New computer

[ThurmanMunster]

My laptop is trash now, small hard drive and everything sucks.

I'm thinking I'm better off just buying a desktop because I can get a lot more bang for my buck. I figure if I buy a new computer I can transfer anything from this computer that I want over to that one. Then I will wipe this laptop clean and use it as just an internet surfer.


Do most people have laptop or desktops? I loved a laptop when I was younger and in school, but I don't think I really need a laptop anymore. Opinions?

[PutWittyNameHere]

You definitely save a ton of money on a desktop, especially if you (or a friend) build it yourself. That's what I always do, and I always end up with a really kick ass computer for less than $1000 that's probably cost $2500 had I bought it in stores.

Also, desktops are easily upgradable, which means they'll lave much more useful for a far longer time. With laptops, you can upgrade memory and hard drive space, and that's about it. With a desktop, everything is upgradable for relatively cheap.

The only thing a laptop gives you is the portability, which is understandably important in many cases. But if you don't need the portability, it's a no-brainer.

[-GoBengals-]

i can't imagine living without a laptop...

[ThurmanMunster]

Agreed. Any recommendations on specs? I want it for a long time probably spend about 500-700 on it. I might game some on it, but I won't be a hardcore gamer.


I use my droid phone/ipad for portability situations now.

[quote name='GoBengals' timestamp='1338329258' post='1133002']
i can't imagine living without a laptop...
[/quote]

you do video/image and music editing stuff though right? i dont do any of that.

[Jason]

I have one of each. And a pad.

[esjbh2]

[quote name='PutWittyNameHere' timestamp='1338328695' post='1133001']
You definitely save a ton of money on a desktop, especially if you (or a friend) build it yourself. That's what I always do, and I always end up with a really kick ass computer for less than $1000 that's probably cost $2500 had I bought it in stores.

Also, desktops are easily upgradable, which means they'll lave much more useful for a far longer time. With laptops, you can upgrade memory and hard drive space, and that's about it. With a desktop, everything is upgradable for relatively cheap.

The only thing a laptop gives you is the portability, which is understandably important in many cases. But if you don't need the portability, it's a no-brainer.
[/quote]
I really hate to agree with a Stealers fan, but this advice is right on the mark IMHO.

I have both, and assuming your older laptop is still usable, you can squeeze some life out of it. If you can re-image the laptop (reload O/S, etc) after you get the desktop setup, this will also help its speed/usefulness.

[BengalsOwn]

Now that I'm basically done with college, my laptop is collecting dust. Prior to that, it was only used when I was in class.

Desktop PC all the way.

If I want to jump online or something while I'm on the couch I just use my phone.

[PutWittyNameHere]

[quote name='ThurmanMunster' timestamp='1338329366' post='1133003']
Agreed. Any recommendations on specs? I want it for a long time probably spend about 500-700 on it. I might game some on it, but I won't be a hardcore gamer.

[/quote]

Here's my advice if you're going into this with the plan of building your own:

The key to owning a desktop and maximizing its lifespan is to go into with the mindset that you'll be putting money into it later. Don't think of it as a one-time investment. Buy what you need, and spend what you can realistically afford, but do it with an eye a year or two down the road.

With that in mind, you can skimp on processor speed (and even motherboard). People who don't know much about building computers automatically think the processor is the most important component and immediately jump on the highest clock speed they can find, and those people couldn't possibly be more wrong. Unless you're doing some really intense processing, such as high-end image or mathematics processing, the processor actually isn't that important. For example, my processor is a quad-core that I bought over 4 years ago (and wasn't even top of the line then), and I have yet to do anything that made me want to upgrade to a faster processor. I use my desktop for software development that is probably more processor intensive than anything you'll be doing, and it still runs like a champ. Same thing with gaming. Games rely far more on video card and memory than they do processor. If you go with a lower to mid end quad core, you'll more than likely be fine. You'll probably even be OK with a higher end dual core, if need be.

