Looking at new desktop PC setup (1 Viewer)

[RetroMcBananaFace]

I've been needing to get a new desktop PC for a while now. My current one, I bought in March of 2010 so it's nearly 8 years old.

Meanwhile, changes are afoot in the household, coinciding with tax return season (yippee!), as a result I am moving my home office/man cave from the basement into what used to be one of the kid's bedrooms, while said kid takes over the basement.

My hopes for the room is to make it kind of an overall work/play space. I work from home a lot, so it needs that functionality, but it also has to be my hangout room where I watch Saints games, play video games, listen to music, play my guitars, etc. I used to do all this stuff in the basement where I had a separate TV setup, but the new room is small so I need to consolidate the computer and TV into one all-together kind of situation....

So what I'd like to do is get an HDMI-equipped PC, cheap as possible but relatively good quality. My computer habits are working from home (web based), arguing on Saintsreport and streaming video from occasionally questionable sources, esp. live sports from certain sites that cater to cable-cutters. I don't play games on PC at all and I don't need an elaborate audio setup on the PC because my whole stereo situation is also going to be in there. I don't really know anything about PC tech, I don't really understand the gigahertz and gigabytes, what processor is considered good, etc. Let's say that streaming a Saints game is the most taxing thing I might do on a PC. Would this be adequate for my use?

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...Mdo3ONgG1yIBzO-3UxRoCShkQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

It also makes sense to me to go with a smaller TV rather than a monitor, if that doesn't come with any serious drawbacks. I'd like to be able to have my PS4 at the desktop and the ability to watch Netflix, DVDs and such without actually having to have the computer on. I'll also have a docking station connected for my work laptop going to this. At a small desk, would a 32" TV be too big? But I don't even know if there are issues with using a TV as a computer monitor and how all that works.

Hoping to spend $400 on the whole endeavor if possible. Specific recommendations would be amazing. My last two PC's have been HP and served me well but I don't have much brand loyalty as far as that's concerned.

 

[Charlie Brizzown]

Whats wrong with your old PC?

 

[wnelson]

I got an amazing acer out of the box. Naturally I upgraded a few things but the Oem device was ~400 on Amazon.


edit: I got the acer aspire tc-780 signature edition june 2017 build

I added 8gb corsair DDR4 ram as it came with 8, I added a nvidia GeForce 1060 3gb version with the overclocked frequencies on the processor and ram, I added a 600w thermaltake PSU, and I added 2 very small but very powerful case fans (they are 10 bux each on prime).

out of the box it was great but I play games that require more vram and vcard speed than the intel onboard chip.

 

[RetroMcBananaFace]

Whats wrong with your old PC?

I can't say specifically. But I know that on my work laptop for instance I can stream a Saints game and it runs beautifully with no stuttering, pixelation, etc. while if I try to stream the same game on my desktop it hangs up constantly. It's also just slow and glitchy in general. Couple of blue screens a week, and occasionally it just stops working altogether and I have no choice but to restart. I would assume the hardware is obsolete. I mean, it is 8 years old. That's probably twice as long as my previous one lasted.

I got an amazing acer out of the box. Naturally I upgraded a few things but the Oem device was ~400 on Amazon.


edit: I got the acer aspire tc-780 signature edition june 2017 build

I added 8gb corsair DDR4 ram as it came with 8, I added a nvidia GeForce 1060 3gb version with the overclocked frequencies on the processor and ram, I added a 600w thermaltake PSU, and I added 2 very small but very powerful case fans (they are 10 bux each on prime).

out of the box it was great but I play games that require more vram and vcard speed than the intel onboard chip.

I saw an Acer desktop at Walmart this morning that does have HDMI but the specs looked not great. 1.60 mhz and 2 gb ram. compared to 2.80 mhz and 3 gb ram on my current, 8-year-old computer. That one was $250. I'm thinking I may have to raise my budget.

 

[wnelson]

I can't say specifically. But I know that on my work laptop for instance I can stream a Saints game and it runs beautifully with no stuttering, pixelation, etc. while if I try to stream the same game on my desktop it hangs up constantly. It's also just slow and glitchy in general. Couple of blue screens a week, and occasionally it just stops working altogether and I have no choice but to restart. I would assume the hardware is obsolete. I mean, it is 8 years old. That's probably twice as long as my previous one lasted.



I saw an Acer desktop at Walmart this morning that does have HDMI but the specs looked not great. 1.60 mhz and 2 gb ram. compared to 2.80 mhz and 3 gb ram on my current, 8-year-old computer. That one was $250. I'm thinking I may have to raise my budget.

Look up my model on Amazon. You won't need the upgrades that I did....

 

[maestreaux]

Don't know how tech savvy you are but you can always build your own PC and pick and choose what parts and how much money to spend where. I've built a couple of them and loved doing it. Check out https://pcpartpicker.com/ if your interested. Great site that breaks everything down for you and lets you pick the right parts at the right price.

