelmno said:

keep refreshing the dell outlet deals. earlier this year (January) I got my machine for £850 which was an XPS:

I7 6700
256 SSD
2TB HD
8GB GTX 1070
16gb Ram

- the machine is rapid and at the time I couldn't get anywhere near this price using the pc part picker tool, in fact the 1070 was almost effectively 'free'. 

Good find!

thomasross20

Wanted to mention Dell give you a 1 year warranty but chillblast give you 5 years!

thomasross20

I've got everything packed away for our move but am I right in saying I can plug my toneport into my pc, hook up the genelecs to the toneport, and use the toneport + genelecs combo as my audio source for my system? 

PolarityMan

PolarityMan said:

Ok so a few days late but here's my current machine:

PC Case: Quiet NZXT Hush Black

Case Fan: 2 x 120mm Quiet Fans

Case Fan Controller: Not Included

Power Supply: Xilence 580W 2 x PCI-E

Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1055T, 2.8GHz, 9MB Cache - Included

Heatsink & CPU Fan: Standard Heatsink & CPU Fan - Included

Motherboard: Asus M4N68T-M - Included

Memory: 4GB Crucial PC10600 1333MHz DDR3 - Included

PCI-E Graphics: nVidia GTS 250 512MB - req. PSU w. PCI-E

Sound Card: Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio - Included

1st Hard Drive: 500GB SATA II - Included

Main Optical Drive: 22x Dual Layer DVD +/- Rewriter - Included

To this I have added a firewire card a 500Gb SSD and another 1Tb or so of spinning metal discs and added more RAM so its currently running at 16Gb. Audio is covered via a saffire pro 40 and a saffire claret 18i20 which will be moving to the new setup. Oh I also upgraded the mobo to a gigabyte 970A-DS3P.

What do you guys think of this?

PC Case Quiet Coolermaster Silencio Black (+£40.00)

Case Fan 2 x 850rpm Ultra Quiet Case Fan (+£20.00)

Case Fan Controller Not Included

Power Supply Quiet FSP 600W 2x PCI-E (+£50.00)

Processor Intel Core i5 7600K x4 Kaby Lake (3.80GHZ, 6MB Cache) (+£150.00)

Heatsink & CPU Fan Standard Heatsink & CPU Fan - Included

Heatsink Paste Standard Heatsink Paste - Included

Motherboard MSI B250M PRO-VDH, DDR4, 64GB, M-ATX (DVI-D, HDMI, VGA) - Included

Memory 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4 LPX 2133 (+£160.00)

Graphics Card NVIDIA Geforce GT 1030 2GB (+£95.00)

Primary Hard Drive Silent 120GB Ultrafast Solid State Drive SATA III (+£10.00)

Secondary Hard Drive 2000GB SATA III (+£85.00)

Main Optical Drive 24x Dual Layer DVD +/- Rewriter - Included

Wired Network Adapter Integrated 10/100/1000Mbps - Included

USB Ports 2.0 2 Front + 4 Back Ports - Included

Back USB Ports 2 Back USB 3.0 Ports (+£25.00)

Sound Card Integrated 7.1 High Definition Channel Audio - Included

Comes in at £1074, Would be nice to trim down to a round £1k..any ideas where I might compromise slightly? Thats priced from the same guys I bought from last time.

So I tried self pricing a build from ebuyer (for arguments sake) arbico looks very competitve although i was able to more higly spec a few components for only a few pounds difference:

Fractal Design Define R5 Black Pearl Computer Case 675950 55 in stock £82.96 £82.96

EVGA SuperNOVA 650 P2 Power Supply 725417 2 in stock £108.66 £108.66

Corsair Dominator Platinum 32GB Kit DDR4 2133MHz Memory 767776 5 in stock £236.99 £236.99

Intel Core I7-7700 3.60GHZ Socket 1151 8MB Retail Boxed Processor 766076 27 in stock £293.99 £293.99

MSI Intel B250M PRO-VDH LGA 1151 M-ATX Motherboard 769895 31 in stock £70.98 £70.98(free accessory) Interceptor DS B1 Mouse 775066 25 in stock £0.00 £0.00

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB GDDR5 Dual-Link DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card 666535 29 in stock £101.96 £101.96

BeQuiet Pure Rock Quiet and effective Cooler 728264 9 in stock £28.65 £28.65

Cooler Master HTK-002-U1 HTK Performance Thermal paste 245379 1021 in stock £5.09 £5.09

Crucial MX300 275GB SATA III 2.5inch SSD 754196 47 in stock £85.60 £85.60

Seagate BarraCuda 2TB 3.5" Hard Drive 753878 > 25 in stock £61.76 £61.76

 

Basket Subtotal (inc. VAT): £1076.64

Shipping Cost: £17.12

Total: £1093.76

Any thoughts?

With a modular power supply do I need to buy all the cables as well or are they included in the box?

