What to look for in a new home PC?

[UnSafe]

Getting time for a new home PC and haven't kept up with all of the latest "Stuff" involved. So, where's the best place to get recommendations?

Here!

OK- Home/ desktop PC. Thinking Windows (7?) based, Not much as far as game playing but kids are getting bigger. Mostly for Internet stuff, itunes/Zune, MS Office, Wife's Photoshop work. Probably 1+TB drive. Current ISP download speeds of 1.9-2.1 Mbs and the potential for 3+ Mbs in the future.

So, where's a good place to start? Intel i7 Quadcore, 8MB/ 3.40 GHz processor? AMD? Other? I'd want as fast as practical and enough RAM to keep Photoshop commands from taking all day. Not brand loyal, but leery of off brand and "Home built" PC's. I'm happy with my current Samsung 24" monitor, not sure if it's worth going larger or newer.

 

[gyolai]

just make sure it has an apple on it

 

[BluRaySS]

Considering it seems like you are not the type of person that enjoys continued learning and major change in your computers, I would skip the apple. I guess there is nothing really wrong with them, but they are polar opposite of a windows based interface.

 

[poopgiggle]

What is your budget?

 

[UnSafe]

No interest in Apple. Happy with Windows PC

Budget- Probably up to $1K on the CPU, if it makes a meaningful difference. Not any more than necessary, though.

 

[Rez Exelon]

Depending on what you are using it for your budget doesn't need to be over about 650. I just built this:

Military grade MSI motherboard
Quad Core AMD (Phenom 2 955 black edition)
4GB DDR3 1600Mhz
500GB boot drive
3 TB Raid 0 Data storage
Custom media center case
Upgraded cooling system
1GB DDR5 video card (3 monitor output)
DVDRW

And that was for about 650-700ish. I had some mail in rebates and got some good deals to reduce the cost. This will handle most all tasks for a looooong time to come as long as I don't decide to start playing games on max settings. I can encode videos, while running photo shop with 2 virtual systems running at the same time.

Main thing: If you are set on a desktop, get with a knowledgeable computer guy, pay a small fee and you can wind up getting much more hardware for the money. If you go laptop, go with Dell. They have better customer service than competitors. Make sure to get accidental damage coverage.

Hope that helps!

 

[UnSafe]

Thanks!
Any OKC area recommendations for computer shops or PC builders?

 

[NikatKimber]

There's a few on this board that I'm sure could do it.

I would look for a Core i5 or i7, minimum of 4gb or RAM 6 or 8 preferred, dedicated graphics card.

You can add internal hard drives cheap, so if something meets all your other criteria but has a smaller hard drive than you want, don't let that hold you up. Also, know that adding memory is easy too. So you wouldn't have to max out all the checkboxes up front.

And with a $k to spend, you can get a pretty high end machine if you're not including peripherals like monitor, printers etc.

 

[VitruvianDoc]

AMD is the low budget alternative to the intel Core series. I ran an AMD Phenom II Quad core 3.2 in my parents computer, but they wanted to spend no more than 600.

Use a Core series if you can. Wanting to use photoshop you will want to get a beefy processor, beefy ram and beefy graphics

Ram: 6 gig minimum, 8 gig prefered
CPU: Core i5 or i7, 2.8 ghz or higher.
Graphix: ATI Radeon 5800 series or 5900 series. Be sure to get 1 GB of GDDR5 memory on it.

The rest is your preference, get a cheap tower but be sure to well ventilate (invest in extra fans). Mobo is widely optional, many great manufacturers but I go with Gigabyte anyday, they have been the ultimate best in reliability. Power supply minimum of 500 watts, ideally more if you can. Need to have plenty of power for GPU and CPU.

Any more questions, just let me know.

 

[Rez Exelon]

Thanks!
Any OKC area recommendations for computer shops or PC builders?

I know of a couple guys on here but I hate to recommend names without talking to them first.

No matter what else you hear, make sure that whomever you talk to is listening to what you want to use it for, otherwise you can easily spend a lot more than you need for specs that don't matter. (Specs that don't matter unless one of your criteria is not replacing for "X" number of years).

My main computer that I run my life off of is a Dell laptop with the following specs:

T7500 Processor (Core2Duo @ 2.00Ghz)
4GB of DDR2 800Mhz
250GB Hard drive @7200
DVD/RW
Integrated video card.

The main thing that I use it for is internetting and downloading, watching movies (1080p works flawlessly). I've run Photoshop CS4 while watching movies on a second monitor and assorted other blah blah blah, with no problems at all. I built the computer I referenced earlier mainly to function as a home media server rather than because I needed more horsepower.

It's all about what you want to do, and what you anticipate needing to do (and making sure there's room to expand later too!)