Desktop work computer system - buying tips

[QuikSand]

Yes yes, it's time once again for "tap into the FOFC neural nerd network."

I'm looking to replace my work computer station, but it looks like it's been long enough since I have purchased a computer myself that I am pretty completely out of the loop with terminology and specs. If anyone here has any guidance -- or can just point me toward a site that is useful for such things, I'd be most grateful.

Here are my main needs:

-I am a pretty frequent multi-tasker, so in a typical day I will have maybe 3-6 Word documents open, maybe a couple of Excel documents, maybe one Adobe/pdf document, one email client (we use GroupWise), one blackberry interface in the background, and one instance of Firefox with multiple tabs. On top of this, I fairly often will run iTunes through my computer, and that seems to be a memory grabber, too. Bottom line here is that I run into some memory problems with my current system (a nearly 3 year old laptop from Dell) and I'd like to get my performance in this typical environment to be smoother and faster.

-I already have purchased two 24" monitors for the system, and I have all the basic accessories in hand already -- so I'm looking for a new system that can handle the monitors' real estate, but I don't need a complete system with a new mouse and keyboard and whatnot.

-As for gaming, I likely will use this system for odds and ends, but nothing super graphics intensive. I play text sims here and there, and I suppose the most demanding of those is Football Manager. I'd also envision myself loading up some games like Civ or Spore for more idle times. So, as far as graphics capabilities, I guess I don't have high-end needs, but I also wouldn't want to be too dramatically limited there.

-I don't think I am a storage hog... my 80MD hard drive on my current system is mostly full, but that includes a lot of music files that are obviously better placed on portable drives. The systems I'm seeing all have more memory that I can imagine using (though I basically said that about the 80 MB a couple of years ago, I suppose).

-I have heard horror stories about Vista, and don't know what OS makes sense for me. Looks like Dell charges extra for a downgrade... not sure what to do there.

-My office has (shares) an IT guy, and he seems to like having the Dell warranties, so we tend to buy from them. I don't have any strong feelings there, no loyalty for nor aversion to them, but that's the rather likely buy spot if I end up with some guidance on specs.

Past that, nothing too complicated. Any thoughts on what sort of chip and setup makes the most sense for me? I'm more or less a standard business computer user, I'd guess...but I am pretty impatient with the increasing stream of "not responding" messages I get from various applications in my current system.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Yes yes, it's time once again for "tap into the FOFC neural nerd network."

I'm looking to replace my work computer station, but it looks like it's been long enough since I have purchased a computer myself that I am pretty completely out of the loop with terminology and specs. If anyone here has any guidance -- or can just point me toward a site that is useful for such things, I'd be most grateful.

Here's where I go to monitor deals.
HP Deals, Computer Coupons and Bargains - GotApex?
http://www.techbargains.com/
Hot Deals - SlickDeals.net Forums

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Here are my main needs:

-I am a pretty frequent multi-tasker, so in a typical day I will have maybe 3-6 Word documents open, maybe a couple of Excel documents, maybe one Adobe/pdf document, one email client (we use GroupWise), one blackberry interface in the background, and one instance of Firefox with multiple tabs. On top of this, I fairly often will run iTunes through my computer, and that seems to be a memory grabber, too. Bottom line here is that I run into some memory problems with my current system (a nearly 3 year old laptop from Dell) and I'd like to get my performance in this typical environment to be smoother and faster.

-I already have purchased two 24" monitors for the system, and I have all the basic accessories in hand already -- so I'm looking for a new system that can handle the monitors' real estate, but I don't need a complete system with a new mouse and keyboard and whatnot.

-As for gaming, I likely will use this system for odds and ends, but nothing super graphics intensive. I play text sims here and there, and I suppose the most demanding of those is Football Manager. I'd also envision myself loading up some games like Civ or Spore for more idle times. So, as far as graphics capabilities, I guess I don't have high-end needs, but I also wouldn't want to be too dramatically limited there.

-I don't think I am a storage hog... my 80MD hard drive on my current system is mostly full, but that includes a lot of music files that are obviously better placed on portable drives. The systems I'm seeing all have more memory that I can imagine using (though I basically said that about the 80 MB a couple of years ago, I suppose).

-I have heard horror stories about Vista, and don't know what OS makes sense for me. Looks like Dell charges extra for a downgrade... not sure what to do there.

It doesn't look as if you have very intense needs other than for lots of RAM and a basic graphics card. I guess you would be looking at i7 vs core 2 quads. Don't think the i7 premium would be worth it to you.

I don't like Vista either but I'm sure its just me. Windows 7 is coming out which is supposed to be a more refined version of Vista. Any desktop you buy now should be giving you a free upgrade coupon.

