Tell me what I need in a pc

I have 128 gigs and used barely more than half… Most of that for the OS.

Buy what you need, not what others need.

Those of us who could care less about saving a bunch of music and movies tend not to need as much storage. I don’t watch movies, and the only media I save is the media I make.

As to Windows 8, the use of a touchpad with appropriate gesture support makes it almost as easy to use as a touchscreen, IMO. That’s not to say there aren’t other annoyances…

Linux is perfect until one needs to collaborate with someone who uses MS Office and highly formatted documents and presentations, then it all falls apart in my experience. I ended up installing Windows on a box before just because it was cheaper than wasting my time fighting with formatting and LibreOffice. Now having a Linux box to act as a file server is an excellent idea, and when I eventually need more storage I’ll just start to save files to one I have set up on my extended network.

Though getting CUPS to play nicely with Windows for networked printing has eluded me so far. I figure I’ll just buy a wireless printer next time and skip the PITA.

Yes i agree, Linux can be fine, but its better if one was software savvy to use it.

Being software savvy is not a problem for me. I have always sorted out my own software/os issues and I will definitely buy a machine with no OS. My question relates more to the hardware I should be looking at. I am pretty confident I know what I want now if I head into guanhua.

AMD fx 8000 series or an intel i3 (i5 if I can afford it)
Graphics The best I can afford :slight_smile: no real pref between nvidia or the rest
1 TB storage ( lots of family pics and vids)
USB 3
So now I know that its all down to my own taste rather than a huge difference in performance ( for what i use)
I am happy enough I’ll know what I need or don’t need

[quote=“irishmoe”]Being software savvy is not a problem for me. I have always sorted out my own software/os issues and I will definitely buy a machine with no OS. My question relates more to the hardware I should be looking at. I am pretty confident I know what I want now if I head into guanhua.

AMD fx 8000 series or an intel i3 (i5 if I can afford it)
Graphics The best I can afford :slight_smile: no real pref between nvidia or the rest
1 TB storage ( lots of family pics and vids)
USB 3
So now I know that its all down to my own taste rather than a huge difference in performance ( for what i use)
I am happy enough I’ll know what I need or don’t need[/quote]

You can get an MSI motherboard with on-board audio and graphics + intel i3.
You can decide month and years later if you’d like to install a NVIDA graphics card.
Make sure, you start with a decent power-supply.
If possible get a motherboard that still has at least one IDE slot. This way you can use older dvd cd roms and hard-drives.

by the way, Taiwanese often use this website to figure out how much their custom built system should cost
coolpc.com.tw/evaluate.php

It’s a series of pull down menus. Most of the parts are in English… but yeah, it requires a bit of Kanji reading.

by the way, there’s always pear linux for those who wants a Mac like feel to their Linux :stuck_out_tongue:

[quote=“hansioux”]by the way, Taiwanese often use this website to figure out how much their custom built system should cost
coolpc.com.tw/evaluate.php

It’s a series of pull down menus. Most of the parts are in English… but yeah, it requires a bit of Kanji reading.

by the way, there’s always pear linux for those who wants a Mac like feel to their Linux :stuck_out_tongue:

[/quote]

Would you believe a friend just told me about that site not 10 mins ago :slight_smile:

If what you want is a Mac look and feel, you can install the Mac theme for Ubuntu/Linux Mint… It’s dead-on!

noobslab.com/2013/05/mac-os- … aring.html

I feel like getting a discrete video card is a waste of money for your purposes. Neither basic everyday activities nor web development are graphically demanding and cpus have been fast enough to decode hd video in software for years. So on-board graphics will be fine. I would just buy something with a slot to put a video card in later, if you find that you actually need it.

I built this 2 yrs ago when I was on a tight budget. This winters project will be a better system with at least twice the budget. Perhaps I really don’t need an upgrade but my photo software runs a little slow and I just want to. Since then I added Windows7 (and more RAM) and Office 365 because of the word processing compatibility issues. I used Ubuntuu for 1.5 yrs but I found it too frustrating in the end.

[quote]ASUS M4A88T-LE - 2490NT
AMD Athlon II X4 - 2950
Kingston 4GB DDRIII - 630
WD 2TB SATA - 2620
DVD drive - 600 - didn’t get this yet since I ran out of room on my motorcycle
Case - 900
350W Power supply - 900
linux OS - free
total = 10500NT (plus I still need a DVD - 600NT)[/quote]

I’ll be going in to the cool pc store and telling them what I want. I’ll be getting a bigger power supply though :slight_smile:

So this is what I got

AMD A10 6800k with built in Radeon HD 8670D graphics
ASrock FM2A85X motherboard
8 gig ram
1TB seagate with 2 yr warranty :slight_smile:
Asus DRW
600W Tauro power supply
Logitech MK270 wireless kb and mouse
Nice box with 2 fans

NT14000 :slight_smile: Happy enough with that

Should be enough for what you need :smiley:

What would it cost for a laptop with similar specs?

