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Help finding a new PC.

Mike G

Mike G

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Five crashes today. Slightly above average. Time I upgraded (I've a 10 year old Dell Dimension 5000 running XP Pro, with 34GB of hard drive memory and 4GB Ram).

I run Autocad and Photoshop, with the latter being secondary. I don't do gaming, or stream videos. Apparently I need 64 bits, but don't have a clue what this means. I very occasionally need to run CDs, mainly to retrieve old archived stuff. I do need 5 or 6 USB ports, and I guess it needs to run Windows 10. I don't really want to spend more than about £400.

Here are the Autocad system requirements:

Operating System
Microsoft® Windows® 10 (requires AutoCAD 2016 SP1)
Microsoft Windows 8/8.1
Microsoft Windows 7
CPU Type Minimum Intel® Pentium® 4 or AMD Athlon™ 64 processor
Memory For 32-bit AutoCAD 2016:
2 GB (3 GB recommended)
For 64-bit AutoCAD 2016:
4 GB (8 GB recommended)
Display Resolution 1024x768 (1600x1050 or higher recommended) with True Color
Display Card Windows display adapter capable of 1024x768 with True Color capabilities. DirectX® 9 or DirectX 11 compliant card recommended.

What do I need, and where do I look? Is something like this along the right lines?

Thanks in advance.
 
I hesitate to mention this, but how about a mac.

I do all my stuff on a Mac Mini desktop. I use two HD screens for all my close work (and Pinch's videos!)
 
I am out of touch with PCs but who are Ankermann? If I were to buy a PC I would stick with HP or Dell or other well known brand for the ease of problems solving if/when anything goes wrong and the availabity and ease of upgrades.
Have you had a look at the HP offerings. 400 quid seems to buy a lot theses days.
 
Personally I would go either to a local run PC shop and get them to build to your requirements (not as expensive as you might think, especially if you don't need fancy graphics cards for video streaming or gaming) or explore a major manufacturer such as Dell (although it can be a major pain to navigate their website and compare products, but try the business user tab rather than high end).

Failing that, most computer mags have 'best buy' tables for various types of kit (laptops, desktops, budget, gaming etc) and a google search will throw up loads from places such as pcadvisor.co.uk among others. Do watch the date things were reviewed however as specs change fast in PC land.

Just don't let your local NHS connect it to their network ;)

Steve
 
There are several CAD packages for the Mac but sadly they all look and feel the same as the PC versions. :lol:
 
The one on Amazon you linked to would do it but I think you could do better.

never heard of Ankermann so it is probably a budget brand and quite a strong possibility it is not a genuine windows install on it. There is some kind of work around to use a version of windows sold cheap for tablets on a PC. Not saying this is but it is a possibility.

look for an i5 processor and as high a number after it as you can get with the budget.

Autocad would work better with a graphics card if you use 3D a lot. For 2D the onboard graphics will be fine. It will do 3D but complex drawings may not pan/ zoom smoothly.

Bargains do show up on hotdealsuk but desktop PC's are a dying breed now so very infrequent.
I always build my computers from components. not always cheaper but I know what's inside and can fix any problems myself.

Looking round places i sometimes buy parts from i really struggled to find something within budget and with win 10 -

http://www.ebuyer.com/757510-hp-280-g2- ... 7q84ea-abu
i5 6500 Windows 10 but small hard drive and no wifi £408

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Speedy-CCL-3- ... Sw2gxYyQ9S
Ebay but CCL computers who are OK. i5 7400 win 10 £442


You can get good spec PC's in your budget but with no operating system.
Windows 10 pro is around £140 genuine or £10 to £25 for a dodgy licence code so you can see why care is needed.

I'll keep my eyes open for you.
 
Mike, that is i3 which is slow and old.

Robert":hcqqezdw said:
look for an i5 processor and as high a number after it as you can get with the budget.
Click to expand...

:text-+1:

If you are using it for business purposes, can't you write it off for tax and spend mabe more than GBP400?
Thats how I bought my Gigabyte laptop (i3) and wrote it off over 4 years against tax.

Phil
 
Great stuff so far. Thanks very much.

The budget could be higher, but i don't want it to be. The thing is, I am pretty sure that any new PC would exceed my system requirements, so the temptation to keep on chasing an extra bit of performance for "just another £30" leads to spending £1000 I would rather spend on oak.
 
The only addition to the above would be a solid state main drive and a normal hard drive for file storage, it will give you a faster response while working, my Autocad v14 on XP flies on this setup, tax wise you can write off 100% in the first year.
 
I have always bought Dell professionally and privately and not regretted it. For my own use I use the dell outlet which lists new machines often custom built to order and then cancelled. You can view the specs online and choose one to match or exceed your needs usually at significant savings.
Bob
 
StevieB beat me to it in recommending a local shop to build one to your spec. You will get a better machine that focuses on the things that you want to do rather than what the manufacturers 'think' you want to do.

The recommendation for a solid state drive is a good one.

I'm not PC literate any longer but double-check that there aren't any odd programs that you run once-in-a-blue-moon but which won't run under the latest version of Windows.

And any older peripherals such as printers, scanners etc.
 
as Roger said, things like serial and parallel posts are a thing of the past, unless you have them fitted.

My CNC needs a parallel post for example, and I'm using an old Del at least 15 yrs old ! just for that.

You "should" be able to have XP and Win10 on / dual boot, for any old programs.

I presume you have completely formatted the old PC and loaded XP from fresh ?
 
also, don't rule out laptops .. they usually come with an OS intalled and many are under £400

I use my laptop as if it were a desk top with Keyboard, mouse and monitor plugged in.
 
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