Instead of spending a ton of money on the processor, put that money into your RAM and video card. You'll get much more bang for the buck. I'd start with 8 GB of RAM, if you can swing it. If you're really trying to stay in a budget, you can get away with 4 GB, but more RAM is always better. And the important thing with RAM is that you want to buy it in a configuration that will let you easily expand later on without having to discard RAM you're already using. And what I mean by that is that most motherboards have between 4 and 8 slots for RAM. So, if you only want to do 4 GB of RAM on a motherboard that only has four slots, then buy two 2 GB memory sticks (leaving you two empty slots) instead of buying four 1 GB sticks. It may cost a few more dollars, but you'll save a good bit of money a year or two down the line when you want to get more RAM. Instead of having to discard two of those memory sticks to upgrade, you'll be able to just plop two new ones straight in and maximize your investment.

If you're into gaming, then a video card will probably be your most expensive investment, but it's also the area that's most worth splurging on. I wouldn't go below a 1 GB card, which will probably be between $150 and $240, depending on the details. You generally get what you pay for here, so buy what you can. My approach when building a new PC is generally to plan all the other components out, then just dumping whatever is left of my budget into the video card.

This probably won't be much of an option with a $700 budget, but solid state hard drives are a great way to get a performance boost. I'll skip the boring details, but hard drives and oft-overlooked bottleneck with regards to performance. A regular hard drive (7200rpm or above) won't kill performance by any means, but a solid state will knock an already fast computer into the the next level of performance. Unfortunately, they're still pretty expensive to buy, but it's something to keep in mind.

And like I said, all of this is extremely easy to upgrade in the future. So if you want to cut corners and buy a piece that you're pretty sure will be outdated in a year, that's perfectly fine. You can just buy what you need to get buy right now, then buy new pieces as you need them, or as your budget allows. It's not a big deal with a desktop.

[-GoBengals-]

whats the processor in your current laptop? the two easiest and cheapest things to upgrade in the laptop are the HD and the RAM..

$150 and you could have 750GB hard drive and 6GB ram in it..

just a thought after all the build your own talk..

[PutWittyNameHere]

[quote name='GoBengals' timestamp='1338350430' post='1133033']
whats the processor in your current laptop? the two easiest and cheapest things to upgrade in the laptop are the HD and the RAM..

$150 and you could have 750GB hard drive and 6GB ram in it..

just a thought after all the build your own talk..
[/quote]

Come on, man. We're nerds, we're supposed to be doing everything possible to encourage people to build their own computers, not steering them away from it. It's in the by-laws!

[MULLY]

Unless you know what you're doing I wouldn't recommend taking on the task of building your own. You're better off heading down to the computer shop with a bit of knowledge and picking out something that suits your needs.

I have an iMac for my desk and I have 2 Windows laptops. I use one laptop here at school and the other one is at my house on the first floor. The iMac is up in the man cave. I know my way around a PC more than a Mac but I gotta tell ya, the Mac sure is user friendly. I don't think I'll go back to a desktop PC ever again. Meh, doesn't matter anyway as I have a 1TB HD on the iMac and partitioned it off and installed Windows 7. I have the best of both worlds on there....although I hardly ever use the Windows side of it.
MULLY
BTW, back to the original intent of this thread, if you're in no need for portability there's nothing wrong with going with a desktop.

[PutWittyNameHere]

[quote name='Fulcher_33' timestamp='1338358975' post='1133040']
Unless you know what you're doing I wouldn't recommend taking on the task of building your own. You're better off heading down to the computer shop with a bit of knowledge and picking out something that suits your needs.

