New computer spec?

[VicS]

Now that Joe Cole's question about a supplier has been answered can I ask what spec I should be looking at for a new one.

My needs are, I would say, minimal so I have been looking at the very cheapest Dell.

I want to use the web and will go broadband with the new one. We need to do a little word processing and run an accounts program (Quicken). I will probably get a digital camera so will want to handle the output from that with just a little photo editing, but that's something I know nothing about at the moment. I fancy a flat panel monitor and I want to stick with my present Epson printer. I have no requirement to play computer games.

The questions going through my mind are:
<ul type="square"> [*]Is the Celeron Processor Ok or should I be thinking Pentium 4? [*]Is 256Mb DDR Ram sufficient? [*]Is a 40Mb HD big enough? I can't imagine it's not. [*]Are there any reasons to consider a 17 inch monitor rather than a 15 inch? [*]Should I go for the better quality monitor that Dell offer or is the "value" one good enough? [*]What optical drive(s) should I choose.? CD-RW/DVD Combo? Or am I likely to be wanting a DVD-RW? [*]Is there any reson to choose Windows XP Professional rather thant the Home edition? [*]Does Microsoft Works 7.0 include MS Word? [/list]

Thanks in anticipation of some helpful advice
Vic

 

[Talbot]

recommend XP pro , and you will need at least 512 mb ram with either version.
recommend 17" display with capability to display better than 1024x768 (i run mine at the next scale 1152x864).
Hard drive should be at least 80gb cause of storage for digital phots, and for same reason upgrade to DVD writer.
Works includes word.
recommend at least 2.8meg processsor.

Dell will give you a very well buily machine that will be as reliable as most, but a lot of their machines are difficult to upgrade without dell specific bits at much higher costs. Novatech in Portsmouth do good stuff at much cheaper prices.

 

[ShipsWoofy]

Is the Celeron Processor Ok or should I be thinking Pentium 4?

For your requirements I would suggest that physical memory is more important to you than sooper high processor speed. My current computer still has the 1.4GHz athlon I fitted around 4 years ago I think. My rule has always been not to upgrade until something refuses to run on the spec I currently have.

I play high graphics on line games without too much problem, occasionally I have to turn down some detail in the games in order to keep up with players who have faster machines. This is more to do with my video accelerator board, I bought a cheaper board with 64Mb of memory, near in speed to a G-Force 2.

Is 256Mb DDR Ram sufficient?

For photographic work fit as much memory as you dare, drop the spec of the processor and use the saved cash for cache (hey new cliché). I currently have 762Mb DDR which when using Photoshop is more than adequate, quite often it is the access speed of the hard disk which is a bottle neck.

Is a 40Mb HD big enough? I can't imagine it's not.

I have raid on my motherboard but have never used it, this is a facility to half you disk access times by running two matched HD's. Half the data on each pulled off in parallel. Nearly as good a scsi HD.

In total I have 48Mb of HD. This is absolutely fine, I have nearly 26Mb free space, with better house keeping I could have more. It allows photo editing, home movie editing, with still plenty of spare space. It depends what you want to do. You can add more later should you need it. I have an enormous amount of software installed, but keep all my photographs etc. back up externally on CD-r etc.

Are there any reasons to consider a 17 inch monitor rather than a 15 inch?

I run a 19" CRT, so much nicer for photo editing. They are very cheap, but more bulky than LCD. I have been told that a 17" LCD is equivalent to a 19" CRT. I would not now go less than my 19" screen.

Should I go for the better quality monitor that Dell offer or is the "value" one good enough?

I am still unsure about LCD for photo work, I have taken photographs to the likes of PC world to view them on LCD's and do not like the look, maybe this is where a cheap LCD just is not up to scratch. Obviously personal preference, but ask to see the difference before you choose. At home I will always choose the CRT.

What optical drive(s) should I choose.? CD-RW/DVD Combo? Or am I likely to be wanting a DVD-RW?

