lost in the lands of pc's

ba

need a new pc. cos my old pc is as useful as eating soup with a fork. i'm not too familiar with the nuts and bolts of computers but essentially with 600-700 euro approx i need to run photoshop, autoCAD and sketch up (3D modelling program) simultaneously. im guessing i need loads of RAM & a decent graphics card. i see dell are offering double ram on their 5150 series. the monitor needs to be as big as possible, 17' at least. can't think of anything else, but ill get back to ye if i forget anything.

so if anyone can point me in the general direction or recommend whats a good buy, twud be great.:)

K.O.Kiki

Nah, even if you were to spend just €700 on a Dell, you still need to buy a €100 GPU.
So I suggest building your own; try this shopping list for starters. I'd recommend a dual-core system with as much RAM as you can afford, for what you seem to have in mind. But that costs even more money...
And building a PC is easy as long as you follow the simple rules of:

• ALWAYS be earthed.
• ALWAYS pick a component up by the edges of the PCB.
• Take it slow

ba wrote:

cos my old pc is as useful as eating soup with a fork.

It just takes a bit of practice. And lots of slurping!

Ruu_Old

Both Dell and Komplett have links to customise your computer on their website, but if you are confident enough have a go at building it yourself. Theres lots of manuals and help out there on the interweb. The word of the day is.."anti-static bags".

K.O.Kiki

Ruu wrote:

Both Dell and Komplett have links to customise your computer on their website, but if you are confident enough have a go at building it yourself. Theres lots of manuals and help out there on the interweb. The word of the day is.."anti-static bags".

Except do not leave components on top of the anti-static bags - always inside them!

Ruu_Old

Haha indeed

zilog_jones

You'd want 1GB RAM for AutoCAD 2006 at the very least, if not 2GB. So if you plan on running those 3 things at the same time I'd say you want at least 2GB, and you will benefit from a dual-core processor like an Athlon 64 X2 or the new Intel Core 2 Duo which will be out in a couple of months, and is supposed to be very good - maybe you'll be better off waiting for that?

Mad Mike

STOP - If you are not a techy enthusiast please do not even consider building your own PC. Despite the impressions others may give it is a complete minefield - Do you know the difference between socket 939 and socket 754. Do you know the difference between PC3200 Cas 3 and PC2700 Cas2.5. Do you know the difference between PCI-E and PCI. Have you ever installed an operating system from scratch on a clean hard drive. Do you know what driver to use for which motherboard chipsets. Do you understand cooling? Unless you can answer these and many similar questions don't even consider self build.

With regards to the type of machine - I think you are pretty accurate in listing your requirements - Most important I would say is memory go for at least 1GB and get 2GB if you can afford it - but dont worry memory can always be upgraded later.

Next is processor and as has been suggested already a good dual core Athlon 64 X2 or Pentium Dual core will greatly ease multitasking. Dont worry too much about clock speed - the difference between the slowest and fastest variants is not worth the huge price difference.

A graphics card will only be useful if your software supports it and graphics cards are expensive. I am not sure that a graphics card will do anything for photoshop or Autocad - on board graphics work just fine for these. It is posible that a good graphics card will speed up the rendering of sketchup but check the documentation carefully. I would nearly suggest buying machine with on board graphics and a PCI-E expansion slot - that way you can upgrade later via the PCI-E slot. Just avoid a machine with no graphics expansion slot (the cheapest Dells for example).

Next is Hard Disk - how big are the files you usually work with and how many do you intend to have. If you are mainly doing static 2D images then you can fit an awful lot onto 80 GB. If you are using a lot of 3D or especially video then you will quickly fill up 300GB.

The monitor should not be underestimated because it is the main thing you will be looking at all day. Very cheap monitors are just that - very cheap and screen size isn't everything. It id definitetly worth trying to get a look at the monitor you are thinking of getting to see how it displays the type of image you will be working with.

zilog_jones

This is a good guide for what to look for in buying LCD monitors. You may also benefit from having two monitors, if you have the desk space. Most modern graphics cards have support for dual display.

andy1249

As regards to building your own PC I would put the difficulty level on a par with Lego , everything fits only one way , and following basic ESD precautions is really all thats needed.