PolarityMan

oh also ill have to use win 7 on that build as doesnt include a win10

Myranda

PolarityMan said:

PolarityMan said:

Ok so a few days late but here's my current machine:

PC Case: Quiet NZXT Hush Black

Case Fan: 2 x 120mm Quiet Fans

Case Fan Controller: Not Included

Power Supply: Xilence 580W 2 x PCI-E

Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1055T, 2.8GHz, 9MB Cache - Included

Heatsink & CPU Fan: Standard Heatsink & CPU Fan - Included

Motherboard: Asus M4N68T-M - Included

Memory: 4GB Crucial PC10600 1333MHz DDR3 - Included

PCI-E Graphics: nVidia GTS 250 512MB - req. PSU w. PCI-E

Sound Card: Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio - Included

1st Hard Drive: 500GB SATA II - Included

Main Optical Drive: 22x Dual Layer DVD +/- Rewriter - Included

To this I have added a firewire card a 500Gb SSD and another 1Tb or so of spinning metal discs and added more RAM so its currently running at 16Gb. Audio is covered via a saffire pro 40 and a saffire claret 18i20 which will be moving to the new setup. Oh I also upgraded the mobo to a gigabyte 970A-DS3P.

What do you guys think of this?

PC Case Quiet Coolermaster Silencio Black (+£40.00)

Case Fan 2 x 850rpm Ultra Quiet Case Fan (+£20.00)

Case Fan Controller Not Included

Power Supply Quiet FSP 600W 2x PCI-E (+£50.00)

Processor Intel Core i5 7600K x4 Kaby Lake (3.80GHZ, 6MB Cache) (+£150.00)

Heatsink & CPU Fan Standard Heatsink & CPU Fan - Included

Heatsink Paste Standard Heatsink Paste - Included

Motherboard MSI B250M PRO-VDH, DDR4, 64GB, M-ATX (DVI-D, HDMI, VGA) - Included

Memory 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4 LPX 2133 (+£160.00)

Graphics Card NVIDIA Geforce GT 1030 2GB (+£95.00)

Primary Hard Drive Silent 120GB Ultrafast Solid State Drive SATA III (+£10.00)

Secondary Hard Drive 2000GB SATA III (+£85.00)

Main Optical Drive 24x Dual Layer DVD +/- Rewriter - Included

Wired Network Adapter Integrated 10/100/1000Mbps - Included

USB Ports 2.0 2 Front + 4 Back Ports - Included

Back USB Ports 2 Back USB 3.0 Ports (+£25.00)

Sound Card Integrated 7.1 High Definition Channel Audio - Included

Comes in at £1074, Would be nice to trim down to a round £1k..any ideas where I might compromise slightly? Thats priced from the same guys I bought from last time.

So I tried self pricing a build from ebuyer (for arguments sake) arbico looks very competitve although i was able to more higly spec a few components for only a few pounds difference:

Fractal Design Define R5 Black Pearl Computer Case 675950 55 in stock £82.96 £82.96

EVGA SuperNOVA 650 P2 Power Supply 725417 2 in stock £108.66 £108.66

Corsair Dominator Platinum 32GB Kit DDR4 2133MHz Memory 767776 5 in stock £236.99 £236.99

Intel Core I7-7700 3.60GHZ Socket 1151 8MB Retail Boxed Processor 766076 27 in stock £293.99 £293.99

MSI Intel B250M PRO-VDH LGA 1151 M-ATX Motherboard 769895 31 in stock £70.98 £70.98(free accessory) Interceptor DS B1 Mouse 775066 25 in stock £0.00 £0.00

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB GDDR5 Dual-Link DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card 666535 29 in stock £101.96 £101.96

BeQuiet Pure Rock Quiet and effective Cooler 728264 9 in stock £28.65 £28.65

Cooler Master HTK-002-U1 HTK Performance Thermal paste 245379 1021 in stock £5.09 £5.09

Crucial MX300 275GB SATA III 2.5inch SSD 754196 47 in stock £85.60 £85.60

Seagate BarraCuda 2TB 3.5" Hard Drive 753878 > 25 in stock £61.76 £61.76

 

Basket Subtotal (inc. VAT): £1076.64

Shipping Cost: £17.12

Total: £1093.76

Any thoughts?

With a modular power supply do I need to buy all the cables as well or are they included in the box?

Do you do anything that requires 32gb of ram and 4core/8thread CPU? I'd consider knocking it down to 16gb of ram and a i5 7500 cpu and spend the rest on the GPU... 

Unless you're doing lots of 4k video editing or virtualisation work

Bidley

That looks pretty awesome. The 750ti will run pretty much anything, the CPU is solid. I've got a Fractal case and it's really nice, very well made.

Modular PSUs will have all the necessary cables. Incidentally I've got an EVGA P2 and it came with more cables than I'll ever need.