Most DVD re-writers will also write CD-r and CD-rw, so go for the DVD for that extra option. Many will tell you CD’s are the worst media for precious data such as photographs. I always write 2 cd’s in case one is damaged. There is a supposed life span, but I have some CD-r’s from 1993 still going strong. Take care of them, checking occasionally in case of damage. Re-write new ones if needed, from the two you have written.

Is there any reason to choose Windows XP Professional rather than the Home edition?

Not unless you want remote desktop access, i.e. if you had XP-pro, it would allow me access your machine and run it from my machine over the interweb. There are some other features, but more aimed a sys-admins for networking. XP Home should be fine for your needs from you list.

If you go for a lesser machine, then some suggestions for photographic work you might like.

Buy a graphics tablet, it is impossible to consider any serious editing using only the mouse. Also buy a memory card reader, there is nothing more annoying than plugging a camera into the USB on the computer and it is more often slower. There are still very few camera’s on the market supporting USB 2. Also, get a decent keyboard, it can make all the difference!

Hope this helps

 

[Joe_Cole]

Vic,

Almost exactly the same requirements as mine.....right down to the lack of interest in Computor games!
I'll follow the replies with interest.

Joe

 

[Gunfleet]

Good tip from a nephew who does this for a living; for Photoshop get a 2nd hard drive and configure it as the 'scratch' disk - the photo manipulating space. Makes photoshop go much much quicker!

 

[Stemar]

I'd agree in general with ShipsWoofy.

Processor speed is likely to be adequate on almost any new machine. Save your pennies and get more memory - min 512Mb, 1GB if you can.

I've sold a lot of computers at fairs helping out a mate, and I've always recommended that people get the biggest hard disk they can afford and the best monitor they can afford.

I'd look for at least 80GB, 120 won't hurt, and if possible, one of the newer ATA serial drives. They're MUCH faster than the IDE ones. Whatever size you get, you will fill it up with things you want to keep eventually.

If you're going for Dell, their TFT (Flat) screens are good. A 17" would be nice. A 19" would be even nicer, but at another couple of hundred pounds or so?? In my experience, a 15" TFT would be disappointing, though comparable with a 17" CRT screen, while taking up a lot less room on your desk. I have seen some seriously bad CRT monitors from Dell. Don't even consider anything less than 75htz refresh rate from a 17" CRT at 1024 by 768. TFT screens can run quite a bit slower, 60htz is adequate at maximum resolution

DVD writers have come down so much that it just doesn't seem sensible to settle for less.

One thing to beware of is "Shared Graphics", a graphics adapter built into the mother board using system memory. Dell tend to do quite a lot of these and they're almost univerally pants. It doesn't matter for typing letters, but I think you'd be disappointed when doing photowork. The display is slower, and, because it's stealin memory from the system, that'll be slowed down as well.

I agree about the graphics tablet. Aldi had some recently, and you may be lucky and find one still. An A4 tablet for a rediculous price (less than tiny ones at PC World - but of course, you'd never actually buy anything there, would you! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif) I got one for my daughter and she's delighted with it.

Good hunting! If any pf the technobabble above goes over your head, feel free to PM me for a translation!

Steve

All waffle is strictly IMHO & AYOR /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Colinl]

Hi Vic

Buy a P4 2.4 or 2.8 not a Celeron as there is not much difference in price.
Buy a computer with an Intel Chip not an AMD one. I have come across to many instances where something will run properly on an Intel and it won't work on an AMD
Check out prices from local dealers as Dell computers are cheap for basics spec but start getting dearer as you add on to it. Also somedealers will deliver and set it up for you.

Min spec
P4 2.4
40GB Hard disk (if you are going to use a digital camera get a bigger one.)
256 MB ram (Get as much as you can afford)

17" Monitor CRT or Flat Screen (bigger if you are serious about Photo work) 17 adequate but as Woof say 19 better CRT Prices will be far cheaper than Flat screen

Combi Unit (CD Burner/DVD Player) Check out how much more a DVD Burner is. It will cover everything.

