Page 1 of 2 1 2 LastLast
Results 1 to 25 of 45
  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    93108
    Posts
    2,758

    Desktop PC Recs...

    Hey- I'm looking for a new desktop. My wife is a Mac, I am a PC. Those iMacs are pretty sweet, but $$$$, so I was surprised when I built my own desktop at Dell, it came out to be more than the iMac.

    Anyone have any recs on what PCs are good. I'm mainly looking for a comp to edit photos and vids. Or, should I just suck it up and get one of those fancy big iMacs.

    Thanks--

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Jongistan
    Posts
    5,313
    Step 1: Study here JONG
    Step 2: Decide how much power you really need (photos and videos=quite a bit, but not a crazy system like gamers go for)
    Step 3:Shop around on here, the best deals might be found on individual components or on partially built or maybe even complete systems. Don't rule anything out.

    take your time, shop around, do your homework, read reviews, do the math. You should be able to build a pretty sweet machine for not that much money. If you do build it piece by piece, don't be afraid to get you hands dirty, its not that hard, but research what you are doing so you don't screw anything up (ie make sure you get a good powersupply that is compatible with your mother board and processor, wear an anti static wristband or keep a hand on the case when touching any components, etc).

    For a desktop where you won't really need the additional tech support (as opposed to a laptop where you would) there isn't that compelling of a reason to go with an outfit like Dell. Just make sure you buy decent components that are compatible with each other.
    Quote Originally Posted by Tunco perfectly summarizing TGR View Post
    It is like Days of Our Lives', but with retards.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    Sea-Town
    Posts
    303
    iMac! But if you decide on a PC get ANYTHING but Dell!!! They have the absolute worst service of all time. I've heard that they have improved but they treated me so poorly that I have vowed to do what I can to single handedly bring them to their knees (limited to feeble bashing like this of course).

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Colorado
    Posts
    3,004
    Buy individual components from Newegg and assemble it yourself. I put together a rad gaming rig last summer for $900 including monitor. You could build something that fits your needs for possibly $600.
    "High risers are for people with fused ankles, jongs and dudes who are too fat to see their dick or touch their toes.
    Prove me wrong."
    -I've seen black diamonds!

    throughpolarizedeyes.com

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Jongistan
    Posts
    5,313
    Quote Originally Posted by Zesty Not Spicy View Post
    iMac! But if you decide on a PC get ANYTHING but Dell!!! They have the absolute worst service of all time. I've heard that they have improved but they treated me so poorly that I have vowed to do what I can to single handedly bring them to their knees (limited to feeble bashing like this of course).
    R U 4 realzies? How long ago was this?

    Ever work with HP (home, not enterprise) or Sony? Dell practically gives you a handjob, steak and a beer with your service compared with those two. If you get one of the service plans, they take care of you, usually pretty quickly.

    That said, unless you are a complete f-ing moron, you shouldn't need a service plan on a desktop. Save the $$, use it elsewhere.
    Quote Originally Posted by Tunco perfectly summarizing TGR View Post
    It is like Days of Our Lives', but with retards.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Apr 2004
    Location
    Three-O-Three
    Posts
    15,411
    Quote Originally Posted by Zesty Not Spicy View Post
    iMac! But if you decide on a PC get ANYTHING but Dell!!! They have the absolute worst service of all time.
    Avoiding a specific computer because the company has crappy service is just ridiculous.

    I've had a Dell laptop for 2.5 yrs now, and not once have I ever even thought about calling their service center. No need. Sure, maybe 1% of their customers have to call to get help at some point, and maybe 25% of those people get stuck with a shitty agent.... but really- is that reason enough not to buy? Sounds like the idiots who buy a Kia instead of a Lexus because they have a better warranty. (and no, I'm not comparing a Dell with a Lexus)

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    93108
    Posts
    2,758
    Quote Originally Posted by dumpy View Post
    Step 1: Study here JONG
    Step 2: Decide how much power you really need (photos and videos=quite a bit, but not a crazy system like gamers go for)
    Step 3:Shop around on here, the best deals might be found on individual components or on partially built or maybe even complete systems. Don't rule anything out.

    take your time, shop around, do your homework, read reviews, do the math. You should be able to build a pretty sweet machine for not that much money. If you do build it piece by piece, don't be afraid to get you hands dirty, its not that hard, but research what you are doing so you don't screw anything up (ie make sure you get a good powersupply that is compatible with your mother board and processor, wear an anti static wristband or keep a hand on the case when touching any components, etc).

