New Desktop

[fermerboy]

I'm in need of a new desktop.
Any recommendations on vendor/supplier? Likely be purchased online as there isn't anybody within 50 miles of here.
Looked at Currys/PCworld, Ebuyer, Novatech, so far.
Needs to be a decent spec, but not a gaming machine, a little video editing off the drone be its toughest job. So thinking Intel I5 9th Gen, or I7 maybe? SSD and HDD, DVD drive. I note a lot have very low powered supplies 180w being common, seems very low to me. Anything else I should be including in the spec?
I used to build PCs in my spare time and I'm so far out of touch its unbelievable!

 

[J B]

Do you need new monitor and other 'bits'?

Have you looked at E Buyer?

 

[Storeman]

Have a look here https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ .

Can buy off the shelf or configure a number of base machines to suit your needs.

 

[Farma Parma]

SSD a must i5 or i7
16gb ram
plenty decent refurbed stuff at Tier1 good company if ya dont want New Money

 

[bitwrx]

I'm in need of a new desktop.
Any recommendations on vendor/supplier? Likely be purchased online as there isn't anybody within 50 miles of here.
Looked at Currys/PCworld, Ebuyer, Novatech, so far.
Needs to be a decent spec, but not a gaming machine, a little video editing off the drone be its toughest job. So thinking Intel I5 9th Gen, or I7 maybe? SSD and HDD, DVD drive. I note a lot have very low powered supplies 180w being common, seems very low to me. Anything else I should be including in the spec?
I used to build PCs in my spare time and I'm so far out of touch its unbelievable!

I recently found myself in a similar position to you - as in *way* out of touch. Ended up with a Lenovo off Currys business, 256gb SSD, some ram and space for another hard drive if I ever run out of space on the SSD. https://business.currys.co.uk/catalogue/item/P263975P

It runs Excel and farmplan just fine, and boots up in 30 seconds. Not sure how it would deal with video editing though.

It has a low power supply to go with the low power CPU, on board graphics and low power SSD. Near silent in operation and very small box overall. Nice bit of gear.

 

[Farma Parma]

I recently found myself in a similar position to you - as in *way* out of touch. Ended up with a Lenovo off Currys business, 256gb SSD, some ram and space for another hard drive if I ever run out of space on the SSD. https://business.currys.co.uk/catalogue/item/P263975P

It runs Excel and farmplan just fine, and boots up in 30 seconds. Not sure how it would deal with video editing though.

It has a low power supply to go with the low power CPU, on board graphics and low power SSD. Near silent in operation and very small box overall. Nice bit of gear.

Lenovo has always been topend stuff

 

[Boysground]

Another recommendation for Pc Specialist. I have bought a number of machines from them over the years. Can spec exactly what you want and no rubbish n the system. Am about to buy a new machine for the milking parlour and will use them again.

bg

 

[dave6470]

I'd recommend scan or over clockers uk and if your doing a lot of video editing I'd recommend one the new ryzen 3000 series ither 5 or 7 they are cheeper and better than Intel at vidio editing

 

[ShooTa]

scan or overclockers - if your building - if your not - winter holiday specials from pcworld etc but beware of bloatware (the programs that ship with the PCs that you do not want nor need )
lenovo is a particular menace for that -

so best bang for buck is a special deal combined with a clean wipe (remove bloatware) and reinstall.
i would also echo the SSD for c: drive - a western digital green for storage drive.
min 16 gig ram and preferably an - AMD Ryzen (5 or better) , which are atm much better and much cheaper than intel i5s/.

 

[deleted user 837354]

Any modern PC should have a SSD for the boot or C:\ drive, preferably an M2 or NVMe drive on the motherboard- beware cheapo motherboards may not support this. You want a Samsung SSD, make sure you ask for one specifically. Needs to be 256GB in size minimum.

Lots of specialist PC builders about. Some do load on bloatware, which is easily remedied by freshly installing windows on it when new.

If it is for home use and won't live in a milking parlour I would be tempted to investigate the Microsoft Surface desktops but they will be pricier because of the stuff on board. For video-editing I would be tempted to stretch to an i7 (or the munter AMD chips which are cheaper) as it can be heavy weight stuff if you are big on converting files. You will need 16 GB of RAM for that workload, too.

Currys/PC world best avoided unless you know what you are about and are selling a machine stealing cheap, they tend to sell older kit at new prices.

