Home PC

[donmoanin]

Hi, probably not ready to do a self-build but hoping for some advice. We need to replace our home PC (just the tower, the monitor and peripherals are ok) and it will be used for browsing, office work (Word and Excel) and streaming. Potentially gaming down the line but only likely to be Football Manager or kids games once they are old enough - by that time it may be replaced anyway. The previous PC lasted for 8 years so hoping for something that will last quite a while again. I came across this:
 

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https://www.palicomp.co.uk/amd-avenger-kav3

Budget would be around £500, I tried quickly spec'ing up something similar to this on here and it was significantly more than £500. Are there any comments or any suggested improvements? Anything that you might suggest is not really required and could be replaced with something cheaper? Any alternatives you could recommend for a similar budget?

[BFTD]

You'll get something that would skoosh those requirements for £500, especially as you're keeping your monitor et al.

What's your current PC like, just out of curiosity? Good to know what you're upgrading from.

[donmoanin]

Current PC was a Dell Vostro 410 but it gave up the ghost last week, something has gone wrong with the power supply I think internally as it refuses to switch back on.  Tried the easy tips I could find online but no luck and decided at 8 years old and still on XP it's not worth repairing.  From the sounds of it, might be the motherboard or something in the PSU I think it said

I thought we'd get something more than good enough for what we need at that budget but figured if we spend a reasonable amount now it should last a bit longer.

Will also need to get the data off the old computer so will need some way of attaching that old hard to the new computer or getting that data copied over somehow 

[NorthernLights]

1 hour ago, donmoanin said:

Current PC was a Dell Vostro 410 but it gave up the ghost last week, something has gone wrong with the power supply I think internally as it refuses to switch back on.  Tried the easy tips I could find online but no luck and decided at 8 years old and still on XP it's not worth repairing.  From the sounds of it, might be the motherboard or something in the PSU I think it said

I thought we'd get something more than good enough for what we need at that budget but figured if we spend a reasonable amount now it should last a bit longer.

Will also need to get the data off the old computer so will need some way of attaching that old hard to the new computer or getting that data copied over somehow 

If you're in Aberdeen, just wondering based on your team, then maybe you could contact these guys - http://www.techrescueonline.co.uk/

My last two PCs came from them and not had any issues with them.  

[Homer Thompson]

2 hours ago, donmoanin said:

Current PC was a Dell Vostro 410 but it gave up the ghost last week, something has gone wrong with the power supply I think internally as it refuses to switch back on.  Tried the easy tips I could find online but no luck and decided at 8 years old and still on XP it's not worth repairing.  From the sounds of it, might be the motherboard or something in the PSU I think it said

I thought we'd get something more than good enough for what we need at that budget but figured if we spend a reasonable amount now it should last a bit longer.

Will also need to get the data off the old computer so will need some way of attaching that old hard to the new computer or getting that data copied over somehow 

As Dave said, £500 will buy you something more than capable of what you want to do. The one you linked to was fine and with a GTX960 will play most games too.

To be honest, if you're definitely not bothered about games you could probably get something for half your budget - an i3 with 4GB RAM, for example. It wont be as future proof as a newer AMD CPU or an i5 or i7 (which you could get for £500) but it will be more than enough for what you're looking for

[donmoanin]

Thanks NorthernLights and Mr X.  Will get in touch with those guys in Aberdeen (based out in Westhill now).

May be worth looking at something cheaper then as in reality it will sit up in the office unused a lot of the time.  Heaviest use is probably going to be streaming football/TV.

[hellbhoy]

12 hours ago, donmoanin said:

Will also need to get the data off the old computer so will need some way of attaching that old hard to the new computer or getting that data copied over somehow 

You can use a USB to SATA cable to attach the old hard drive to your new PC as a removable drive. No need to buy expensive software to find and retrieve your data, just enter the old drive and save as much as you need or just keep the old drive as a spare removable hard drive.

I usually just install the old drive to any new PC and it shows up as a logical drive, remove what I need, format the drive and use it for storage.

As for a new PC I think you are more than covered there.

[donmoanin]

That's perfect, thanks for that. Nice, easy and cheap

[donmoanin]

An alternative on the Palicomp website is this one here - comes with a monitor which I don't need but my mum does, hers went in a storm last week. 

https://www.palicomp.co.uk/AMD-Kaveri-Evolution-KAV1

Given it is the same overall price as the first, is there anything that I am losing out on to bring the total price back to the £500 that I would miss?  Is it really a 10-core and is there any benefit to that?  Given I won't be a heavy gamer I'm guessing I won't notice the difference in the graphics card so the only other difference I can see is going to a SSHD instead of both an SSD and an HDD - will I notice much in that change? 

