Sprout Posted June 26, 2015 Posted June 26, 2015 H...heeeyyyy, pals. My ol' PC finally died yesterday, so I'm trying to look for a replacement. But as soon as I started searching I remembered that I still know nothing about computers! I figured since n-e helped me when buying my now deceased computer last time (back in 2008!), that I'd ask you helpful lot again. Reveal hidden contents ACER ASPIRE M3640 Processor – INTEL CORE 2 Quad Q6600 2.4Hz RAM - 3GB DDR II Hard Drive -640GB SATA Optical Drive – DVDRW DUAL LAYER Graphics - Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5670 512MB GDDR5 (installed in 2010) Operating System - Windows 7 Networking - 10/100/1000 MBS I can probably spend, at most, about £450. To give an idea of my needs, I have some games on Steam and whatnot, but I don't really use my PC for gaming all that much and I'm not that fussed about having games running at the highest settings. I do use software like Photoshop a fair bit, and I sometimes (albeit rarely) record/edit video. Aimless Googling told me a quad processor and 8GB RAM minimum would be best, so that's what I've been looking for (I've no idea about the difference between Intel and AMD though, but for some reason I keep thinking Intel is probably the better one?) Stuff I've seen that hit my spending limit include this HP Pavilion 500-515na, this Lenovo H50 (also at John Lewis for £350, but with an AMD processor and 1TB HDD instead) and this... er, this one, but I have no idea if any of those are any good. Oh, and I glanced at pcspecialist.co.uk and my brain melted so no clue if I could get one there within my budget (and whilst I don't exactly need a new computer urgently, I'm not sure if I can wait 10+ working days for them to build one). I... think that covers everything? Sorry that I'm so hopeless, but if you can help, I'd be very thankful!
Nolan Posted June 26, 2015 Posted June 26, 2015 You could get by with AMD, but they don't save money for performance like they use to. Intel in the same and lower price bracket will outperform AMD every time pretty much. Working photoshop and rare video work, definitely go with Intel. The Lenovo (at curry's, the John Lewis PC is AMD) looks to be your best deal. It has newer components than the PC on Amazon and for the same price. Bonus is that you should be able to easily remove your previous GPU and install it into the new PC. Even if you don't game it'll be better regardless.
Sprout Posted June 26, 2015 Author Posted June 26, 2015 Yeah that was the plan for the graphics card. I'm always nervous about opening up a computer though, heh. Thank you for the advice, @Nolan! I think the Intel Lenovo is the one I'm gravitating towards, but if there's any additional recommendations (on and off the ones I listed) then I'm open to suggestions! You don't have to go out of your way or anything though. Oh, on another note, I backed up some stuff before the computer died, but is there any way I can access the stuff from my old harddrive? Then after that I could maybe wipe it and turn it into an external harddrive or something? Not sure how/if that can be done.
Nolan Posted June 26, 2015 Posted June 26, 2015 You should be able to hook up the old harddrive and back up files. Though depending on boot orders in the bios it might not play nice. Turning it into an external is possible, typically just by buying and putting it into an enclosure kit.
Sprout Posted June 26, 2015 Author Posted June 26, 2015 Hm, it's good to know I can do it (provided it's not busted). I should probably check about the warranty before opening up a new computer first, heh. I suppose I could turn it into an external harddrive, transfer files via USB and then wipe it... err, right? Unless anybody else chimes in overnight, I'll probably click and collect that Lenovo tomorrow. Thanks again for the advice, @Nolan. I'll be sure to pester you here later if something goes wrong. =P
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