I have an iMac for my desk and I have 2 Windows laptops. I use one laptop here at school and the other one is at my house on the first floor. The iMac is up in the man cave. I know my way around a PC more than a Mac but I gotta tell ya, the Mac sure is user friendly. I don't think I'll go back to a desktop PC ever again. Meh, doesn't matter anyway as I have a 1TB HD on the iMac and partitioned it off and installed Windows 7. I have the best of both worlds on there....although I hardly ever use the Windows side of it.
MULLY
BTW, back to the original intent of this thread, if you're in no need for portability there's nothing wrong with going with a desktop.
[/quote]

My opinion differs a bit on that one. I have a Macbook Pro, and absolutely love it. I think it's the best laptop money can buy. The multi-gesture touchpad alone justified the extra price, in my opinion. Even beyond that, there's seemingly hundreds of little things that make it a far superior laptop than anything I've ever owned. The aluminum case not only makes it lighter and sturdier, but it also has the added benefit of being an outstanding heatsink. The fans are so quiet, I literally don't think I've ever heard them running. And having the fans disperse the air up through the keys instead of out the side/back, or worse, bottom, is pure genius. The speakers in my MacBook rival my desktop speaker and not only volume, but also quality. The screen looks great. And best of all, I can actually count on my MacBook to not crash when returning from hibernate mode (and, in fact, being up and ready to use in mere seconds)! (Windows has been around for 25+ years, and they still haven't figured out how to do this reliably. That boggles my mind).

That said, I'm not crazy about Mac OS. I've been using it for 4 years now, and I'm still not all that thrilled with it. It's fast, responsive, and pretty...I'll give it that. I just don't think it's as intuitive as many people like to think, and I actually think it's getting worse with each new version. I'm not a fan of this trend of Mac OS and iOS slowly creeping closer and closer together.

And it's for that lack of love of Mac OS that I couldn't see myself ever buying a desktop Mac. I love my MacBook because of all the great hardware things that I listed above that make it easier to use. But that stuff doesn't translate to a desktop machine. I don't particularly care how sturdy the case is because I'm not going to be moving it very often. I don't care how hot the outside case is because my desktop tower is stuffed under my desk and I have very few reasons to ever physically touch it. Quietness could be a nice benefit, but not important enough to really justify that price tag. A desktop obviously doesn't ever run on a battery, so I really don't care about hibernate mode. I'd actually prefer that it just shuts the monitor down and that's it. The screen on the iMacs is pretty, sure. But at that price tag, I can buy a monitor for a PC that looks just as good. External speakers are cheap enough that I don't really care how good the included speakers are for an iMac.

All personal preference, I guess.

[|Elflocko|]

[quote]I actually think it's getting worse with each new version. I'm not a fan of this trend of Mac OS and iOS slowly creeping closer and closer together. [/quote]

I wholeheartedly agree with this; I increasingly find myself asking "Why in the [b]fuck[/b] are they doing it this way?", particularly with Lion. I [i]know[/i] why they're doing it that way, but I'm still not a fan of melding the two OS'. I don't want my laptop functioning the same way as my phone because I use them for entirely separate reasons and purposes. The "Swipe to go back or forward" behavior in a browser for example has fucked me up on more than one occasion. I do kinda like the built-in spell check though.

I find myself seriously considering a ThinkPad T520 running Linux instead of another MBP here in the next year. I just don't know that I want to go to all the hassle of moving 36GB of photos and 120GB of music out of iPhoto and iTunes. Hopping the wall in the garden and all. If you're looking for an alternative to the MBP ThinkPad is the way to go in terms of fit, finish, and tactile response from the keys. The keyboard is the best part of the laptop; solid without excessive clicking and a feel that reminds me of the old PowerBooks. And the guts come out of the same factory as the MacBooks. You have to go T420 or up to get that quality though; the lower end ThinkPads are just as plastic and shitty as the other models out there today.

Good shit all around in this thread, witty.

Are you [i]sure[/i] you're a Steeler fan?

[PutWittyNameHere]

[quote name='Elflocko' timestamp='1338391280' post='1133082']

Good shit all around in this thread, witty.

