PC advice please!

[mishdog]

Hey guys, first post on this forum, very glad I've found it actually as I had planned to buy a new PC after Christmas a while ago but now its here I find myself unable to decide and unsure of whats best. Hopefully you can give me a few pointers.

 

I'm after a good PC that will last a good few years, I play a lot of poker so it will mainly be used for that. While I play I also run a databse program that is constantly doing stuff in the background, and another program also. My current laptop lags a lot with this so want a PC that wont have any problems at all. And a large screen.

 

I saw a deal at PC World for an Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 2.5GHZ/4MB Cache, 3GB RAM, 320GB HD for £350 (with no screen).

 

Does this processor and RAM sound sufficient, or would having 4GB RAM really make a big difference?

 

Any help is much appreciated as I'm really not clued up on computers much :D

 

Also if anyone knows any good links for good online deals they're much appreciated, thanks.

 

Edit: also is brand important when buying a PC? I have seen one buy a company called Zoomstorm but doubt they are well known!

Edited December 30, 2009 by mishdog

[Plastic Nev]

Hi, and welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help,

there are plenty of options out there, not just PC world, you just need to put "New computer" into google and the list of suppliers and options of machines on offer, goes on for ever.

However as generalisation, and if you think you may go for higher end games, a bit of future proofing wouldn't go amiss, like quad core processors, the full 4 GB of RAM, a decent sized hard drive, anything above 500GB, and a decent enough motherboard that has at least two PCI E slots so you can go for decent graphics cards later, as well as decent disk drives. It all depends a lot on what your proposed budget is really. I f you can let us know what you would like as a maximum spend, there are a couple of guys or gals here well into self builds who can offer better advice on what sort of machine you should be looking for.

Nev.

[mishdog]

Thanks for the reply, I found a site called ebuyer to be quite good, also gave them a ring and extracted as much info as possible.

 

My budget is £500 but ideally would like it to be cheaper. Since posting this I had kind of decided on one from pc world (I went back) which was also a quad core Q8300 2.5GHZ/4MB CACHE, 4GB AND 320GB HD for £350 with no screen (not sure how good that is?).

 

tbh I Haven't even looked at any other details than the ones listed, so havent paid much attention to graphics cards as I dont see it as something important since I'm not into gaming.

 

I see in your post you mentioned getting a quad core would be good for gaming etc, but since I wont be using it for this and will mainly be playing poker and doing rather basic multi tasks, is a quad core really necessary? But then again, if a dual core is a much less powerful and much more outdated, I would rather go for a quad core so its more reliable and lasts me longer.

 

So about to head to pc world now since I will be driving past it anyway, and going to ask them what deals they can do on this unit with a monitor, but I wont actually buy anything (unless they only have one left) and will see what other advice you can give me on here.

 

thanks in advance

[Plastic Nev]

Hi again I only mentioned quad core merely as an option to think about, after all who knows what the future might bring.

I agree though the options as to what is available is stunning, but as you say you are never likely to get into anything more power hungry than poker, a dual core would be enough, and probably also good enough for the latest HDvideo if you ever get into home movies.

E buyer is good and service is I believe reasonable in comparison to many others.

Until one of our other people come along, I wish you the best of luck.

Nev.