    For a desktop where you won't really need the additional tech support (as opposed to a laptop where you would) there isn't that compelling of a reason to go with an outfit like Dell. Just make sure you buy decent components that are compatible with each other.
    Thanks JONG master

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Jongistan
    Posts
    5,313
    Quote Originally Posted by supermodel159 View Post
    Thanks JONG master
    Hey at least I'm the master of something. Seriously read around on Tom's Hardware, its like TGR for nerds.
    Quote Originally Posted by Tunco perfectly summarizing TGR View Post
    It is like Days of Our Lives', but with retards.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    The Queen City North Carolina
    Posts
    1,436
    imac all the way. Remember you can run windows 7 natively if you want or need to. Wife can use and you can use as well. From personal experience, after a while, you will switch over to windows less and less, but its nice to have when you need it. I use a macbook pro in the office and use osx 99 percent of the time. Occasionaly some old hospital or fed report needs to be done on some old ass dos program and I simply reboot. If you get really slick you can use parallels or fusion and run the windows applications on your mac through the emulation, but boot camp is free and I take a second to re-boot natively. FYI I have an older imac but apparently the new processors are screaming fast i7 or i5 type not sure speciifically. also take into account the built in Ilife software and other items such as isight camera that are usually optional on pc. with a true comparison the apple premium is not that steep.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Jongistan
    Posts
    5,313
    Quote Originally Posted by ncskier View Post
    imac all the way. Remember you can run windows 7 natively if you want or need to. Wife can use and you can use as well. From personal experience, after a while, you will switch over to windows less and less, but its nice to have when you need it. I use a macbook pro in the office and use osx 99 percent of the time. Occasionaly some old hospital or fed report needs to be done on some old ass dos program and I simply reboot. If you get really slick you can use parallels or fusion and run the windows applications on your mac through the emulation, but boot camp is free and I take a second to re-boot natively. FYI I have an older imac but apparently the new processors are screaming fast i7 or i5 type not sure speciifically. also take into account the built in Ilife software and other items such as isight camera that are usually optional on pc. with a true comparison the apple premium is not that steep.
    If your wife is a kool aid drinker and you a drinker of the other kool aid, this could be a very good option.

    Go dual boot, not a virtual machine, much much faster.
    Quote Originally Posted by Tunco perfectly summarizing TGR View Post
    It is like Days of Our Lives', but with retards.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    写道
    Posts
    13,428
    Quote Originally Posted by Bean View Post
    Buy individual components from Newegg and assemble it yourself. I put together a rad gaming rig last summer for $900 including monitor. You could build something that fits your needs for possibly $600.
    This is what I did a year ago. My first build since 1995. Bought all parts from Fry's and needed about an hour to assemble. Total cost was around $600-$700. Could have been considerably less, but I opted for better-quality parts.

    Buy a nice-quality power supply with more power than you think you'll need.

    Buy a nice-quality case, one with extra cooling fans or the capability for such (in which case you'll need to buy the extra fans separately).

    My needs were, and still are, similar to yours, so I went with a dual-core AMD CPU. Saw no need for a quad-core. Went with 4 gig of memory. Make sure that the CPU, motherboard and memory are well-matched.

    I bought a stand-alone video card as the built-in video didn't offer high enough resolution. I will eventually buy a stand-alone sound card.

    I used my old CD and speakers.

    Once completed and working, go online and update all of your drivers and then update the operating system.
    Daniel Ortega eats here.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    slc
    Posts
    17,855
    The family PC is due for replacement. I'm considering going with an all-in-one Windows desktop as the current monitor is also meh. Any suggestions for under a grand? No gaming or other need for a high-powered machine, just web browsing, word processing, etc. Costco currently has this Dell on sale for $699: https://www.costco.com/dell-inspiron...100691879.html

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Mar 2019
    Location
    Grandma's Basement
    Posts
    1,192
    I think you would be hard pressed to find something new that can compete with those hardware specs: touch screen, 1TB HDD, 256SSD, i5, 12gb ram.

    While I would hate to admit to this, if you're looking for something that will continue to have long term support/use over the next ~10 years, I would also be looking at used/refurb iMac or new Mac Minis. As that type of long term use will be my atypical on a Windows based machine.