Are you [i]sure[/i] you're a Steeler fan?
[/quote]

Hey, not ALL Steeler fans are dumb yinzers. Most of them, yes. But not ALL of them.

[-GoBengals-]

[quote name='PutWittyNameHere' timestamp='1338350903' post='1133035']
Come on, man. We're nerds, we're supposed to be doing everything possible to encourage people to build their own computers, not steering them away from it. It's in the by-laws!
[/quote]

not if its a PC...

i say save up 400-500 more and buy a macbook pro. Spend $90 on a 1TB hard drive, another $60 on 8GB ram. and dont have any computer problems or concerns for the next 5-6 years..

[mongo]

I say put your money in mobo and CPU. Video cards cycle quickly, and you can always upgrade on the cheap. RAM is both cheap, and easy to upgrade.... Fucking around on your motherboard or your CPU means upgrading, and they are the two most obnoxious components to upgrade. I hate the mess of arctic silver, and the hassle of unhooking and rebooking everything up. Screwing around with all the driver changes on mobos and CPU's can blow too.

[PutWittyNameHere]

[quote name='mongo' timestamp='1338424387' post='1133206']
I say put your money in mobo and CPU. Video cards cycle quickly, and you can always upgrade on the cheap. RAM is both cheap, and easy to upgrade.... Fucking around on your motherboard or your CPU means upgrading, and they are the two most obnoxious components to upgrade. I hate the mess of arctic silver, and the hassle of unhooking and rebooking everything up. Screwing around with all the driver changes on mobos and CPU's can blow too.
[/quote]

If you're a hardcore nerd who absolutely must have the latest and greatest thing, then that's a legitimate strategy. But the OP doesn't need latest and greatest (nor seem like he really even wants it), especially when it comes to motherboard and CPU. For what he's using it for, he can easily buy a mid-range CPU and motherboard and not need an upgrade for the next 4-5 years. For him to stay under his $700 budget, it's much more cost effective to skimp on CPU and motherboard and go for the better video card right now. For what he's going to be using it for, he's not going to notice much difference between a $130 CPU and a $300 CPU, especially if he puts more money into RAM and video card right now. Checking email, surfing the web, and playing the occasional video isn't isn't even remotely CPU intensive. So I just don't see a point in sinkinga bunch of cash into those components.

[|Bunghole|]

FWIW (and to illustrate the rarest of rarieties, a Steelers fan with knowledge) I am running an AMD Athlon 5200 dual core processor at 2.7 ghz that I have had since 2007, Windows 7 Premium with 4GB of DDR2 Kingston RAM, an out of date Asus motherboard, but (wait for it) a Radeon HD 6750 GPU card, which is decidedly middle of the road these days, and I can run Skyrim on almost full on graphics. It helps that I pay for a really fast internet connection with other applications (30Mb down, about 6Mb up) but to the OP...you can get a good PC for cheap. Apple computers are a LOT more expensive and for regular, normal use (internet surfing, gaming) I don't see the cost benefit.

You can get on Ebay and get a tower for about $500 right now that will blow my PC away in terms of specs, and as long as you have some type of AV and malware software installed (I have been using Avast and Malwarebytes for over four years and have never gotten a virus), you are good. For what you want I wouldn't spend the extra money on a Mac. You can endlessly game on a PC for years provided you upgrade your RAM and GPU after a few years like I had to do (used to have an Nvidia GT 9600 card...got old).

[mongo]

To clarify: Asus makes good motherboards.

And you never skimp on the motherboard. Everything runs from there. I can't tell you how many crappy motherboards I've seen that are unable to do much in the way of upgrades. You need a quality mobo that has the slots for the upgrades you'll want over time... You don't have to buy the $500 Overclocker special, but avoid the crappy $60 mobo.

[|Bunghole|]

[quote name='mongo' timestamp='1338432624' post='1133239']
To clarify: Asus makes good motherboards.