My old HDD was 640GB - would there be any point removing the SSHD, adding an SSD and reusing the old HDD?  I could do that with a 240GB SSD for a net increase of only £15. 

I'm guessing it's not worth saving the £70 to remove that monitor and buy a different one for my mum.

[Homer Thompson]

4 hours ago, donmoanin said:

An alternative on the Palicomp website is this one here - comes with a monitor which I don't need but my mum does, hers went in a storm last week. 

https://www.palicomp.co.uk/AMD-Kaveri-Evolution-KAV1

Given it is the same overall price as the first, is there anything that I am losing out on to bring the total price back to the £500 that I would miss?  Is it really a 10-core and is there any benefit to that?  Given I won't be a heavy gamer I'm guessing I won't notice the difference in the graphics card so the only other difference I can see is going to a SSHD instead of both an SSD and an HDD - will I notice much in that change? 

My old HDD was 640GB - would there be any point removing the SSHD, adding an SSD and reusing the old HDD?  I could do that with a 240GB SSD for a net increase of only £15. 

I'm guessing it's not worth saving the £70 to remove that monitor and buy a different one for my mum.

The biggest noticeable upgrade Ive ever done was switching to an SSD. I would get one, install the OS and apps etc onto and use your old 640Gb drive for storage

[BFTD]

Yep, having an SSD as your boot drive makes a huge difference to the responsiveness of your PC. I'm a late convert, but wouldn't go back. There are even some games now that don't load textures in quickly enough on a standard magnetic hard drive, so I think there's a certain amount of assumption that you'll have an SSD on a gaming PC (not that it'll be a problem for Football Manager).

You might need to look up some information on 'taking ownership' of some of the files on your old hard drive when you connect it to your new computer. Not a big problem or anything; I'm sure one of us will be happy to explain if you have trouble getting access to any files in user directories.

[hellbhoy]

59 minutes ago, Mr X said:

The biggest noticeable upgrade Ive ever done was switching to an SSD. I would get one, install the OS and apps etc onto and use your old 640Gb drive for storage

Absolutely essential in modern computing to have an SSD, Don't be put off by the lower GB's per pound because it is worth it long term for more than a few reasons.

I bought a Sumsung EVO 840 256GB SSD for around £100+ because it was at the time just about the best on the market. I have never looked back, lightening quick in every department easily beating my WD Raptor raid array which I thought was damn quick to begin with.

I still use a raid array even for storage?, less time saving stuff like large video files and programs.

[Homer Thompson]

4 minutes ago, hellbhoy said:

Absolutely essential in modern computing to have an SSD, Don't be put off by the lower GB's per pound because it is worth it long term for more than a few reasons.

I bought a Sumsung EVO 840 256GB SSD for around £100+ because it was at the time just about the best on the market. I have never looked back, lightening quick in every department easily beating my WD Raptor raid array which I thought was damn quick to begin with.

I still use a raid array even for storage?, less time saving stuff like large video files and programs.

What RAID config is it? I bought a small SSD a while ago and then added another later (exact same drive) so I put them in a RAID 0 to use all the space. I've got a couple of old SATA drives kicking about that I might do the same with

[BFTD]

You speed-racer whippersnappers might get there quicker with your striped partitions, but I'll be the one laughing when one of your drives dies and my data's still safe on my RAID 1 mirrored pair. Laughing, you hear? *waves walking stick*

[hellbhoy]

54 minutes ago, Mr X said:

What RAID config is it? I bought a small SSD a while ago and then added another later (exact same drive) so I put them in a RAID 0 to use all the space. I've got a couple of old SATA drives kicking about that I might do the same with

Dave might have a giggle with my RAID 0 array, but the HDD's were raid specific in design except the WD raptor raid array which to it's credit were in sequence by their manufacturers serial number which is important when creating raid arrays. You can have a raid array with two different drives that are the same size by different manufacturers but I would NOT recommend it at all, it all comes down to read & write speeds and the controller board software, if these are different in any way then the raid 0 array is doomed to failure at some point because one drive is collecting and receiving data at a different speed than the other drive causing the slower drive to work much harder to keep up or the faster drive to slow down and may cause controller board failure.

So best to have 2 HDD's in RAID 0 that are the same size, same manufacturer, same batch number, sequential serial numbers to best utilize the RAID function to minimize any sort of failure. Best to back up the RAID 0 array every month or two to another drive just to be on the safe side.

Just for Dave here, I have seen multiple failures even in mirrored raid arrays, viruses are a bitch mate.  I have also seen both HDD's in mirrored mode fail at the same time because of some other fault elsewhere on the PC ie the power supply overloaded and blew more than a few things like PCI slots, GFX cards and the like. Also a SATA connector on the back up HDD came loose and saved eff all. But your right Dave is much safer than in "0", but we speed freaks like our shit to go fast because?, well we can do it.