I using an old 42" Vizio TV as my PC monitor and it works great. Your not using it for gaming so either a TV or monitor will work. Just make sure they have the right connections.

 

[DSnfla]

Could be you just need to upgrade somethings on the old one . In one of your posts you said it had 3gb of ram ? if so that's kinda low . i'd recommend 8gb . 2nd is hard drive , A solid state hard drive will make a very noticeable difference , I normally go with a 128gb solid state drive for the OS and use the old reg drive to store programs and music and video.
And last , if your a bit more tech savvy you probably can upgrade your CPU but that's a bit more tricky

 

[RetroMcBananaFace]

Don't know how tech savvy you are but you can always build your own PC and pick and choose what parts and how much money to spend where. I've built a couple of them and loved doing it. Check out https://pcpartpicker.com/ if your interested. Great site that breaks everything down for you and lets you pick the right parts at the right price.

I using an old 42" Vizio TV as my PC monitor and it works great. Your not using it for gaming so either a TV or monitor will work. Just make sure they have the right connections.

I don't know a ton about computers, specifically, but I know stereos very well and can solder. I could probably assemble a computer without too much trouble. I think that all comes down to the OS because I'm comfortable with Windows 10 and I'd like to stick with that, but who knows. I'll have to do some more research.

Some of this refurbished stuff on ebay is really stinkin' cheap though.

 

[Zztop]

If you're ok with a refurb, you might want to check here from time to time. There was a pretty great deal on ebay a few days back that I almost posted here, but the problem is they tend to sell out very fast (within a few hours or less).

I wouldn't recommend getting anything less than 8Gb, and a SSD drive.
I tend to build my own, but right now RAM is so expensive, about $140 for 16Gb DDR-4

 

[robsmith32]

8gb is plenty for most, 16gb will actually be slower than 8gb most time unless you keep a ton of stuff open.

by sound of it, probably time to replace the Hdd in it.
put a 250-500 gb ssd and it'll probably hold you off for a while.

 

[RetroMcBananaFace]

Yeah, I'm still on this. Paralyzed by indecision basically.

Lenovo any good? It has 8 GB ram/3.1 ghz, a 120 gb SSD and a 3 TB hard drive, Windows 10, wifi built-in, HDMI

 

[wnelson]

Yeah, I'm still on this. Paralyzed by indecision basically.

Lenovo any good? It has 8 GB ram/3.1 ghz, a 120 gb SSD and a 3 TB hard drive, Windows 10, wifi built-in, HDMI

yeah... you don't need a better graphic card for what youre doing. pull da trigger!

 

[Zztop]

8gb is plenty for most, 16gb will actually be slower than 8gb most time unless you keep a ton of stuff open.

What? Slower? can you post some benchmarks validating this info?

Yeah, I'm still on this. Paralyzed by indecision basically.

Lenovo any good? It has 8 GB ram/3.1 ghz, a 120 gb SSD and a 3 TB hard drive, Windows 10, wifi built-in, HDMI

what is the cpu?

 

[robsmith32]

What? Slower? can you post some benchmarks validating this info?



what is the cpu?

common tech. knowledge, that higher density memory is actually slower.
plus, boot times are slower on more memory as the P.o.s.t. memory check has to go thru it all; memory clocks should be enough to flesh that out for you.


now, if you have a game using 12gb memory, its' going to be faster with 16 than 8 when playing it.
but if you're only utilizing 6g, that 16gb is a waste of money, and is actually slightly slower. in general. if you get the same type memory , the higher density clocking is going to be slightly slower.

 

[Zztop]

common tech. knowledge, that higher density memory is actually slower.
plus, boot times are slower on more memory as the P.o.s.t. memory check has to go thru it all; memory clocks should be enough to flesh that out for you.

The last time I was aware that more memory would slow down your computer was back when L2 cache was on the motherboard and not on the CPU.... Which hasn't been the case since the late 90's.

Windows 10 loves extra ram. If you have extra, it will gladly take extra and put it into standby. I don't think having too much ram for Windows has been an issue for a very long time, maybe when Windows XP was around... but I'm willing to bet that since Windows 7 theres no issues with adding more ram. I have tried to find some testing to see if adding more ram in windows 10 made it slower, but I was unable to find anything.

With 8GB of ram installed on Windows 10, you can easily (at least for me) hit the ceiling and cause Windows to use the page file on my disk more often. However it really comes down to how much you got going on at once.

This is why I say 8Gb should be bare minimum for Windows 10, but I don't think upgrading to 16Gb will slow down your computer.

Now if you were talking memory latency... I consider that something else. But in this case, I'm not sure it has anything to do with memory density. There is an argument to be made where the more DIMM slots that are populated, memory latency is increased because the memory controller has to do more work...