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Before buying PC please ask our advice first!

Don't get me wrong, the lower price range is flooded and there is some crap in there between the £80 and £100 range (I am looking for a cheap monitor to buy, I don't just randomly know lol) - but there are also some ok monitors at around the £100 - £120 range including the Acer that I have seen so will probably go with.
This is something I didn't realise until this past week, I was expecting to pay a bit more.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 5841

scotton86

3

I'm tempted to go with one around the £100-120 mark to be honest. As long as I can get a VGA lead into it then I'm set. I'll not be using it for anything other than work / web / photo editing to be honest.

I'm sitting in front of a 22in Acer at work now, and have found it to be more than suitable for what I need. It's only got 1 input (VGA) and that'll do for me.

Doesn't make sense to spend money on a monitor with features I'm never going to use.

So the other part of the question then - no chance of a fairly decent laptop for around the 300 mark?

Reply 5842

Stefanb

8

Original post by scotton86

I'm tempted to go with one around the £100-120 mark to be honest. As long as I can get a VGA lead into it then I'm set. I'll not be using it for anything other than work / web / photo editing to be honest.

I'm sitting in front of a 22in Acer at work now, and have found it to be more than suitable for what I need. It's only got 1 input (VGA) and that'll do for me.

Doesn't make sense to spend money on a monitor with features I'm never going to use.

So the other part of the question then - no chance of a fairly decent laptop for around the 300 mark?

What about this?

Still can't get a decent 22" for £100. Check reviews for those monitors, the quality in monitors lies in their panels not the spec sheet.

You'll want DVI minimum and if you're doing photo editing you'll want something with true colours. For the latter expect to pay in the hundreds of pounds

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 5844

taliman

14

Thanks for the help, the graphics card says GDDR5 but the motherboard is GDDR3, will this affect performance?

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 5845

Zorg

18

Original post by taliman

Thanks for the help, the graphics card says GDDR5 but the motherboard is GDDR3, will this affect performance?

The motherboard says DDR3, that's system RAM speed. GDDR5 is VRAM speed. No conflicts.

Reply 5846

Happilyme

I'm thinking of buying this samsung q430 next week: http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/pc-peripherals/notebook-computers/ultra-portable/NP-Q430-JS01UK/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&tab=specification

but I'm undecided :s-smilie:

i mainly want it for watching movies on the go, some word processing, internet browsing and some multi tasking ect no heavy gaming, although i may play some every now and then, it's about £580 do you think it's worth it or are there any cheaper 13"-14" alternatives? I don't want anything bigger than that because I'm sick of my 15.6" laptop so I want something smaller. :smile:

Reply 5847

chaz1992

15

Original post by Happilyme

I'm thinking of buying this samsung q430 next week: http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/pc-peripherals/notebook-computers/ultra-portable/NP-Q430-JS01UK/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&tab=specification

but I'm undecided :s-smilie:

i mainly want it for watching movies on the go, some word processing, internet browsing and some multi tasking ect no heavy gaming, although i may play some every now and then, it's about £580 do you think it's worth it or are there any cheaper 13"-14" alternatives? I don't want anything bigger than that because I'm sick of my 15.6" laptop so I want something smaller. :smile:

If it's style your looking for:

http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Dell_Onyx_Adamo_13_1039927.html

^^^good for basic tasks like word processing, lightweight, has got an SSD drive although processor is not the best and could do with a RAM upgrade.

or if you want to do more gaming:

http://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/InventorySearch.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdfh1&l=en&s=dfh&brandid=7&fid=4422

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 5848

Zorg

18

Vertex 3 120GB or Vertex 3 MAX IOPS 120GB?

Reply 5849

Happilyme

Original post by chaz1992

If it's style your looking for:

http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Dell_Onyx_Adamo_13_1039927.html

^^^good for basic tasks like word processing, lightweight, has got an SSD drive although processor is not the best and could do with a RAM upgrade.

or if you want to do more gaming:

http://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/InventorySearch.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdfh1&l=en&s=dfh&brandid=7&fid=4422

I really like the first Dell you posted, but about how much would it cost to do these upgrades? and where would I go to get them done? just ring up the manufacturer or something? lol sorry for questions I'm a bit of a noob haha

Reply 5850

chaz1992

15

Original post by Happilyme

I really like the first Dell you posted, but about how much would it cost to do these upgrades? and where would I go to get them done? just ring up the manufacturer or something? lol sorry for questions I'm a bit of a noob haha

http://www.crucial.com/uk/

brilliant website. It'll scan your system and find you the appropriate upgrade.

