Help me choose a new PC

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mva

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My wife currently uses a 10 year old PC with a 40 GB hard drive. It has a newer 19" monitor.

We also have wifi set up in the house and several newer laptops but she seems to mainly use the old PC which is getting very slow and locking up frequently. She mainly uses it to check email and surf the internet. She does a bit of music editing on it as well.

I am looking for something that could also become our main wireless storage of photos and videos which our two kids are accumulating rapidly.

Options I am considering:

1) Dell 620 MT $500

Intel i3 2100, 6GB Ram, 1TB harddrive, Intel HD graphics, DVD RW


2) Dell 8300 $750

Intel i5 2310, 6 GB ram, 1 TB harddrive, Radeon 6670, DVD RW

(raid 0 or 1 is also a $25 upgrade available on this PC)

A 24" Monitor can be included for about $250 to option 1 or 2.


3) Dell 2305 All-in-one $999

AMD Athlon™ II X4 610e processor, 8 GB ram, 1 TB Harddrive, Radeon HD 5470, This one includes Blueray, wireless keyboard and mouse, touchscreen and a TV tuner.

All three options come with 64 bit Windows 7.

I have also looked at the Apple all-in-ones, which are very nice; but I don't think I want to convert to the Apple operating system. All of our laptops are XP or windows 7.

Which way would you go? Budget is a factor but I can afford up to $1000.
 
Option 1. You won't notice the difference between an I3 and I5, and the other specs are the same. The Intel graphics aren't as horrible as they were in years past, there's really no need to upgrade if you don't play any 3d games. You'be be better off buying an external drive than using raid to back things up (or better than either burning dvd's periodically).

I'd take the money you save and upgrade to a bluray rom, and I'd get the 24" monitor. You could always install a bluray rom yourself for under a hundred bucks, or less down the road.

My two cents.

I'd add that I got a dell 23" 16:9 with HDMI for 140 bucks shipped last fall. It was quite a deal. Big monitors are fantastic. Even at the full 250, it's worth it. But monitors are universal and you can probably find a better deal on a 24" if you shop around.
 
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Option 2 would be my personal preference. There is nothing wrong with 1 but if you even want to watch youtube/videos in high def on that 24" monitor you're going to want the dedicated card vs. the integrated.
 
I disagree. I watch 1080p on a 50" tv using an I3 as my media pc. The big reason for this was (at the time) the ATI card's didn't slipstream the sound into the HDMI line like the Intel does.

Anyway, my experience is that the I3 integrated graphics work fine for HD video.
 
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If I want to go higher end there is also option 4:

4) Dell 8300 $1,050

including 24" Monitor

i7 2600, 12 GB ram, 1 TB harddrive, Radeon 6670, DVD RW

Seem a little overkill but it might be more future proof.
 
Any modern computer has enough horsepower to allow for email and surfing even some music editing. The i5 is a great CPU, but the i3 is good enough for the average joe. I would go with whichever fits your budget best...
 
Option 1 will do everything you're planning to do. Save your money. Depression is coming! Har.. har...
smile.gif
 
I vote Option 1 as well.

No matter what you buy it will be out of date very shortly. Why spend more money for something that will do what you need it to do.

You an always add Blu-Ray in the future if you show choose.
 
Go with option 1, it's more than capable of doing anything you want short of 3D games. The Intel video with the i3 is capable of hardware accelerated HD decoding, so don't listen to the poster above who suggested getting discrete graphics for that.
 
Originally Posted By: Scorch
There is nothing wrong with 1 but if you even want to watch youtube/videos in high def on that 24" monitor you're going to want the dedicated card vs. the integrated.

You do realize Option 1 comes with Intel HD graphics? It should not have any problems playing HD video.
 
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