Nice and easy - buying new computer

Sup guys

In the coming months, I plan on purchasing a new computer. No I will not build one.

I'm not quite sure whether I'm going to heave out on a desktop or just a laptop, but basically, what kinda specs should I expect, and for how much? I'm not sure what's the going standard these days is. Also, what kind of graphics card am I looking for if I want to do reasonably good gaming?

I know this is all very vague, but eg.

You should be aiming for:

X processor from Y company, or Z by A
Bgb of RAM
C graphics card by D company

etc
I am also aware that it will depend a lot on whether I go for a desktop or a laptop. I gots plenty of time to think about it though. But what kind of price range would you lot be willing to pay?

Cheers

Why not build your own? It would be cheaper and you can get all the bits you actually want.

I do recommend an external hard drive though.

Build one. Its far strawberry floating cheaper.

If you don't want to build it then I'd like to suggest pcspecialists http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ .

Loads of people here know an awful lot more about this than I do but my suggestions would be starting with an Intel I5 cpu (I7 if the budget can stretch) and 16gb of ram. I have no idea what the best value graphics card is though.
Come on guys he said he doesn't want to build it and is asking for some pretty basic advice here.

I would be willing to pay one straw-penny. Seriously though, how much money do you have to play with?

Peter Crisp wrote:If you don't want to build it then I'd like to suggest pcspecialists http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ .

Loads of people here know an awful lot more about this than I do but my suggestions would be starting with an Intel I5 cpu (I7 if the budget can stretch) and 16gb of ram. I have no idea what the best value graphics card is though.
Come on guys he said he doesn't want to build it and is asking for some pretty basic advice here.

All the relevant info is in Falsey's first post in the PC thread.

The recommended specs are the same whether you're building or buying.


But since most of us have built, we've got little information on companies that prebuild.

Don't be a pussy. Build it.

TheTurnipKing wrote:

Peter Crisp wrote:If you don't want to build it then I'd like to suggest pcspecialists http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ .

Loads of people here know an awful lot more about this than I do but my suggestions would be starting with an Intel I5 cpu (I7 if the budget can stretch) and 16gb of ram. I have no idea what the best value graphics card is though.
Come on guys he said he doesn't want to build it and is asking for some pretty basic advice here.

All the relevant info is in Falsey's first post in the PC thread.

The recommended specs are the same whether you're building or buying.


But since most of us have built, we've got little information on companies that prebuild.

The recommended specs have since been updated; see here for details. You'll notice that the recommended graphics card is no longer available as it is now an end of life product. Personally I'm waiting for its successor, the 660 Ti. With any luck it should be released in the next couple of weeks.

You really ought to explain why you have ruled out the option of building it yourself. The most common concern is difficulty, but I can assure you that members on here will always be on hand to give you help. I built my first computer just last week and am typing from it now. My first PC

Come on guys

Dark Dragon 64 wrote:

TheTurnipKing wrote:

Peter Crisp wrote:If you don't want to build it then I'd like to suggest pcspecialists http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ .

Loads of people here know an awful lot more about this than I do but my suggestions would be starting with an Intel I5 cpu (I7 if the budget can stretch) and 16gb of ram. I have no idea what the best value graphics card is though.
Come on guys he said he doesn't want to build it and is asking for some pretty basic advice here.

All the relevant info is in Falsey's first post in the PC thread.

The recommended specs are the same whether you're building or buying.


But since most of us have built, we've got little information on companies that prebuild.

The recommended specs have since been updated; see here for details. You'll notice that the recommended graphics card is no longer available as it is now an end of life product. Personally I'm waiting for its successor, the 660 Ti. With any luck it should be released in the next couple of weeks.

You really ought to explain why you have ruled out the option of building it yourself. The most common concern is difficulty, but I can assure you that members on here will always be on hand to give you help. I built my first computer just last week and am typing from it now. My first PC

Oh, I kind of assumed they'd have been updated in the opening post, too. My bad.

edit: Cut and pasted here for convienience

Falsey wrote:

** Denotes recommended value build.

Case
...£040 -- Antec 300 **
...£070 -- Fractal R3

Graphics card
...£150 -- NVIDIA GTX 560
...£180 -- NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti 448 core **

Hard drive
...~£070 -- Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB (if you can find one)
...£084 -- Seagate 2TB **

Memory
...£043 -- Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) 1600MHz **

Motherboard
...£105 -- Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H **
...£130 -- Asus P8Z77-V

Optical drive
...£013 -- Samsung DVD writer **
...£047 -- Samsung BluRay

Power supply
...£043 -- Antec Basiq Power 550W **
...£060 -- Coolermaster Silent Pro 600W (Modular)

Processor
...£180 -- Intel Core i5 3570K **

Bonus round - SSD
...£090 -- Crucial M4 128GB

Range: £644 - £884
Recommended: £688

And for the usual disclaimer, prices may be better/worse elsewhere. Prices are rounded and accurate as of now.

I am lazy. Is this too difficult to deduce?

I am willing to pay a premium for a slightly worse product, because I don't have to assemble it myself.

Are you willing to pay £200-300 in order to save yourself 2-3 hours work?


Because that goes past lazy into the realm of idiocy.



Build it. People say building a PC is like Lego for adults, but to be honest, lego is harder as in a PC the bits only fit where they're meant to.








Videos 1 and 3 are only necessary if you have no idea what you're doing. Video 2 is excellent and I actually picked up quite a few things which I wasn't previously aware of.

You can actually literally just follow along with the video and have your PC built.

Get a rebuild, pay the price. You have been warned.

G-Ratasaurus Rex wrote:I am lazy. Is this too difficult to deduce?

I am willing to pay a premium for a slightly worse product, because I don't have to assemble it myself.

Alternatively, you save yourself money, buy a better product, and get to feel like Tony ten-inch Stark when you successfully build your first machine, a process that is essentially akin to assembling rather expensive Lego. Why pay extra to deprive yourself of that?

www.pcworld.co.uk
www.dell.co.uk
www.alienware.co.uk

None of the products will be as good as something you can build yourself, but if you want to pay more, for less, then one of those links should help.

Build it G-Rat, do it for me.

Thanks Harry those video's were pretty helpful and opened my eyes to a few mistakes i've made in the past with self builds.

I have a mate like this, so stubborn and adverse to just trying anything new. He ended up buying a Zoostorm. He's dead now.

My honest answer is that I recommend no prebuild outlets and you can't get a quote without a budget.

Holpil wrote:I have a mate like this, so stubborn and adverse to just trying anything new. He ended up buying a Zoostorm. He's dead now.

A lesson for us all.

In all seriousness, putting together PC parts is so easy I did my last one on my couch watching telly. Had the motherboard tray on my knees, screwing in risers, screwing in the mo'bo, slot in cpu, slot in RAM, put tray back into main case and you're basically done.