PC Expert - What's this worth?

[Nick Goodall]

Morning people,

Just a quick one but wanted to get an idea of value for this PC and if it would be any good or not really - i'm completely out of touch and just want something quicker then my old Dell Optiplex GX280 piece of rubbish (around 6 years old)!! I'm waiting to find out what size hard disk it has but the Spec is as below and he wants £200 for it

MD Phenom quadcore, 4gb ram, ATI HD3200 GPU, extra fan on case, clear panel on side, comes with a 15'' dell flat screen monitor , comes with a dvi to hdmi cable so you can plug straight into your flat screel tv and watch blu rays etc

[Cardnim]

Hey mate,

Its probably an AMD processor (not MD) and these are good gear, but if its 6 years old then its likely that this is pre 9000 series (not sure exactly when they came out but think they are more recent than 6 years)
So old processor, but probably still worthwhile. The fact that it has quad core is slightly redundant unless you are running 64bit architecture and programs as mostly they wont be able to use it.

The RAM is good at 4Gb, the graphics card is a decent ATI Radeon, but think at this age it only came with 256Mb Ram on board. Thats not alot for todays applications.

The 15" monitor is tiny!! You would definately be wanting to upgrade that at some point, but a decent 22" will cost under £100 these days so not a big expense there.

The BIG thing to look for though and the thing that most PC manufacturers bluff and keep low so they can sell "bargains" on tele is the CACHE. You want a minimum of 2Mb these days and the more you can afford, the better. It really makes a HUGE difference.

...Sorry, long winded answer to say I think £200 is at the top end of the scale for this.
Would I recommend it? Hmmm, for a wee computer to surf the net, type a few messages in oOple ( ) and do a bit of Microsoft Office then its going to be ok. But if you are looking for a computer to do you for the next year or two, look elsewhere.
Mesh (my recommendation), Dell and HP (sometimes) make decent entry level computers for between 300 - 400.

Hoep that helps.
Sorry for the length of reply!

Cardnim <-- nerd / geek

[Mad-Wolfie]

without knowing the full specs of the system (i.e. HDD size, graphics card spec as ATI tend to do numerous versions of the same card depending on the connectors), motherboard spec (AGP/PCIE) i'd have to say £100 from any local computer fair would get you that kind of system... something like £60 for the tower & £40 for the monitor & the like.

Also AMD chipset systems don't seem to hold their money the same as Intel based systems so if it was Intel based you could probably add another £20 to the price. a fancy case could add a bit extra on the price but even something like an Alienware or Zalman case would be worth about £40 if you bought it 2nd hand depending of course if it has a PSU included & how good it is.

[Richard Lowe]

Originally Posted by Nick Goodall

MD Phenom quadcore, 4gb ram, ATI HD3200 GPU, extra fan on case, clear panel on side, comes with a 15'' dell flat screen monitor , comes with a dvi to hdmi cable so you can plug straight into your flat screel tv and watch blu rays etc

By the sounds of that it's going to be the lowest spec machine you could build these days bar having a reasonable amount of RAM.

All the current AMD chips are low end/low midrange, the basic design hasn't changed since the Athlon 64 that was released in 2003. The HD3200 AFAIK is built into the chipset on the motherboard, so it's not a seperate graphics card.

Looks like he's trying to just get rid of it (throwing in an old monitor), if there's no Windows license ect then offer him £50

[Nick Goodall]

Thanks guys, he's actually just told me someone bought it this afternoon so no problem, sounds like I dodged one there!!

Good news anyway, thanks for all the advice - i may be back with more questions as i start to look more thoroughly but i really just want a new PC that i can use for the odd bit of gaming (Probably only Championship Manager), Lots of photo importing, storing music and browsing the web... Multi-media type PC i suppose??

I don't need a screen as i've got a 22" HD TV above it that i use anyway so just need the Basic PC...

£200-300 get me anything worth while??

[Mad-Wolfie]

Originally Posted by Nick Goodall

£200-300 get me anything worth while??

These days for that kind of money you should be able to get something substancial, it all depends on what you want though, a Windows 7 spec machine (as in able to run Windows 7) should cover all the bases & be future-proof for a few years.

Best advice i can say is get one built in an independent place (unless you know anyone proficient in PC building) if you want to get the most for your money but make sure you get a proper licenced copy of the operating system with the machine & open office is a very good alternative to spending money on MS office.

If i was going to suggest anywhere on the high-street i would say go to Staples, they always seem to have a good range of PC's & know what they are talking about & for about £250-£300 you should be able to get something like a high end PC with a branded name on the front. Avoid places like PC world because quite frankly you may as well buy a computer from the local butchers as the local butcher would have better know-how about computers than the salemen in PC world who would just try to fill your head with confusing tech to make out they know what they are talking about & to rub salt in the wounds what they sell "cheap" is end of the line stuff or products under their own brand names which means you have to keep going back to PC world spending money should it go wrong (& it often does) or need repairs.

[andys]

Originally Posted by Nick Goodall

i really just want a new PC that i can use for the odd bit of gaming (Probably only Championship Manager), Lots of photo importing, storing music and browsing the web... Multi-media type PC i suppose??

??

Nick - without causing a riot, have you considered an older imac ?

I picked up a 20 inch (1680 x 1024 res screen) 2Ghz G5 imac for my daughter on ebay for £175 ! It has a 500Gb HD, 1gig Ram, DVD burner / player, airport, bluetooth, wireless keyboard and mouse etc.

The G5's are a bit old and won't support the new apple OS when it's released, but it's still silly fast for general use - comes with iphoto for your photos, itunes for music etc. Only one mains plug for the whole thing and no wires for anything else - neat !
Worth looking into ?

[markwilliamson2001]

You might be able to pick up one of the older generation mac mini's on ebay. This will hook up to your telly with a display port adapter, have decent sound, deal with itunes rentals, iphoto libraries, email etc etc, and take up little space under your tv. You could even get a nice wireless magic mouse, and keyboard to go with.

Hope this helps.
M.