Advice on Desktop

SCOOP 64

My son would like a better desktop for his birthday,cant afford a top end gaming machine, main use is internet,spotify,he makes videos and uploads to utube,would like to play games on it but has a xboxone,so no big deal if he cant,
could you look at the one below and advice on spec, price, etc,,,.. thks

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/262217894374?euid=85395115f33d47ebbc1f8232ad4e3920&cp=1

Digital Solitude

It's a pretty old machine, wouldn't play games or do much editing tbh

What's the upper end of the budget?

SCOOP 64

Digital Solitude wrote: »

It's a pretty old machine, wouldn't play games or do much editing tbh

What's the upper end of the budget?

€200/€250

Digital Solitude

Is a self build off the cards? Just to confirm

SCOOP 64

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Is a self build off the cards? Just to confirm

All options considered.

riclad

http://www.adverts.ie/desktops/hp-compac-6000-quad-core-6gb-ram/9631437

this pc is much better,
faster cpu,more ram,
quad core =4cpu at least twice as fast as the pc in the link


If it has a pci express slot ,it would be easy to put in a fast graphics card
1-2gig video ram,100 euro approx on adverts.ie
And its avaidable in ireland.
use the intel graphics card for the moment .
I think the xbox one has a youtube video upload app

http://www.adverts.ie/graphics-cards/amd-ati-radeon-hd-5770-1gb-gddr5-pci-e-video-card/9465248

maki

riclad wrote: »

faster cpu,more ram,
quad core =4cpu at least twice as fast as the pc in the link

Terrible logic. You're comparing an partially unknown Athlon X2 vs a completely unknown "quad core processor", which could be anything. A quad core is not necessarily faster than a dual core, and in plenty of cases a dual core will completely wipe the floor with a quad core.

Also, quad core != 4 cpus.
Multi-threading and multi-processing are two completely different things.

mordeith

SCOOP 64 wrote: »

My son would like a better desktop for his birthday,cant afford a top end gaming machine, main use is internet,spotify,he makes videos and uploads to utube,would like to play games on it but has a xboxone,so no big deal if he cant,
could you look at the one below and advice on spec, price, etc,,,.. thks

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/262217894374?euid=85395115f33d47ebbc1f8232ad4e3920&cp=1

You mention your are looking for a better desktop. What are the specs of the one your son presently have? It might make more sense upgrading some components of that rather than a complete second hand machine (given your relatively low budget)

mordeith

maki wrote: »

A quad core is not necessarily faster than a dual core, and in plenty of cases a dual core will completely wipe the floor with a quad core.

Exactly. Case in point http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core2-Quad-Q6600-vs-AMD-Athlon-II-X2-260

SCOOP 64

mordeith wrote: »

You mention your are looking for a better desktop. What are the specs of the one your son presently have? It might make more sense upgrading some components of that rather than a complete second hand machine (given your relatively low budget)

Its very old,
hp compag stingray
motherboard ASUS P4SD-LA
cpu 2.8 p4
2 gb pc2100 memory
integrated graphics
windows xp

SCOOP 64

So would the Hp g5200 on ebay be better with 1GB graphics card and 500 GB harddrive?

mordeith

SCOOP 64 wrote: »

So would the Hp be better with 1GB graphics card and 500 GB harddrive?

That's pretty old in fairness. Also you shouldn't be using XP online anymore due to lack of MS support.

This isn't a bad machine

The integrated graphics are nothing to shout about but you could add a dedicated card at a later date. Again RAM can be added if necessary but 4GB will do your son's needs for his initial requirements. 4th gen i3 which is far superior to either of the previously linked machines.

SCOOP 64

mordeith wrote: »

That's pretty old in fairness. Also you shouldn't be using XP online anymore due to lack of MS support.

This isn't a bad machine

The integrated graphics are nothing to shout about but you could add a dedicated card at a later date. Again RAM can be added if necessary but 4GB will do your son's needs for his initial requirements. 4th gen i3 which is far superior to either of the previously linked machines.

That one seems good but have to drive to Dublin to get it,looks like collection only.

mordeith

SCOOP 64 wrote: »

That one seems good but have to drive to Dublin to get it,looks like collection only.

What county are you based in?

SCOOP 64

mordeith wrote: »

What county are you based in?

Wexford

TerrorFirmer

mordeith wrote: »

That's pretty old in fairness. Also you shouldn't be using XP online anymore due to lack of MS support.

This isn't a bad machine

The integrated graphics are nothing to shout about but you could add a dedicated card at a later date. Again RAM can be added if necessary but 4GB will do your son's needs for his initial requirements. 4th gen i3 which is far superior to either of the previously linked machines.

That's an unreal deal, latest generation i3 alone is worth about 120 of that price. The only problem there is that most dedicated cards will not fit, meaning the heatsinks will be blocked by how close the pci-e slot is to the power supply.

Your best course of action is to buy something like a machine with a G630, 4GB of ram and a 500GB hard drive from Ebay - tons of old office stock with those specs at around €120-150 delivered.

Down the line you can swap the G630 for an i5 for about €80, and add a dedicated card for about €100, which would enable it to play all the latest games just fine.

Example here. €125 delivered to you door and extremely upgradable.

Just an example, feel free to look around and come back. Ignore the previous PC's posted here (excluding mordeith's which is a stellar deal but limited in graphics ability)

TerrorFirmer

Here's another example for €100 delivered.

Both these machines are fully upgradable.

Swap the G620 for an i5-2xx0 or 3xx0 for about €70.

Add a GTX750 for €100.

Total cost for a decent gaming PC - €270.

Add more ram later when needed.

edit: this one doesn't appear to have Win7 installed, the Dell does. So stick with that, maybe.

Also - even without any upgrading the G630 is perfectly fine for normal day to day tasks and some games will run just fine.

Black Ops 2, Minecraft, Battlefield 3, Bioshock Infinite, Dirt Rally and a few other titles of that ilk will work fine with it - the latest games like GTA V, Black Ops 3, Fallout 4 etc will not work.

SCOOP 64

This is finishing soon dont know what it will go for, would this be same ?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-Pro-3300-SFF-PC-Intel-G630-2-70GHz-4GB-Ram-500GB-HDD-Win-10-Pro-/131701860768?hash=item1eaa0ae9a0:g:G9oAAOSwGotWlmtP

this one just sold

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/131701845602?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&autorefresh=true

TerrorFirmer

Yes it seems fine. It will take any low profile graphics card, unlike the Dell linked a few posts past it has ample space to accommodate gaming cards.