New Desktop Computer What Do I Need?

Lincoln75

Member
Dont buy a Mac as you`ll end up regretting it sooner or later when you cant use the programmes you want to , a PC does far more than than you`ll ever need running a farm , speak to a local independent shop if you have one , tell them what you are using it for and they`ll build you one , ask them to throw in on site warranty and confirm call out fee`s etc when out of warranty , I`ve bought dozens of PC`s for business over the years and this works well , you should get something thats more than good enough for £500-600.
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
Dont buy a Mac as you`ll end up regretting it sooner or later when you cant use the programmes you want to , a PC does far more than than you`ll ever need running a farm , speak to a local independent shop if you have one , tell them what you are using it for and they`ll build you one , ask them to throw in on site warranty and confirm call out fee`s etc when out of warranty , I`ve bought dozens of PC`s for business over the years and this works well , you should get something thats more than good enough for £500-600.
I’ve used PC’s since Windows 3.1 For WorkGroups and up to W7, and still do occasionally on my laptops. Mac since late 2011.
Never had an issue with programs/apps not working on a Mac.
I’ve also been involved with a few purchases of cheap but intensively used desktop PC’s for someone else’s business over the years and never felt the need to customise them. These machines were mostly for use on retail counters for parts management, email, and so on and also ran versions of Ibcos Gold dealer management software. None of these are particularly demanding computer tasks but did require some machines to run 24 hours a day. Granted Ibcos only ran on Windows, but that’s all those cheap desktops ever did. Year in year out. No speakers fitted, just monitors.

The specification of computer needed depends very much on the intended application. Most desktops are way over-specced for general office plodding along except perhaps for internal data storage unless connected to a good server. Yes, £500-600 will easily buy a more than adequate machine for the average Joe and small business. Some people want and need a heck of a lot higher performance machines though, in terms of speed, multitasking, RAM, graphics, speakers and connectivity. Each to their own and there is a machine available off the shelf or available to be customised to suit everybody, nearly.

In over ten years of using a Mac I’ve only got one app annoyance, not quite a failure to use an app. Since I use Apple Photos and other apps for editing photos, the minor issue is that Nik Suite from DXO does not seamlessly plug-in to Photos. It does to Adobe Creative Cloud or the stand-alone Photoshop for which I have no intension of having. I can access any of the Nik products from Photos but its more of a faff than it needs to be in my opinion.
The main issue with Mac is surely its initial purchase price. However it has a very comprehensive set of professional quality apps, including an office suite, that are built-in as standard. The initial price is certainly enough to put a certain demographic off from buying the product, which is fair enough. I don’t think, for instance, that I would buy Macs for employees to use at work.
 
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Lincoln75

Member
I’ve used PC’s since Windows 3.1 For WorkGroups and up to W7, and still do occasionally on my laptops. Mac since late 2011.
Never had an issue with programs/apps not working on a Mac.
I’ve also been involved with a few purchases of cheap but intensively used desktop PC’s for someone else’s business over the years and never felt the need to customise them. These machines were mostly for use on retail counters for parts management, email, and so on and also ran versions of Ibcos Gold dealer management software. None of these are particularly demanding computer tasks but did require some machines to run 24 hours a day. Granted Ibcos only ran on Windows, but that’s all those cheap desktops ever did. Year in year out. No speakers fitted, just monitors.

The specification of computer needed depends very much on the intended application. Most desktops are way over-specced for general office plodding along except perhaps for internal data storage unless connected to a good server. Yes, £500-600 will easily buy a more than adequate machine for the average Joe and small business. Some people want and need a heck of a lot higher performance machines though, in terms of speed, multitasking, RAM, graphics, speakers and connectivity. Each to their own and there is a machine available off the shelf or available to be customised to suit everybody, nearly.

