Desktop PC for < £500 new, what should i be looking for?

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
Advice required - what kind of thing should i be looking for?

Just for this sort of nonsense really, nothing really heavy, something that will stream stuff adequately and hopefully last reasonably lengthily, massive storage not as important as speed of 'response' so to speak.

Must be a tower type arrangement so it's not easy for me to kill it - i have 'form' in this regard...

Recommendations would be very much appreciated...
 

Perrier

Banned
for that price you would need to build yourself if new.

i would recommend a 'Ryzen APU ' build .

This would have plenty of horsepower for what you require , and also should manage gaming on medium settings as its got a graphics GPU already in the processor .
This means no need to purchase a graphics card ( but one could be added later should you want to upgrade).

your shopping list would look like this:

motherboard
ryzen APU processor and fan
DDR4 memory ( preferably 16gb but should be fine for your use on 8gb)
budget case
bronze standard ( or higher if funds allow ) power supply. minimum 450w.
SSD hard drive ( 240gb) for operating system .
1 TB hard drive for storage. ( could be added at a later date if more storage is required )

i presume you already own a monitor and keyboard/mouse.

I recommend giving these guys a ring www.overclockers.co.uk and they will recommend the parts best suited to your requirements.
 
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wmrcomputers

Stafford PC & laptop repair specialist
For an adequate surfing machine, look at some of the Zoostorm desktops that come without an operating system. Obviously you know where I am if you need me.

Anything from an AMD A6 upwards would be quite adeqaute for surfing, streaming etc. You could do a full system for way below the £500. More like £350 in fact.

I agree with perry that the Ryzen APU's are good, but if you're talking about surfing the internet, office work and a bit of catch-up-tv then it's still overkill. If you have it to spend, of course, you wouldn't necessarily regret it.

@proactive I don't stock systems, only get them in on rare occassions when asked to do so. If I'm honest, I barely even fix computers still. I expect my forum name may even change in the next 6 months. It's all phones these days, and even those are becoming way too high risk to repair. Of coursee, I thank you for the thought though. :up:
 

Jonah

Spouting nonsense since the day I learned to talk
Advice required - what kind of thing should i be looking for?

Just for this sort of nonsense really, nothing really heavy, something that will stream stuff adequately and hopefully last reasonably lengthily, massive storage not as important as speed of 'response' so to speak.

Must be a tower type arrangement so it's not easy for me to kill it - i have 'form' in this regard...

Recommendations would be very much appreciated...
https://www.apple.com/uk/ipad-9.7/

And no I am not taking the mickey. Unless you need a bigger screen size then it could be what you need.
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
... for that price you would need to build yourself if new.
Now you see, i have not learned much in the time that has been allowed me, but i have learned enough to know my strengths.

I have also been around long enough to realise that one's strengths strengthen when flexed.

I would like to think it possible that in some kind of dream-world where i am, in fact, a capable and fully functional kind of person that could just, like, look at my computational needs and just put a 'shopping list' together and build my own machine that would fulfil all of those needs.

That is not going to, nor will ever, happen.

Like Uncle Monty, i think it actually quite an important part of any person's life to say - I will never play... the Dane...

Some things you can do, other things you need help to do. Other things you'll never be able to do.

How do you do the things you'll never be able to do yourself?

Find someone who can.

Reward them commensurately.
 

Perrier

Banned
Now you see, i have not learned much in the time that has been allowed me, but i have learned enough to know my strengths.

I have also been around long enough to realise that one's strengths strengthen when flexed.

I would like to think it possible that in some kind of dream-world where i am, in fact, a capable and fully functional kind of person that could just, like, look at my computational needs and just put a 'shopping list' together and build my own machine that would fulfil all of those needs.

That is not going to, nor will ever, happen.

Like Uncle Monty, i think it actually quite an important part of any person's life to say - I will never play... the Dane...

Some things you can do, other things you need help to do. Other things you'll never be able to do.

How do you do the things you'll never be able to do yourself?

Find someone who can.

Reward them commensurately.

The building itself would be easy to be honest , if you can build a jigsaw puzzle , you can build a Pc :)
Where a lot of issues arise is when one of the bits of the puzzle is faulty , and knowing from experience how to pinpoint the problem part.

The benefits that come from building your own system are knowing your system has exactly what you require and usually saving a shedload of cash in the process.

For example , I will be building another Ryzen Mid tier system later this week for someone.
The parts in total will cost £673. ( admittedly we will re use 2 hard drives from an old build ) , but the same spec of sytem to buy pre - built would be a little over £1000.

I would be happy to help you build one in a few weeks if you are still stuck , it would be built in less than and hour, or go with the zoostorm pc listed earlier and i'll throw in the hard drive for you in a few mins.
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite

Perrier

Banned
To be honest , a low level ryzen system would be a lot better than that .
Athlon processors are getting very old now.

This system would be a lot stronger , it has a graphics chip built into the processor so no need for a graphics card although you have the option to add one if you require later on.

the price shown is with windows 10 included , however if you already have a copy you could knock about £100 off that.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ocuk...dge-ryzen-3-2200g-fs-1ca-og.html#configurable
 

Perrier

Banned
....as for any system you buy , an SSD rather than a standard harddrive , would be the difference between a ford KA and a F1 supercar for speed , always choose a SSD for the boot drive and a 1TB standard harddrive for storage.
 
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