    However I still think the best deals going are on refurbished off-lease desktops from HP being the Z series. I could nerd out about those, but they tend to be full size towers, which seems like its outside of what you're looking for.
    "Poop is funny" - Frank Reynolds

    www.experiencedgear.net

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Location
    Aspen
    Posts
    3,043
    Quote Originally Posted by Dantheman View Post
    The family PC is due for replacement. I'm considering going with an all-in-one Windows desktop as the current monitor is also meh. Any suggestions for under a grand? No gaming or other need for a high-powered machine, just web browsing, word processing, etc. Costco currently has this Dell on sale for $699: https://www.costco.com/dell-inspiron...100691879.html
    Pretty solid deal on that for the price. For $40 more you get a 27" monitor, faster processor, double-sized SSD, Downside is no HD backup and 8gb ram vs 12gb. But you could add a second 8gb stick for $30.

    Apply coupon code "LDDTLQ1" to get this price

    https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop...3KtNDGDbIbClTU

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Oct 2005
    Location
    Tahoe-ish
    Posts
    3,139
    What about upgrading a ~6yo desktop? It already has a big tower and power supply, SSD, and big HDD. I'm frustrated by the slowness when doing mapping on Caltopo and sometimes when viewing big pdfs.

    I hate the idea of just throwing out the whole thing. What's the hot tip for a main board, processor, and graphics card that will get me another 5+ years? 2 monitors, FWIW, and I'll prob upgrade them to bigger & higher res ones at the same time.
    ride bikes, climb, ski, travel, cook, work to fund former, repeat.

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    slc
    Posts
    17,855
    Quote Originally Posted by rfconroy View Post
    I think you would be hard pressed to find something new that can compete with those hardware specs: touch screen, 1TB HDD, 256SSD, i5, 12gb ram.

    While I would hate to admit to this, if you're looking for something that will continue to have long term support/use over the next ~10 years, I would also be looking at used/refurb iMac or new Mac Minis. As that type of long term use will be my atypical on a Windows based machine.

    However I still think the best deals going are on refurbished off-lease desktops from HP being the Z series. I could nerd out about those, but they tend to be full size towers, which seems like its outside of what you're looking for.
    Thanks. I'm not too interested in Mac as I'm not already bought into that ecosystem. I also use OneDrive for automated cloud backup and OneDrive being integrated into Windows makes that super easy. On the long-term support, if I buy that Dell it will be on my Costco Visa which gets me a rock-solid 4-year warranty. If it craps out immediately after that it will only have cost me $150/year.

    Got links to the Z-series stuff? I'm not opposed to a tower, but I need a monitor anyway and the all-in-ones seem really convenient.

    Quote Originally Posted by alpinevibes View Post
    Pretty solid deal on that for the price. For $40 more you get a 27" monitor, faster processor, double-sized SSD, Downside is no HD backup and 8gb ram vs 12gb. But you could add a second 8gb stick for $30.

    Apply coupon code "LDDTLQ1" to get this price

    https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop...3KtNDGDbIbClTU
    Where this thing would live in the house I'm actually worried that 27" might be too big. Would I actually notice the 4gb difference in RAM? Only having a 512gb SSD concerns me a bit. My current machine has 1 TB storage that's about half full already. Most of that is just photos and other stuff that is backed up on OneDrive and I could set to cloud-only, but it's nice knowing that it's backed up locally if my OneDrive account were to shit the bed somehow.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Mar 2019
    Location
    Grandma's Basement
    Posts
    1,192
    Quote Originally Posted by Dantheman View Post

    Got links to the Z-series stuff? I'm not opposed to a tower, but I need a monitor anyway and the all-in-ones seem really convenient.


    https://pcserverandparts.com/build-y...-2-processors/

    Can also find them on Ebay pretty cheap too.

    Great thing about these: They're made for commercial purposes, so they tend to be over built with super reliable hardware. They also use Xeon processors which are the best grade of silicon coming off the fab lines + these processors are no longer cutting edge, which means that if you ever want to upgrade you can get them used very cheaply.

    I personally have had a Z600 (slightly older model) for the past 4 years. If I ever see issues with the processor, I can get a higher clock speed, or drop a second processor into place.

    Hope this helps.
    Last edited by rfconroy; 11-02-2021 at 02:53 PM.
    "Poop is funny" - Frank Reynolds

    www.experiencedgear.net

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Oct 2011
    Location
    Aspen
    Posts
    3,043
    Quote Originally Posted by Dantheman View Post

    Where this thing would live in the house I'm actually worried that 27" might be too big. Would I actually notice the 4gb difference in RAM? Only having a 512gb SSD concerns me a bit. My current machine has 1 TB storage that's about half full already. Most of that is just photos and other stuff that is backed up on OneDrive and I could set to cloud-only, but it's nice knowing that it's backed up locally if my OneDrive account were to shit the bed somehow.
    The 4GB difference wouldn't be a big thing if you're just surfing the web and using occasional programs. But if you're dealing with media a fair amount or running a lot of tabs, you'll want 12-16GB+. I just went from 4GB to 12GB on my work PC (running 10-20 tabs+ spotify constantly) and it was a game changer.