In over ten years of using a Mac I’ve only got one app annoyance, not quite a failure to use an app. Since I use Apple Photos and other apps for editing photos, the minor issue is that Nik Suite from DXO does not seamlessly plug-in to Photos. It does to Adobe Creative Cloud or the stand-alone Photoshop for which I have no intension of having. I can access any of the Nik products from Photos but its more of a faff than it needs to be in my opinion.
Concise :rolleyes: .
 

dave mountain

Member
Livestock Farmer
dont bother with a mac, they are fine but far too expensive for what they are. they are marginally less power hungry but a windows pc with 3 times as much processing power, graphics power and ram will still be cheaper.
these are the office pcs ive been buying, they can run autoCAD perfectly so will be fine for farm use
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
What systems you run 10 years ago is completely irrelevant to a farmer wanting to buy a new desktop PC to manage his farm.
I currently run W10 and iOS on my Mac and W7 on two laptops [10” and 17” screen size] and earlier versions of Windows on three other laptops that are not currently used. I did have W7 and iOS on my second, older iMac but formatted that drive after transferring data to the newer iMac.
Any cheap desktop can run simple office software. All that is needed is a budget desktop, keyboard and a cheap monitor. It is then up to the individual whether they wish to get something more bespoke, usually at some small extra cost or even much more cost. Most people do add extras if it is to be a versatile multi-purpose machine. Everybody’s wants and needs are different apart from the basic office workstation user whose needs tend to be fairly, well, basic. One cannot assume that any particular person’s needs are at any specific level. Almost all cheap desktops and laptops today will exceed the performance requirement for ‘simple’ office, secretarial type applications.
 

Cowabunga

Member
Location
Ceredigion,Wales
For pure office work the most important thing to get is an external hard drive for regular automatic back-up as well as registering and using a Cloud back-up, so that no data is ever lost. The original internal hard drive needs to be of sufficient capacity of course but for most farm offices a 500GB drive will be more than enough. If a Chromebook laptop is the preferred option than less than half that would be fine, because nearly everything is accessed from Google Cloud. Some bespoke software may not be compatible with Chromebooks, so do check. Most work fine. My dairy management software, for instance, works exclusively through the Chrome browser no matter what operating system the on-site computer uses. If it can run Chrome [they all can], it can run my dairy management software.
Everyone’s needs and fancies differ.
 
dont bother with a mac, they are fine but far too expensive for what they are. they are marginally less power hungry but a windows pc with 3 times as much processing power, graphics power and ram will still be cheaper.
these are the office pcs ive been buying, they can run autoCAD perfectly so will be fine for farm use

You don't want to be buying a PC off some randomer on ebay of all places.

The lenovo website, Novatech and overclockers etc are known entities with an actual back up service.
 

dave mountain

Member
Livestock Farmer
You don't want to be buying a PC off some randomer on ebay of all places.

The lenovo website, Novatech and overclockers etc are known entities with an actual back up service.
Been getting them off eBay for 15 years I've never had any bother. They use exactly the same components made in exactly the same factories, and if anything you could argue that eBay machines are better as they use big-brand motherboards rather than own-brand ones like dell/Lenovo/hp/Fujitsu etc do.
 
Been getting them off eBay for 15 years I've never had any bother. They use exactly the same components made in exactly the same factories, and if anything you could argue that eBay machines are better as they use big-brand motherboards rather than own-brand ones like dell/Lenovo/hp/Fujitsu etc do.

There is no advantage though- Novatech, Overclockers and the like will sort you out and will all declare the case/PSU and motherboard etc used. I would probably never buy a branded PC as I build my own but for a laptop etc Lenovo and the like are fine.

I wouldn't buy a Dell or HP or Fujitsu on principle as they are mass market workstations that are nasty.
 

Boysground

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Wiltshire
I have a Ryzen 5 in my desktop and it works a treat, also 16gb of memory. 500gb ssd but as everything important is stored in the cloud I’m not even close to filling it. Might be worth more storage if you do a lot of photos but that is easily sorted later.

Bg
 

Kingston

Member
This also seems like a good deal on Amazon

Deal: Windows 11 Pro Desktop PC 16GB RAM 512GB SSD Intel Core i7-4765T Processor Computer with Type C USB 3.0 HDMI VGA Ports, Small Size and RGB Light Design, Including Mouse Keyboard https://amzn.eu/d/3I2BO01

£339

Not sure about all in one, hadn’t looked. Advised against earlier in thread (not sure why)
 

Kingston

Member
I have a Ryzen 5 in my desktop and it works a treat, also 16gb of memory. 500gb ssd but as everything important is stored in the cloud I’m not even close to filling it. Might be worth more storage if you do a lot of photos but that is easily sorted later.

Bg
Thanks, won’t need loads of storage TBH
 

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quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

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