WinXp Home
Works Suite (incls Word)
If you require Excel spreadsheet get Office instead.

Don't worry about Antivirus software Download free copy from www.grisoft.com (AVG Free Edition not Trial one) also get Spybot Search & Destroy AdAware. All Antivirus & Anti Malware software is only good if you update them regularly (once a week min)
Make sure when you get it update Microsoft software on the Internet.


You will usually get software with your digital camera for your pictures.
Photoshop is not recommended for beginners as there is a big learning curve also very expensive 2 hard disk not essential.

This computer is going to last you for the next five years or so. Buy the best spec you can afford.


Maybe you should look at a portable so you can use it on the boat.

Cheers

Colin

 

[zefender]

Unless its a recent version (Works 2002), Works ain't got Word! It has a word processor application which is a similar, cut down version of Word. But if you wanted to import a Word document with some formatting (eg table of contents, footnotes, tables etc) Works may not read it properly. A similar problem exists for its Works spreadsheet variant where Excel may struggle to read it and vice versa. I think these problems can be sorted with a downloadable addin for free (and may be partially sorted if you have the later version of Works. So, I'd check its a PC with latest Works in the bundle (i.e. with Word). But I would seriously consider getting the grown up 'Office' suite as an upgrade when you buy the PC (OEM software), since it'll do more (maybe better handling of some exported Quicken data too) and will cost about half of the cost of buying it afterwards, non-OEM.

 

[fireball]

Don't buy a celery processor - make sure it is an AMD or P4 (or in a laptop you can go for the PentiumM) - the celery processor is a cut down Pentium, designed to be cheaper and thus slower than its bigger brother. It is aimed at low power users and those that don't have the budget for anything better.

If your going for Photoshop then basicly you want AS MUCH power AND memory AND disk space as possible - so buy as much as you can afford.

Celeron processors are fine for those that don't use their computers - AMD and Pentium processors are designed with the business community in mind and Photoshop is a businness Application!

Disk space is ~ £1/Gb so going for an 80Gb drive isn't that much more expensive.

Memory - you can never have enough. I have 512Mb and photoshop runs ok. I'd rather have 1Gb and have it run a bit quicker. 2Gb would be my optimum...

Photoshop uses two types of memory - RAM - your usual memory and a SCRATCH disk - this is where it dumps bits it held in RAM when there isn't enough RAM - get more RAM!!

 

[sail360]

Hi

I would stick with your original idea. To be honest there is not much between the P4 and Celeron processor apart from hyper threading technology and a little less on chip cache.
If you going to be working with still digital images then this will be fine however if your going to get into digital video, i.e. video rendering etc then this is were the hyper threading and the larger onboard cache will improve the processor though put rate.
Windows XP handles large memory very inefficiently so around 512MB will do fine as for the Windows XP HOME verses the Windows XP PRO debate then again you will be fine with Windows XP HOME.
Windows XP Professional gives you a few added benefits but in your case you will not be taking advantage of them, they are ; Windows Pro has all the benefits of Windows XP Home Edition, plus additional remote access, security, performance, manageability and multi-lingual features.
BUT by a good Internet - Antivirus package, we have tested them all here an to honest from a hacking point of view I would go with Symantec's Norton Internet Security 2005.. Price for price and performance it's hard to beat.
A good TFT screen is technical larger than it's CRT equivalent so, a 17 " TFT screen gives approximately the same viewing area as a 18-19 CRT monitor.

As for the DVD - CR-ROM, do you need to store 4.7GIG of data or is 700MB ok. If 700MB is ok but you might want DVD playback, i.e. to watch a movie or…. Then a standard DVD-read /CD-ROM write combo will be fine however if you need more storage then you'll need a DVD-writer / CD-ROM writer comb unit. Make sure if it's the later then go for a DVD writer that can write DVD+ and DVD- as some older DVD players are a bit temperamental and like one format or the other.

