[Tech] In need of Guidance

[decky101]

Hey guys, recently there has been a few people (namely Psi and Nannums) upgrading their old steeds with some shiny new armour. The time has come for my old warhorse to be traded in completely for something new and exciting, preferably without arthritis. My laptop has served me well for almost two years now, but it is slowly withering away, the fan is very very noisy, it runs at an oven's heat, and generally can't cope with anything other than the most mundanes. Oh yea, lest I forget, the GPU is messed up pretty badly, all I get is graphical glitches. Anyway! I'm in need of something new!

I am on a pretty strict budget; the lower than 600 quid the better. I honestly don't mind whether it's a project that I have to build myself, or a prebuilt computer. Now I'm not looking for ground breaking performance here; no need for crysis on the highest settings or anything, I am looking for something that I won't have to upgrade in 3 minutes time. All help is greatly appreciated, and cookies will be duly granted to those whose services were invaluable. Thanks in Advance!

 

[AcidK]

My computer was an ASUS chipset that cost me little more than £200 for case and motherboard/graphics card set. A decent monitor would cost a good £150 minimum and the other minor parts (keyboard, mouse, speakers, etc) should amount to another £50 total (again, dependant on the quality you're looking for)

 

[Nanor]

Are you looking a desktop or another laptop?

Peripherals have gotten very cheap compared to what they were. My rig is pretty high end; Q8400, ATI 4870 1 GB, 2 GB RAM, a motherboard to handle it all, 2 case fans, a CPU fan and a case to stick it all in cost me £400. However, that does not include a PSU, Hard Drive or DVD drive. For those you're probably looking another £100. Then there are the monitors (You'll be having two, now. ), keyboard, mouse and headsets which are pretty expensive.

So we need to know how much you need to buy. Have you got everything (Monitors, keyboards etc.) but nothing to plug it into? Or do you need the whole shebang? For 600 quid you'll get a top of the range computer, but not much else. If you have to buy other things you're looking at a fairly mid range computer.

Oh, and by the way; it's very much worth your while checking eBay for a pre-built computer. Building your own computer is no mean feat especially if you have worse luck than I have.

 

[decky101]

I've recently discovered a HDMI to DVI adapter cable, which means my 32" tv can easily become my monitor now, I already have a very nice razer diamondback that works perfectly, and I'm fairly well stocked up for peripherals, though a new keyboard would be nice. So aside from that, all I really need is the actual computer, and not much else.

 

[PsiSoldier]

What's your current rig, and what components from it are (in your opinion) reusable? If your case, PSU, HDD and optical drives are all reusable you can cut a fair chunk off the actual cost of it.

 

[decky101]

Small problem. Currently don't have a rig outside my laptop. That's it, so I need to start from scratch...... Cheers.