And you never skimp on the motherboard. Everything runs from there. I can't tell you how many crappy motherboards I've seen that are unable to do much in the way of upgrades. You need a quality mobo that has the slots for the upgrades you'll want over time... You don't have to buy the $500 Overclocker special, but avoid the crappy $60 mobo.
[/quote]

I didn't mean to suggest that a crappy, cheap motherboard is the way to go, rather, that mine is outdated to the tune of me no longer being able to replace it cheaply if it fries and that if it keeps going, the GPU and RAM (plus speedy internet connection) are really more important than anything else. If that makes sense.

I'm recommending a cheap Windows PC over a Mac because if you are careful enough, get the right hardware and run the right A/V programs, you will stay within your budget and get a kick ass PC for not a lot of money. There's really no arguing the expense issue...Apples are considerably more expensive.

[PutWittyNameHere]

[quote name='mongo' timestamp='1338432624' post='1133239']
To clarify: Asus makes good motherboards.

And you never skimp on the motherboard. Everything runs from there. I can't tell you how many crappy motherboards I've seen that are unable to do much in the way of upgrades. You need a quality mobo that has the slots for the upgrades you'll want over time... You don't have to buy the $500 Overclocker special, but avoid the crappy $60 mobo.
[/quote]

Well, yeah, you never go bottom of the barrel on ANY PC components. But to overpay for a motherboard for a computer that will only be an email reader and occasional gamer is a waste of money. He won't need 8 memory slots. In fact, he could get away with 4 if he does it right. More is always better, of course, but when you're building on a budget, you have to cut corners somewhere, and CPU and motherboard are the best places to do it for what he's going to use it for.

[|Bunghole|]

[quote name='PutWittyNameHere' timestamp='1338433947' post='1133244']
Well, yeah, you never go bottom of the barrel on ANY PC components. But to overpay for a motherboard for a computer that will only be an email reader and occasional gamer is a waste of money. He won't need 8 memory slots. In fact, he could get away with 4 if he does it right. More is always better, of course, but when you're building on a budget, you have to cut corners somewhere, and CPU and motherboard are the best places to do it for what he's going to use it for.
[/quote]

How significant is BUS speed and isn't that associated with the motherboard?

[MULLY]

FWIW, I want a MacBook. I only keep the PC around because I don't want to be without one.....just in case.....and I don't even know what that just in case would be. hahaha!! As for the desktop vs iMac, there is one thing that will make me NEVER go back to the desktop PC, there is only one fucking cord. Every PC I've ever seen, even with wireless keyboard and mouse, still has a ton of fucking spaghetti behind it. My iMac has one power cord and then I have my printer running in via USB. That's it.....and I'm pretty sure I could do the printer wireless if I could figure out how.
MULLY

[PutWittyNameHere]

[quote name='Bunghole' timestamp='1338434307' post='1133249']
How significant is BUS speed and isn't that associated with the motherboard?
[/quote]

For what Thurman says he's going to be using it for....not super important. And yes, it is associated with the motherboard. If he made an effort to go out and find the worst motherboard imaginable, then yeah, he might hit a bottleneck there. But if he buys something in the $100-$120 range, it's probably not going to be a concern.

[-GoBengals-]

[quote name='Fulcher_33' timestamp='1338437610' post='1133254']
FWIW, I want a MacBook. I only keep the PC around because I don't want to be without one.....just in case.....and I don't even know what that just in case would be. hahaha!! As for the desktop vs iMac, there is one thing that will make me NEVER go back to the desktop PC, there is only one fucking cord. Every PC I've ever seen, even with wireless keyboard and mouse, still has a ton of fucking spaghetti behind it. My iMac has one power cord and then I have my printer running in via USB. That's it.....and I'm pretty sure I could do the printer wireless if I could figure out how.
MULLY
[/quote]

and the new macbooks are gonna be super nasty... thinner, retina display, using the new intel chips they just released... i think its supposed to be announced june 10th?