Need a new computer - Budget restrained

[Twoyboy]

My old computer was toasted and with my tax refund I'm getting a new one. However, I thought I'd be getting about A$2,000, but I'm actually getting a tad under A$1,500. Can people recommend a computer for me?

I play games a lot (when I can), but I'm never really cutting edge. I might play Diablo 3 when it comes out, but other than that Heroes of Might and Magic and games 1-2 years old is my usual style. I would like to be able to store photos and video as a backup for my wife, as she tends to destroy computers, so 1TB HDD would be preferable, but less would be ok if it saved significant money. I would also like to network it to my TIVO (which I haven't done before, so I don't really know how it works yet) and burn TV shows to DVDs, if possible. I was thinking a Blu-ray player/DVD burner, but if that's too expensive then a plain DVD burner is fine.

I'm open to desktops and laptops, but I assume I'll get more bang for my buck with a desktop. And I can throw in a few hundred extra if it's really worth it to get something a bit better.

Any ideas?

[General Zod]

Something like this sounds like it might do the trick. $1,200, decent graphics card capable of handling most games and a Core i3. I'm not too familiar with the Aussie market though.

[Twoyboy]

Something like this sounds like it might do the trick. $1,200, decent graphics card capable of handling most games and a Core i3. I'm not too familiar with the Aussie market though.

Looks good, thanks, but there was one thing I forgot to mention, my old computer was a laptop, so if I get a desktop I need a monitor as well. But still, I think I can get a decent monitor for $300... maybe.

Also, while I'm back, ATI or NVIDIA graphics? Or is it much of a muchness?

[General Zod]

Looks good, thanks, but there was one thing I forgot to mention, my old computer was a laptop, so if I get a desktop I need a monitor as well. But still, I think I can get a decent monitor for $300... maybe.

Eh, like I said I'm not that familiar with the market. You can get by on most any old flat panel monitor depending on how big you want it.

Also, while I'm back, ATI or NVIDIA graphics? Or is it much of a muchness?

I tend to go with nVidia but I think it boils down to personal preference as much as anything if you're not looking for bleeding edge.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Can you build it yourself?

If not

http://www.umart.com.au/pro/products_li ... &sid=66217

[Stark]

I don't think they have umart in Perth??

[JointStrikeFighter]

Amusingly the extra $100 to ship it to perth will probably still be cheaper than everywhere else

[atg]

Also, while I'm back, ATI or NVIDIA graphics? Or is it much of a muchness?

IIRC ATI/AMD cards are better bang for the buck at the moment.

[JointStrikeFighter]

NVIDIAs are alot easier from a compatibility perspective.

[atg]

NVIDIAs are alot easier from a compatibility perspective.

Care to provide some examples? I've never run into any compatibility issues running an ATI card.

[weemadando]

PCDIY in Vic and SA are great. But just look at static ice.

[Twoyboy]

Thanks guys, lots to consider. Much appreciated.

NVIDIAs are alot easier from a compatibility perspective.

I'd perhaps steer away from NVIDIA due to the fact that the NVIDIA GPU was what died rendering my old ASUS laptop useless.

Once bitten and all that...

[Edward Yee]

The ATI vs. nVIDIA question has come up over on this thread I started, but if that's TL;DR, then...

1. If you can wait til October, the Radeon HD6000 series is supposed to be debuting, so a (further) price drop on the 5000 series is expected.
2. If you do go with nVIDIA, EVGA's apparently the best manufacturer solely based on their warranty policies.

[noncredible]

If you have a good network and video card, you can get just about anything. I have a 6 year old computer, brand new video card, works just fine. For disk burners, even a CD burner would work. For hard drive space, buy one of those disks that you insert into the computer. They can store almost 300 gigabytes.

For operating system, I would suggest Linux. Windows gets slower the longer you have it, and it gets viruses quite easily. In Linux, if you play around with the user permissions, you can make a separate "internet viewing" account that can't do anything, so you could go on a page infested with viruses, but the viruses would not be able to save onto your computer.

[JointStrikeFighter]

For operating system, I would suggest Linux. Windows gets slower the longer you have it, and it gets viruses quite easily. In Linux, if you play around with the user permissions, you can make a separate "internet viewing" account that can't do anything, so you could go on a page infested with viruses, but the viruses would not be able to save onto your computer.

Don't be retarded; he obviously wants the computer for gaming and the whole windows rot meme hasn't been an issue for nearly a decade.

[noncredible]

Oh yeah, good point. A lot of games aren't designed for Linux. My bad.

[Starglider]

NVIDIAs are alot easier from a compatibility perspective.

Compatibility with what? Basically all games are compatible with all cards. For what it's worth, AMD's Crossfire supports more flexible mixing of cards than Nvidia SLI does, but that only affects a minority of users. GPU compute is another story, but that's not relevant here.

You can get by on most any old flat panel monitor depending on how big you want it.

The quality difference between a mid-range and high-end monitor isn't that noticeable, but really cheap panels in the 20" category and below do tend to look noticeably shitty.

[Twoyboy]

Thanks again guys. Yeah, I'd love to have used Linux during my issues with Vista, but from what I've heard Win 7 solves some of the compatibility issues and of course a lot of my games will only run in Windows.

http://www.umart.com.au/pro/products_li ... &sid=66217

It was going to be this. And indeed if I had the money upfront I would have ordered it. But then my mother-in-law reminded me she owes me $300. Sweet... and then today we had a much larger financial windfall... so my budget was now set by my wife and it's $2k with some slack, which I can actually cover.

But thanks for the info re graphics cards and monitors. Cheers.

[weemadando]

If you don't go with Windows 7 you are completely mad at this point. It's a fixed version of Vista that has a lot of the guff streamlined and some nice additions.

[Chris OFarrell]

I would strongly suggest you go and buy a copy of PC Powerplay.

At the back of each issue, each month, they 'build' 5 different computers for different budgets, specified component by component. You can generally mix and match parts from each if you want a little more or less (outside of the core CPU+MB+RAM trinity which you SHOULD keep together) quite easily, and if you use Shopbot to buy your components, you can generally even source the parts cheaper then they estimate by the time that months issue is out.

[Twoyboy]

I would strongly suggest you go and buy a copy of PC Powerplay.

At the back of each issue, each month, they 'build' 5 different computers for different budgets, specified component by component. You can generally mix and match parts from each if you want a little more or less (outside of the core CPU+MB+RAM trinity which you SHOULD keep together) quite easily, and if you use Shopbot to buy your components, you can generally even source the parts cheaper then they estimate by the time that months issue is out.

Sweet, thanks. That's the kind of reference I've been looking for online. It's probably well worth a $10 magazine to get the right comp and possibly save a few hundred.

Cheers.

[weemadando]

I would strongly suggest you go and buy a copy of PC Powerplay.

At the back of each issue, each month, they 'build' 5 different computers for different budgets, specified component by component. You can generally mix and match parts from each if you want a little more or less (outside of the core CPU+MB+RAM trinity which you SHOULD keep together) quite easily, and if you use Shopbot to buy your components, you can generally even source the parts cheaper then they estimate by the time that months issue is out.

Every single time I pick up a PCPP I look longingly at The Beast and tell myself "one day". It was easier when I still had my massive back catalogue and I could pick up one from 98 and go: "mang, my PC shits all over this beast."