Like most Dell laptops, it will probably have two RAM slots, each one supports a maximum of 4Gb each. To save you money, you never really need more than 4Gb total RAM for what you or anyone plans to use a laptop for, you could even get away with 2Gb RAM. To upgrade to 4Gb RAM, if you take it to any PC repair shop they'll probably do it for £50-£80.

Alternatively you could contact Dell and they could probably do it but it'd cost you an extortionate amount.

I don't know much about this laptop so wouldn't know the exact RAM spec you need. After further research, the RAM type is 800 MHz DDR3 Laptop SDRAM. They cost about £20 for 2Gb so if you got to the computer repair shop they should be able to upgrade it from 1x 2Gb to 2x 2Gb for about £50-£80.

You may also want to search up Dell XPS 13, HP Envy 13 or Dell Vostro V130

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 5851

---

Hi all! I have around 400-500 to spend on a desktop, would like to build it from scratch. Any recommendations?

Reply 5852

dmz

17

Sorry but can anyone tell me why the 4GB ram is cheaper than the 3GB? and would the RAM be expandable?

Reply 5853

triloko

Hey everyone, I'm planning on buying a macbook pro. Before all hell breaks loose, please understand I'll buy a macbook pro regardless of the never-ending debates. I am very into photography, I do it a lot as a hobby and have managed to do it every now and then as a part-time job. I've been told macs are really good for editing so I'd like to buy one. I've had high-performance computers before (alienware) and they turned out to be crap, so I'm trying to avoid that, and I've never had any trouble with macs so far so I think they're a pretty safe bet. A friend of mine is buying it in America, so it shouldn't be insanely expensive.

The thing is, I want to be able to play games as well (by running bootcamp), will a laptop with a combined AMD Radeon HD 6750M (with 1 GB of GDDR5 video memory) and an integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 (with 384 MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory) be able to run games? I'm not talking all the latest games, but just if it's reasonably powerful to play decent stuff. Also, I've been told the matte screen is better for editing pictures, but it wouldn't really matter that much if I'm in a room with controlled lighting, so I could just go for the glossy one as it's cheaper? (then again, the difference isn't that big).

I'll probably buy it on ebay instead of the mac store as they are cheaper and are usually upgraded. Any ideas on this as well?

Thanks a lot and sorry for the inconvenience!

Reply 5854

Spaz Man

13

Novatech PCs are very good value.

Reply 5855

Stefanb

8

Hi guys, I recently bought an i5-2400 for my desktop and it doesn't come with a heatsink only a fan to encase the processor. Can i use the processor without a heatsink or should I go out and buy one? Also when building my desktop what should I connect my PSU to. I have it connected to the motherboard, HD and optical drive but there seems to still be some loose cable, any advice? Thanks!

Reply 5856

Sarky.

6

Original post by Stefanb

Hi guys, I recently bought an i5-2400 for my desktop and it doesn't come with a heatsink only a fan to encase the processor. Can i use the processor without a heatsink or should I go out and buy one? Also when building my desktop what should I connect my PSU to. I have it connected to the motherboard, HD and optical drive but there seems to still be some loose cable, any advice? Thanks!

You DEFINATELY need a heatsink. If this was 10 years ago and you did that and turned it on, it would burn out the CPU. Thankfully there's thermal shutdown now :P

As for PSU connections...24 pin on the motherboard, 4 pin near the CPU socket, 6 pin for a graphics card (if you have one), 4 pin molex for older hard drives/DVD drives, flat cable for SATA devices.

You should have some left over, so don't worry about those.

Reply 5857

Stefanb

8

Original post by Sarky.

You DEFINATELY need a heatsink. If this was 10 years ago and you did that and turned it on, it would burn out the CPU. Thankfully there's thermal shutdown now :P

As for PSU connections...24 pin on the motherboard, 4 pin near the CPU socket, 6 pin for a graphics card (if you have one), 4 pin molex for older hard drives/DVD drives, flat cable for SATA devices.

You should have some left over, so don't worry about those.