It all depends on how much you've got to spend.

The Intel I Series are very good, but they are very expensive. The cheapest dual core I3 Ivybridge processor is around £100.

Comparing that to an AMD FM2 A8 5600K Quad Core, costs £80. The 5600K is faster, and the on chip Radeon graphics are more then double the performance of Intel's cheapest I3 processor.


You may actually be financially better off, to buy a new computer/tower. The reason being is that recent motherboards dont have IDE support for old hard drives and DVD drives, require different power supply connections. The only thing compatible would possibly be the case.

Here's one way to look at it, and it can makes things easier to sort through.

Set a realistic budget (and stick to it). Consider the three main tasks of the PC, then allocate budget accordingly.

Here's a rough breakdown of my last PC's budget split:

Motherboard 14%
CPU & 3rd party cooler 17%
Gfx card 12%
Memory 6%
HDD 10%
PSU 6.5%
KB & Mouse 6%
Speakers 5%
Operating system 15%
Office software 8.5%

Bear in mind that I didn't play many up to the minute games, but did play older games, so a mid-range gfx card was reasonable. In addition, I bought a more expensive than average cooler and overclocked my CPU by 20% (was it worth the extra cost over a more costly, faster CPU?...possibly).

The software can be the most expensive aspect if one's budget is low, and is generally a must pay cost if you want a particular version. That system was roughly 1K cost, so you can estimate the approximate prices. At the time, fast memory was cheap, I wanted a specific hard drive which is a very fast mechanical one. I also had a case, and didn't need to fork out for that. Without a PSU included, you might be £50-£100+ for a top end case (such as silent, gaming, or other specific need).

What's the intended system usage, and is there a lifespan planned (budgeted for)?

Intel - I5 or I7. The Intel site http://www.intel.com/content/www/uk/en/processors/co... give comparisons and specs across all of theirs.

Get a separate graphics card with 2 or 4 monitor capability.

Win7

Go for Windows 8 and save yourself some faff in the long run. Buying new hardware and putting Windows 7 on it is silly, as much as Windows 7 is an excellent operating system. Windows 8 takes it to a new level with boot times, responsiveness, graphics, etc.

I bought one recently and it came with a very nice case. But it was, at the time, their second most expensive i7 model.

I recently completed a build and decided to spent a little more to future proof it for at least a few years. Was able to keep it reasonably cheap be re-using the tower case which is a 4 bay tower. Settled on an ASUS Sabretooth motherboard and Core I7 bundle and after some pondering went for Windows 8 on an SSD drive.

I am very pleased with it, But since I had to put in all new innards, meaty power supply and graphics card, extra fans etc etc the cost went well over £800. It is a mean machine though.

I'm quite happy with Windows 8 once I got used to it. And if you don't like the lack of a traditional start menu, Classic Shell is a free and easy download.

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Go for Windows 8 and save yourself some faff in the long run. Buying new hardware and putting Windows 7 on it is silly, as much as Windows 7 is an excellent operating system. Windows 8 takes it to a new level with boot times, responsiveness, graphics, etc.

I disagree the Win 7 path is certainly the safer upgrade route. It is now established Has excellent compatability with older applications running out of the box without tweaking and still has 7 years of support from MS.

Win 8 is a gamble with a quater of users six months in than win 7 had (based on usage stats and a new version with 8.1 later this year with no details of upgrade prices. But knowing MS wanting to shake users by the ankles I reckon another £30-50 would not be unexpected.

As for boot times my win 7 installs take 10 seconds to boot from my 500gig SSD so I cannot see how win 8 can improve on that without breaking the laws of physics.

It does depend on the OP and how much legacy stuff he may want to run.

I for one am sticking with win 7 as any further upgrade path to win 8.x for me will come with over £1000 of software upgrades which I am not planning to do anytime soon.

As for boot times my win 7 installs take 10 seconds to boot from my 500gig SSD so I cannot see how win 8 can improve on that without breaking the laws of physics.

My Windows 8 takes 5 seconds to boot on an old, low-powered laptop with a 5400 r.p.m. mechanical drive.

She canna take it, Captain!

The ones that I saw were the top of the range (I think) for the i5 series of their "iRush" boxes. Very flimsy cases indeed and also very easily scratched.
I should reiterate that everything else was fine except for the cases.

Clearly both yours and my PC has broken the law of physics!

Had the same strange comment from a friend the other day, his friend a so-called "PC Expert" had upgraded his very old PC with all new components (I told him to buy a new system but he ignored the advice) and his friend also told him to put in Windows 7 rather than Windows 8. He was telling me how fast it booted up etc now on his new SSD. I showed him my 5 year old system on Windows 8 and he kind of agreed mine loaded up faster!

He said well at least its better than the 20 minute boot up time he had on XP, again, I think it might be something that he had done with software on it than XP itself. But there we go..

Edited by Pipexer (Thu 02-May-13 13:07:58)