Agree about DELL, good machines but can be difficult to upgrade. To be honest for a first time user I always recommend Tesco, they are a generic brand and can be easy upgraded later.

Hope that helps
David
I.T. Technical Team Leader

 

[oldharry]

Re: HDD prices...

[ QUOTE ]
Disk space is ~ £1/Gb so going for an 80Gb drive isn't that much more expensive.



[/ QUOTE ]

Thats expensive! Current listings (not on special offers) start around £40 for 80gb DiamonMax HDD, and around £55 for 160gb.

 

[BlueMan]

Is the Celeron Processor Ok or should I be thinking Pentium 4?
<font color="blue"> P4 or an AMD cpu. Even the Athlon 64 is now quite cheap. </font>

Is 256Mb DDR Ram sufficient?
<font color="blue"> No, go for at least 512MB. If you can afford a bit more then it will not do any harm. </font>
Is a 40Mb HD big enough? I can't imagine it's not.
<font color="blue"> A 40GB primary hard drive should be fine BUT also get a second drive as large as you can afford (they are not expensive now so 160-200GB would be good). You should use the second one for any large 'disposable files' such as video or in progress photo editing (they can get big!). More importantly you should get hold of some imaging software so that you can backup your primary drive direct to the secondary in the form of compressed images. Schedule daily backups to run overnight and keep them all for the last week, and keep one weekly backup for each of the last few weeks. Even if the primary is totally trashed you can just boot from a CD and restore the whole drive in one go, or selective files if required. Software such as Norton Ghost or Acronis TrueImage will allow you to set this all up to be automatic. Every week or two you might want to copy a backup onto DVD for safekeeping (see answers below).
</font>
Are there any reasons to consider a 17 inch monitor rather than a 15 inch?
<font color="blue"> As big as you can afford. Spend more on this than a faster processor. You can keep it through future PC upgrades. After all, it is the screen that you look at all the time, even when the cpu is doing diddly squat! </font>
Should I go for the better quality monitor that Dell offer or is the "value" one good enough?
<font color="blue"> No comment re Dell, but worth getting a good one. 'Value' monitors can be pretty poor for regular use, whether CRT or LCD. </font>
What optical drive(s) should I choose.? CD-RW/DVD Combo? Or am I likely to be wanting a DVD-RW?
<font color="blue"> You MUST get a DVD+-RW drive. The latest dual format dual layer capable ones cost less than £50 so it is a crime not to. This will be your last line of defence for system backups apart from all the other uses like saving photos, video etc etc in the future. </font>
Is there any reson to choose Windows XP Professional rather thant the Home edition?
<font color="blue"> The only real difference that you will see is in the security facilities available. If you don't already know this then it is almost certainly a whole set of complications that you don't need and will spend days/weeks trying to understand! Home will be fine (btw, I have both...Pro for my machine and Home for the children's).
Some clever so and so may mention that Pro has a backup product already included (in fact so does Home but you have to hunt for it). The software I mentioned above is far superior in capability and much easier to automate so you can ignore that difference. </font>

<font color="blue"> I hope the above helps. If you ignore everything else PLEASE investigate the backup solution with an extra hard drive and DVD writer. One day (maybe soon) you will be VERY grateful! </font>

 

[fireball]

[ QUOTE ]
Are there any reasons to consider a 17 inch monitor rather than a 15 inch?
As big as you can afford. Spend more on this than a faster processor. You can keep it through future PC upgrades. After all, it is the screen that you look at all the time, even when the cpu is doing diddly squat! [ QUOTE ]

I'm looking at a 17" dell value CRT monitor as we speak - it is fine for office use. Checkout the resolution available on each option before you buy. TFT screens do have optimum resolutions - you should be looking at 1024x768 as a minimum

 

[pvb]

Second hard drive...

