Help me buy/build a new desktop PC, please

My current desktop is over 4 years old. It's about time for a new one.

My uses are really simple. 80% web surfing, 15% mid-to-low end gaming, 5% "real" work. No video rendering, no CAD, nothing like that.

My usual MO is to buy a low-end, off-the-shelf box and add a decent video card (which usually requires upgrading the PSU).

The current box is an Athlon x2 240, 2.8GHz, with some 500w PSU and a Nvidea GTX 550Ti. I have about $500 2010 dollars in it. It's served me well, but things are starting to fail and it's time for something new.

I know there are folks that know more than me about what's current. Please recommend me something that you think might serve me.

Thanks!

Well I think you have the right buying strategy...here's what I'd recommend:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131872

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113286

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125444

I think if you just replace your current HDD with an SSD and get a fresh copy of your OS of choice installed you'll be amazed at the results. We have some of the same PC's here at work, only difference is the SSD's and they are stupid fast to boot up and run Photoshop and other Adobe Suite stuff. For $139 it would be a good start, if your not satisfied then go for a newer FX proc like Gameboy recommended.

I just got through ordering about $600 worth of PC parts for my wife's new gaming rig I'm building her, and I went with the FX6350 proc, seemed to be the best deal for the money.

I'd recommend a RAID0 array over an SSD unless you really want a nutty-fast setup as your top priority...a RAID0 array is most of the speed and way more space and safety for a fraction of the price. You won't get the power savings of an SSD, but we're talking about a CFL's worth of power difference.

I can usually find something on Newegg's barebones systems. I've bought from Tiger Direct also.

I would go with a RAID, two or more hard drives, put as much RAM in it as the motherboard will support. Those two things with a fresh OS install and you should be good to go.

Well, the SSD idea is one I've kicked around. Even after 4 years of HDD untidiness, I've still only used 80GB. Maybe I'll give it a shot. Thanks.

Rusted_Busted_Spit wrote: put as much RAM in it as the motherboard will support.

You could easily spend money on overkill like this...I dropped back from 12GB with no swap to 8GB with no swap and I still haven't had my RAM anywhere close to full.

In reply to GameboyRMH:

That is true.

GameboyRMH wrote:

Rusted_Busted_Spit wrote: put as much RAM in it as the motherboard will support.

You could easily spend money on overkill like this...I dropped back from 12GB with no swap to 8GB with no swap and I still haven't had my RAM anywhere close to full.

What Speed of RAM are you running?

Just curious if it's worth to go much above the entry level DDR3

as mentioned newegg or tigerdirect barebones kits are the way to go... you can get some good deals vs buying separate... I'm needing to build another computer in the next year or so and an SSD is high on the list and at the moment she'll be sporting an intel i5 or i7 processor my old AMD 3 core 3.1ghz with 8ghz of ram and a decent older gamer vid card just bogs down when I start doing post processing on my raw camera files :-/ sadly my laptop scores better in every spot on the windows score lol.

z31maniac wrote: What Speed of RAM are you running? Just curious if it's worth to go much above the entry level DDR3

Its not.

Really, the biggest bang for the buck upgrades nowadays are gpu and SSD. You get direct, noticeable performance improvements with both. Processing power is through the roof, no need for more of that, memory speeds are sky high as it is, and you really don't need more than 8 gigs.

In the past 4 years, SSD (bar-none) has been the biggest improvement I've made, along with modern gpu.

I'm running DDR3 1600...the modules are supposed to go up to over 2Ghz but that's the highest speed it stays stable at.

Had to reuse old RAM I had lying around due to budget constraints. But yeah RAM speed doesn't make a big performance difference, you'd only notice that in a high-end game or if you run demanding emulators.

I'm guessing a desktop is what your after. You might check out dell's outlet, lately they've had some pretty nice rigs for rather cheap. I went with a refurb laptop 3 years ago, had to replace the battery, but I got it for $400 then for an i5.

Here's some specs and link for you.

Processor: Intel Core 4th Generation i7-4770 processor (8M Cache, up to 3.9 GHz)
Windows 8
1TB 7200 rpm SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive
8 GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1600MHz (2x 4GB) Non-ECC
16X DVD +/- RW Drive
1 GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 635 DDR3
Dell Outlet XPS 8700

Scratch & Dent

    Dell Wireless 1703 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth v4.0    
    English Keyboard
    Dell USB 6-Button Laser Mouse   
    120V Power Cord
    460 Watt Power supply Black     
    Heatsink
    Microsoft Office 365 - 1 Month Trial (Internet access required to install & activate)   
    Windows 64 Bit
    Windows 64 Bit

Price........ $639.00

http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/Online/SecondaryInventorySearch.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dfh&cs=22&puid=4d599852

For another $30 you can get a certified refurbished machine. There is no overclocking on their machines, but how much more power do you need in an i7 machine.

Hm, it turns out my drive controller is only SATA2. Will an SSD still speed things up?

Yes. A SSD even with SATA 1 will speed things up. Drop your OS, and any other programs that are intensive on it, and leave them be. You'll notice very fast boot up times, and reads. Writes are quick too, but too many writes can wear out the drive eventually.

So your OS, photoshop, video editing software, programming compiling software, etc. Anything that is going to be intensive to your PC's tasks, where it's going to be atleast reading from that drive.

In addition I find a nice NAS drive, wired into your network to hold all of your photos, videos, etc. Finished projects is a rather nice option to have. Infact you can use just about any old machine you have lying around and turn it into a NAS with freenas.

digdug18 wrote: Yes. A SSD even with SATA 1 will speed things up. Drop your OS, and any other programs that are intensive on it, and leave them be. You'll notice very fast boot up times, and reads. Writes are quick too, but too many writes can wear out the drive eventually. So your OS, photoshop, video editing software, programming compiling software, etc. Anything that is going to be intensive to your PC's tasks, where it's going to be atleast reading from that drive. In addition I find a nice NAS drive, wired into your network to hold all of your photos, videos, etc. Finished projects is a rather nice option to have. Infact you can use just about any old machine you have lying around and turn it into a NAS with freenas.

Well, as it turns out, ALL of the stuff that's on my ENTIRE hard drive is well under 80GB, so no additional storage would be needed. I suppose I could leave the existing 500GB platter drive in place, just in case additional storage becomes necessary.

You can pick up a 100gb ssd for your current computer that would speed up your computer for daily tasks. I'd leave the 500gb in place as a backup, heck you can leave the OS and everything else on there, just change the boot order to the ssd and install a new OS.

Then when you get your new build together, use that same ssd for the OS hard drive on your next build.

In reply to EvanR:

the first question should be, what is it not doing that you want it to do?

madmallard wrote: In reply to EvanR: the first question should be, what is it not doing that you want it to do?

It's boggy slow. I could probably fix 70% of that with a system reinstall. But if I'm going to go through the hassle of setting up a system from scratch, why not get the full 100% benefit?