Low power PSUs are great until you want to install a dedicated graphics card.... If they are saving money on the PSU then the mobo will likely be low end too which makes upgrading in future a fudge as well. Novatech et al will let you spec the exact case, PSU and motherboard you want, PC world do not do this.

Post a build or machine and I will happily review the spec for you. It may be worth ringing Novatech or Overclockers to get a quote for a like for like spec.

If you have kids you will need a graphics card for the inevitable desire to run farming simulator or similar so make sure there is space in the case and the motherboard has the right number of PCI-E lanes...

 

[fermerboy]

Thank you for replies.

I used to build machines for myself and others, guess its 10-12yrs since I last did one, eventually it got to the point it wasn't worth it.
I hadn't considered building one but may well price up the bits and see.
Back then I used to use a lot of AMD Athlons, but Intel do seem to be the more popular nowadays, and I'm not at all familiar with AMDs line up of chips.

I'm going for a new monitor too, sorely tempted to go for a 27" job. Probably overkill for my needs though.

Spec isn't so hard, as long as there is room for changing something if need be, think I will go for something with a graphics card though, its just finding a decent reliable supplier I'm after.
I was thinking of buying one with no OS and installing Win 10 myself, that saves a load of crap ending on there.

I have kids but they won't get to use this one, this ones mine, nobody else including Mrs FB gets to use it!!

 

[Farfrae]

I'm going for a new monitor too, sorely tempted to go for a 27" job. Probably overkill for my needs though.

Consider using your old monitor as a second monitor and say a new 24" monitor. Personally I'd never go back to one monitor after using two. It really can make life much easier with say emails open on one whilst you work on the other or in the case of graphics programs having the subject open on the main monitor and the tools or thumbnails on the other. Just make sure the graphics card can support 2 or even 3 monitors.

 

[Storeman]

I'd recommend scan or over clockers uk and if your doing a lot of video editing I'd recommend one the new ryzen 3000 series ither 5 or 7 they are cheeper and better than Intel at vidio editing

Could you please explain how an AMD cpu is better than an Intel cpu at video editing?

 

[deleted user 837354]

Most GPU will support 3-4 monitors now, unless they are low end ones. I've run three for over a year now and they make working very very easy.

A large 27 inch monitor won't be crazy expensive unless you opt for one that is touch screen or 4K resolution. I got a 27 inch LG years ago for about £150 I think.

AMD chips lagged behind for a while and they delayed bringing out their newer technology but they have brought more potent enthusiast grade machinery into the marketplace in more recent years, I'm sure Intel still hold the performance trophy given the spec of their i9 CPUs but they cost a bomb and the motherboards are hefty in price too.

For a machine bought off the shelf and which looks the shizz a Microsoft Surface desktop workstation would be ace but the price tag is more Apple than anything else.

 

[deleted user 837354]

Could you please explain how an AMD cpu is better than an Intel cpu at video editing?

I think AMDs trump card is their huge core count- assuming you have software that will use them I think in many benchmarks they did very very well in specific tasks. The 990FX/AM3+ chipsets were physically huge and looked potent on paper but intel used to win because of hyperthreading.

 

[Storeman]

I think AMDs trump card is their huge core count- assuming you have software that will use them I think in many benchmarks they did very very well in specific tasks. The 990FX/AM3+ chipsets were physically huge and looked potent on paper but intel used to win because of hyperthreading.

But with video editing, especially the Adobe products, it's the graphics card that does the real work of pixel manipulation.

 

[deleted user 837354]

But with video editing, especially the Adobe products, it's the graphics card that does the real work of pixel manipulation.

I've never done any video editing but I do know that in some benchmarks AMD CPUs were beating the score achieved by intel CPUs, but I can't remember which applications specifically.

 

[Farfrae]

I'd recommend scan or over clockers uk

Scan have got some truly dreadful recent reviews on their Facebook page

Scan Computers UK

www.facebook.com

 

[deleted user 837354]

Best avoided then, I haven't used them for a few years either. Always used Novatech or Overclockers. I tend to avoid PC world unless it is to look at something in the flesh.

 

[dave6470]

Scan have got some truly dreadful recent reviews on their Facebook page

Scan Computers UK

www.facebook.com

I've never had any problems with them used them for years just built a system for my nephew last week
It was one off there pre overclocked bundles