I'd certainly echo the suggestion of having a second hard drive for back-up. When my old desktop packed up last summer, I had a lot of difficulty recovering files from it. With my new notebook, I bought an Iomega external hard drive (about 60GB, I think) which came complete with Iomega Automatic Backup software. Basically, the thing just plugs into a USB port and constantly backs up any new or changed files, so if disaster strikes it's possibly to just plug it in to another computer and continue as if nothing had happened. Don't assume you can handle backups by copying to CDs, because it just won't happen unless you've got cast iron will-power.

Also heartily agree that Norton Internet Security is the way to go. It has an automatic update function which works seamlessly in the background and gives excellent peace of mind in this strange world of the interweb.

 

[TrueBlue]

What about the bits nobody has mentioned??

As this topic has drifted away slightly from what you asked, I thought I'd pop my oar in:-

Broadband
If you're going that way, then I'd go for a good supplier and a router rather than an USB modem-
I suggest Eclipse (www.eclipse.net) because you can talk to them, they support the kit they supply, and their base 1Meg service is good value at £15 per month. You can upgrade on line if you want more wellie.
You need a router (IMO) as it has a firewall built in, much more sensible than something running on a PC.
Eclipse filter spam and virus' I have neither since being with them.

Photoshop
Where did that creep in?? Surely all you need is Photoshop elements 3?? It's inexpensive and has almost all of the full blown product's features. PcPro did a review recently, and there's an "tutorial" in the March 05 edition.

Backup
Everybody ignores backup. It's relatively simple to backup specific files like "my photos" etc, but what about license keys, Word templates, desktop settings and preferences, and other things you don't know you have to have - until you miss them..
I recommend something on the lines of Genie backup manager (there should be a free version floating about somewhere) for a daily backup and Norton Ghost - comes with Norton Anti Virus and some toys in Norton System Works PRO, about £20 more than NAV on it's own. Ghost will take an image of your drive on the fly - this avoids problems with open files and hidden system files that have to be in a specific place. Ghost should be run weekly.

OR you can do what most people do and ignore the problem - until it's too late.

If you take note of the above then a decent sized disk (120+ Gb) should have the space for a copy of everything, and a DVD writer can hold your precious photos.

You know it makes sense...

 

[VicMallows]

I too was amased how limited WORKS is (came with new computer; old IBM one had LOTUS).

I simple downloaded EASY OFFICE which is completely free and appears to work faultlessly with WORD. Has every feature I could possibly want.

Vic

 

[BlueMan]

In retrospect my monitor comments were somewhat brief. You probably want to go for 1280x1024 if you are going to be doing much document editing. That makes it pretty much certain that it will be at least a 17inch display. Cheaper displays may suffer from colour and brightness variation and are likely to have a higher latency. High latency causes smearing of moving objects which is particularly annoying for games (not an issue for you), DVD playing, and video in general.

My point was that investing in a good quality (and maybe bigger) display will be a better way of spending your money than a slightly faster processor.

Good luck (and don't forget the backup - somehow!)

 

[Oldhand]

<Buy a computer with an Intel Chip not an AMD one. I have come across to many instances where something will run properly on an Intel and it won't work on an AMD>

I must live in a different world as I have used AMD processors for about 5 years and never had any problem with any software. AMD processors are better value for money then Intel IMHO.

 

[Rowana]

Mine has AMD processor, and I've never had any bother. The computer guru at work said that they run hotter than Intel, and the fan has more work to do to keep it cool. This beast is certainly makes more noise than my last one.

 

[TheBoatman]

I'm thinking of upgrading my putor this year, so this thread was of interest to me but I have to admit that the replies are all gobbaldygook (s**t can't spell that so Russian) to me. I haven't got a clue what your talking about?

Someone said that I should look at a Mac as it runs on something called Linux and that it will be better than MS windows, pardon!