I’m looking to get/build/buy a PC too.

If I just copy what you got, will it be good to use for gaming, torrenting, some photo editing and website coding?
Gaming wise i tend to not play too high end stuff. Not into all that FPS.

Also can anyone shed light on how the amount of power supply affects what type of PC you buy?
I mean…

I’d recommend getting a 128GB SSD for your OS and programs. Keep your data on the 1TB HD. (I recommend never storing data on the C: drive.)

Getting an SSD is well worth it for the faster boot times and program launches. The 128GB ones are quite affordable; bigger ones are quite pricey.

[quote=“Chris”]I’d recommend getting a 128GB SSD for your OS and programs. Keep your data on the 1TB HD. (I recommend never storing data on the C: drive.)

Getting an SSD is well worth it for the faster boot times and program launches. The 128GB ones are quite affordable; bigger ones are quite pricey.[/quote]

Is that instead of the Asus DRW? Got it thanks for the input.

I have no idea what these terms are all about but oh well. Just hand in a list.
Any other recommendations?

[quote=“hs172”][quote=“Chris”]I’d recommend getting a 128GB SSD for your OS and programs. Keep your data on the 1TB HD. (I recommend never storing data on the C: drive.)

Getting an SSD is well worth it for the faster boot times and program launches. The 128GB ones are quite affordable; bigger ones are quite pricey.[/quote]

Is that instead of the Asus DRW? Got it thanks for the input.[/quote]
The Asus DRW would be a CD/DVD ROM drive/burner.

The SSD (solid state drive) is a storage device, and it’s significantly faster than traditional hard drives (which contain a spinning disk and a stylus… like a vinyl record player!). But traditional hard drives offer far greater storage capacity at a lower price. So I recommend getting both: the SSD for the OS and programs (where speed counts) and the traditional hard drive for storing data.

[quote=“Chris”][quote=“hs172”][quote=“Chris”]I’d recommend getting a 128GB SSD for your OS and programs. Keep your data on the 1TB HD. (I recommend never storing data on the C: drive.)

Getting an SSD is well worth it for the faster boot times and program launches. The 128GB ones are quite affordable; bigger ones are quite pricey.[/quote]

Is that instead of the Asus DRW? Got it thanks for the input.[/quote]
The Asus DRW would be a CD/DVD ROM drive/burner.

The SSD (solid state drive) is a storage device, and it’s significantly faster than traditional hard drives (which contain a spinning disk and a stylus… like a vinyl record player!). But traditional hard drives offer far greater storage capacity at a lower price. So I recommend getting both: the SSD for the OS and programs (where speed counts) and the traditional hard drive for storing data.[/quote]

Ohh so you can seperate the SSD for the C drive. And the 1 tb HD for the D.
Wow you can do that huh :noway:
That way you got 2 storage devices. :ohreally: Awesome.

PS: Any recommendations on where to go to build one of these or OP if you can mention where you go this done, it would be much appreciated.

also SSD dies faster than HDD. SSDs are usually made with NAND memory, which has retention about 10 years (your data *should be retrievable after 10 years), and endurance of about 100k cycles for lower capacity NAND, and about 5k – 10k cycles for higher capacity NAND. Yes, larger SSD means it dies faster. Here cycles means # of times you write to it. The SSD’s controller, your OS driver and other things will try to extend the life of your SSD by moving data around inside, so you don’t write to the same location too many times. That’s called wear-leveling.

But in the end, 100k writes really isn’t that many writes. That is the real reason why one shouldn’t store data on an SSD. Unless you are prepared for data to fade into digital oblivion.

About the worst thing you can do to an SSD is have streaming data write to it. Say having your Bit-Torrent write its temp file to the SSD. The best way to go with an SSD is to get a small SSD, then get Linux, and put your every but your /home on there. That’s about all I’ll trust an SSD doing.

[quote=“hs172”]Ohh so you can seperate the SSD for the C drive. And the 1 tb HD for the D.
Wow you can do that huh :noway:
That way you got 2 storage devices. :ohreally: Awesome. [/quote]
Absolutely. More than one physical drive is always a good thing. After all, if one fails…

As for solid state drives: yes, they have shorter lifespans. But in 5 years you’ll probably upgrade anyway, and by then there will be even greater storage capacities available for even less, built with more advanced technologies.