Every part comes with its own driver if its needed , XP pretty much installs itself and only stalls to ask you where you are and what time it is , and providing you buy your mainboard , ram and processor in a kit , then its all very easy to do.

Komplett supply kits for upgrades and for entire PC's and i would recommend these. That way you avoid having to know anything about memory timings , processor sockets etc.

By the way , classic spinal tap error in the OP , at least a 17' monitor , that would mean a 17 foot monitor , most people would not have the room for such a beast , no , I think the OP ,meant 17" monitor , a more reasonable size for a PC.

zilog_jones

Like Mad Mike, I wouldn't recommend delving into the field of building a new PC if you've never touched hardware before. Play around with some old junk first, e.g. get some old PC, wipe the hard disk and take the whole thing apart, and see if you can get it all working again. At least if you break that it won't matter.

And yeah, read up on different standards (PCI, PCI Express, AGP, etc.), form factors, and new technologies first so you know what you're looking for and know what's compatible with what.

It's not hard to do, but you could do with some experience first.

K.O.Kiki

I'd never touched the insides of a PC before I built my first machine (actually for a friend, <1month ago).
Basic ESD (electro-static discharge) care, and a bit of reading the manuals is all that's really needed.
Easiest tip: put the PSU into the case, plug it into a socket you can turn the juice off to and/or turn off the PSU, and just touch the case before you touch a component. And do at least 10 minutes of research

And if you still can't decide on what's right, post here

jor el

I'm with K.O.Kiki and andy1249, it's easy enough to build the PC yourself as everything only slots in one way. Front panel connections for audio/usb can sometimes be a bit tricky but read the manual and you should have no problems. Just make sure to get the right components to plug into each other, i.e. Socket 939 mobo and processor, then DDR RAM (PC3200) and not DDR2, PCI-Express graphics as opposed to AGP and all will be well.

Anyway, with a €600-700 budget I'd say a dual core processor is probably out as it would take half that alone. 2GB RAM starts at about €170 for the value/budget stuff so that's not too bad. Athlon 64 with 1MB cache for €145 isn't bad I think. A motherboard such as this MSI K8N Neo-4, I like MSI mobos but there are plenty of other good ones, is €73. 320G WD SATA2 disk for €110 and a DVD writer is €50. I'd imagine your graphics card budget to be around the €150 mark so either this or this would be good choices. The power supply is something that is often overlooked, but is very important. Don't go for the cheapest option as they're generally crap. About €100 for a decent case and power supply should do. That brings the total cost here to about €800, excludes the monitor and keyboard/mouse too. Operating system needs to be bought too, unless you have this already sorted.

You could have that back to under €600 by knocking the graphics card to something cheap in the €60 range, drop the RAM to 1G saves €80 and scrimp on a cheap processor saves another €60.

And just so as I don't show my bias against all things Dell (and to keep some perspective), a 5150C with similar spec to above, only not as good really, is €790 again with no monitor.

TerrorFirmer

I got to know the insides of PC's by tinkering around with old Pentium I, II and III desktops. I got some working fine, I broke some, I busted components, but it gives you great know how. No explanation is going to beat actual experience at building PCs.

Would not recommend making a current modern rig anyones first attempt. It'll probably end in tears. I've built plenty of cheapo rigs (like Pentium 2's) but I still haven't takent he plunge with a proper setup.

Cuddlesworth

Lol, first build was a watercooled socket 939 with a watercooled x850xt in a modded stacker last year. Never touched the inside of pc before. Second was a phase cooled Opty. So if your willing to put the effort into researching how to build it then you should have no problems. Like everybody else said the parts only go in one way and nothing needs to be forced.

Ps, unless your drunk and think it would be funny to build a pc out of spare parts, then things go horribly wrong.