    For storage, it's really a question of do you want everything in one place, constantly. You can roll 512gb and have most of what you need, then supplement that with a long term external SSD. $63 for 2TB with USB-C (fast transfer): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08JKHPV1V

  19. #19
    Join Date
    Jan 2018
    Location
    gamehendge
    Posts
    930
    dude, get a mac. The new M1 chips are fucking mindblowing good. I'm the sysadmin of an all windows company and I use a mac at home.


    $700 for the mac min and you can add storage later as needed. Set it and forget it. Ram size does not matter on those new mac m1's for home use. They use swap and absolutely eat anything you throw at it for breakfast.

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Aug 2018
    Posts
    1,263
    Amen. Got a M1 MacBook and iMac. They sing.

    Side note. Ever bring a Mac into your PC work domain? Our work Macs keep unbinding. I think we are just going to go all local accounts.
    "Let's be careful out there."

  21. #21
    Join Date
    Jan 2018
    Location
    gamehendge
    Posts
    930
    No I have not. We have a single unmanaged macbook m1 at work for a developer and I went local account on it too. Wasn't worth the effort to get it on the domain. Guess you caught me in the all windows shop lie

  22. #22
    Join Date
    Aug 2018
    Posts
    1,263
    Quote Originally Posted by NBABUCKS1 View Post
    No I have not. We have a single unmanaged macbook m1 at work for a developer and I went local account on it too. Wasn't worth the effort to get it on the domain. Guess you caught me in the all windows shop lie
    All good. Thanks! Yeah I hope our network admin will go to a more robust BYOD and just take care of all the network security like a college would. But what the fuck do I know, I am just a JONG end user that just likes shit to work. My local account iMac updated to Monterey no problem and my Networked MacBook didn’t.
    "Let's be careful out there."

  23. #23
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Where the climate suits my clothes.
    Posts
    5,601
    I'll be honest.. all your tech gobbledygook means nothing to me. My job provides me and all our staff / HS students with Mac products, with on-site on-demamd tech support.

    Not a computer guy but use mine all day every day. When I have issues I g-chat my tech guru and she responds immediately. Maybe I'm lucky.

    Our elementary/MS kids get chromebooks. I don't know shit about them, but the teachers get training and again help is a chat away.

    YRRMY. but for me in a school setting, can't complain.

  24. #24
    Join Date
    Aug 2018
    Posts
    1,263
    Quote Originally Posted by JayPowHound View Post
    I'll be honest.. all your tech gobbledygook means nothing to me. My job provides me and all our staff / HS students with Mac products, with on-site on-demamd tech support.

    Not a computer guy but use mine all day every day. When I have issues I g-chat my tech guru and she responds immediately. Maybe I'm lucky.

    Our elementary/MS kids get chromebooks. I don't know shit about them, but the teachers get training and again help is a chat away.

    YRRMY. but for me in a school setting, can't complain.
    So jealous! The shit I could do if my students had real machines. Chromebooks aren’t cutting it.

    Have you added an Apple TV and an iPad w/pencil to the mix yet? I have been using AirPlay in my classroom for almost a decade now and it’s just getting better. Its super cool for information presentations. Also, the iPad with pencil is awesome for modeling annotating text.
    "Let's be careful out there."

  25. #25
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    Among Greatness All Around
    Posts
    6,621
    Quote Originally Posted by climberevan View Post
    What about upgrading a ~6yo desktop? It already has a big tower and power supply, SSD, and big HDD. I'm frustrated by the slowness when doing mapping on Caltopo and sometimes when viewing big pdfs.

    I hate the idea of just throwing out the whole thing. What's the hot tip for a main board, processor, and graphics card that will get me another 5+ years? 2 monitors, FWIW, and I'll prob upgrade them to bigger & higher res ones at the same time.
    Biggest issues you would have with a 6 year old system is it is a 6 year old system with an older processor, probably older memory, and all you may end up reusing is the case and power supply? Is it a standard case and powerful enough power supply that could handle and support a new system board and CPU's today off the shelf? If all you are doing is reusing the case and power supply, maybe the DVD drive and nothing else that saves you maybe $100 to $150 depending on how good the power supply is....

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •