Which Computer?

[squarebear]

I am in the fortunate position of being offered a new PC but I have been out of the loop of PC specs for a while and wondered what other ABers use?

I won't be playing games on it apart from silly little things but nothing as intensive as Call of Duty or similar. I will be using it for internet use, Microsoft Office, and could also do with a speedy machine for coding my artificial intelligence work. Any recommendations would be great.

As a separate issue, my wife is thinking of getting a Nexus tablet. Does anyone have one and do you like it if so? We've seen a few online reviews but if someone here actually owns one could tell me their thoughts, that too would be great.

[ChuckFickens]

Not a question I expected from you, SB...

Desktop or laptop?

TBH... for simple gaming the intel hd4000 graphics is enough these days (it beats mid range ati/nvidea graphics from 2 years ago!) so go for a ivy bridge CPU.

I'd say go for anything with a full i5 or (better) i7 ivy bridge, built in graphics, as much RAM as you can and a SSD for the system drive.

[squarebear]

Cheers Chuck. I am after a desktop preferably. I'm more of a software guy than hardware but was hoping you would pop along.

[ChuckFickens]

I'm not really into "home use" hardware these days either!

But for a workstation desktops, we are buying HP Z220's with 8GB ram and an I7 CPU at the moment, we're getting them with nvidea 410 graphics cards but by the sound of it you could drop the graphics and go for a xeon CPU.

Give us an idea of the money you want to spend though?

[squarebear]

I think £1000 would be the top limit Chuck. Yes, I'm not bothered about a super graphics card, as I won't be playing games.

[MarkRae]

I use these people a lot: http://www.nsysonline.co.uk/

Click Home Computers, Traditional Home PC and then select the Storm Force 1 option. Customise according to taste, e.g.

Processor: Intel Quad Core i5 2500k 3.3GHz
Processor Cooling: Quiet high quality unit
Memory: 8GB High Speed DDR3 1600MHz
Hard Drive: 1TB High Speed Sata UDMA600
Graphic Card: 1GB GeForce GTX 550 Ti
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
Monitor: Not Required
Keyboard & Mouse: Not Required
Speakers: Not Required
Optical Drive: Combined Blu Ray, CD,DVD writer
Case Options: Basic Black Case

They use top quality parts which means that they are very reliable. If you don't need an OS, that can be discounted too.

[squarebear]

That's great. Cheers Mark. I'll check them out.

[ChuckFickens]

The only thing I'd point out about MR's link is it has a sandy bridge CPU, not the more recent Ivy bridge, although the biggest improvement of the ivy bridge is the onboard graphics (which wouldn't be relevant as that machine has a mid range nvidea card) there are small performance and power use improvements in the ivy bridge.

For your requirements I'd personally be looking at something with a ivy bridge i7

[ChuckFickens]

Something like this, although I'd probably upgrade the RAM a bit more.
Amazon.co.uk User Recommendation

[Old_Geezer]

FWIW I used the advice at http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/buyers-guide/2012/08/31/pc-hardware-buyer-s-guide-august-2012/1 for the last few I made.

[squarebear]

Thanks all. I've passed those links to the person who may be buying it for me and I'll see what he says. Much appreciated.

[ChuckFickens]

How posh is that... you have a person to do it for you ;)

[MarkRae]

They do Ivy Bridge too, obviously...

[ChuckFickens]

I checked all the drop down menu options and they were all 2XXX processors, although as the ivy bridge is socket compatible there's no reason why they couldn't supply ivy bridge on request instead.

[MarkRae]

Indeed. If you want anything specific, just email them and tell Simon that Mark Rae sent you... :-)

[beso]

I recently bought a Toshiba all-in-one. Its portability is great. Nice being able to pick up the "monitor", power supply, wireless keyboard and mouse and have the whole PC.

Essentially it is i5 laptop hardware built into a 22 touch sensitive monitor. Has a TV tuner too.

It is very good on power and can also run two external monitors via HDMI ports.