Originally Posted by QuikSand

-My office has (shares) an IT guy, and he seems to like having the Dell warranties, so we tend to buy from them. I don't have any strong feelings there, no loyalty for nor aversion to them, but that's the rather likely buy spot if I end up with some guidance on specs.

Past that, nothing too complicated. Any thoughts on what sort of chip and setup makes the most sense for me? I'm more or less a standard business computer user, I'd guess...but I am pretty impatient with the increasing stream of "not responding" messages I get from various applications in my current system.

I'm a Dell desktop person myself. I don't think they would be good for a gaming enthusiast but you don't fit that category so it should be fine.

An option is to get a nice laptop with a discrete gpu. This allows for portability but with a price premium. I'm partial to the Lenovo Thinkpads.

[Icy]

Sorry don't have time for a full written up, but i'll give you some tips as your requirements are similar to mines. Lots of programs open, dual monitor setup, and impatient when you need to wait switching from one program to another or when doing a lot of different things at same time.

For multitasking, go for a quad processor (i7 from intel is great but expensive and the new toy for hardcore gamers mainly, you can look at older quadcore from Intel or the cheaper AMD ones). Also RAM is really important, but to use more than 3Gb you need a 64bit OS (more on that later). If you go for a 64bits OS, then get a minimum of 4gb RAM, but as it's cheap now, you can go for like 8gb. When multitasking, you have a lot of info stored in RAM, and if you don't have enough, windows will use your hard drive instead, that will slow down things a lot.

To be able to use more than 3gb of ram, I highly recommend getting Windows 7 64bits OS. You can download it from Microsoft site and It's free until the end of 2010 i think. I have it in this new notebook and i have zero problems with it, it's what Vista should have been. Both win2k 64 and Vista 64 had a lot of issues with drivers (specially the first), but Windows 7 64 has way less troubles for drivers or at least it's what i have found. As you are going to get a new PC, everything will be new hardware, so drivers won't be an issue anyway unless you have really old external devices without support (printers, scanners, etc).

With Windows 7 64bit you can use as much ram as you want and you save like $100 in the OS at least until the end of next year if you can buy the PC without OS, then you can decide to purchase it or not based on a full year of experience. My Pc is no turned off for like a month, but when i need to, i want it loading fast, and windows 7 loads really really fast compared with 2k or Vista. The installation is really easy, just download, burn in a dvd and install with everything on default. Once installed it will autosearch for all the required drivers. If the Pc comes with Vista already installed, you can run the Windows 7 DVD from it and it will upgrade easily from Vista to Windows 7.

As for graphic card, i can help as i recently bought one and researched a lot the market. Unless you want to over-expend on the latest gaming toy, i would go for an Ati Radeon 4750 that is a middle level new model that has surpassed even more expensive gaming ones on different tests. The reason of it's great performance at low price is that it uses the new 40nm chips that use less energy, heat less and have incredible performance. You can run any modern 3d game at full detail with that card, and it has 2 DVI outputs for dual monitors, that i also run my my desktop with that card. that card is under $100 right now, and surpasses in performance some $200 older models.

Here is a review of that card:
Radeon HD 4750 RV740 review | preview |test

[QuikSand]

Thanks for the guidance so far...

So, from the Dell customizing menus:

A faster processor increases the efficiency and performance of your applications and operations.
Intel® Core™ 2 Quad processor Q8200 (4MB L2, 2.33GHz, 1333FSB) [Included in Price]
Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q8300 (4MB L2, 2.5GHz, 1333FSB) [add $90]
Intel® Core™ 2 Quad processor Q9300 (6MB L2, 2.5GHz, 1333FSB) [add $170]
Intel® Core™ 2 Quad processor Q9400 (6MB L2, 2.66GHz, 1333FSB) [add $140]
Intel® Core™ 2 Quad processor Q9550 (12MB L2, 2.83GHz, 1333FSB) [add $200]
Intel® Core™ 2 Quad processor Q9650 (12MB L2, 3.00GHz, 1333FSB) [add $260]


More memory (RAM) increases overall performance and enables your computer to run more applications at the same time
6GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 4DIMMs [Included in Price]
8GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 4DIMMs [add $50]


16X DVD+/-RW Drive [Included in Price]
Single Drive: Internal Qflix-enabled DVD Burner [add $20]
Dual Drives: 16x DVD-ROM Drive + 16x DVD+/-RW w/ dbl layer write capable [add $30]
Dual Drives: Internal Qflix-enabled DVD Burner and DVD-ROM [add $50]
16X CD/DVD Burner + Roxio Creator 10 Premier - Ultimate Burn/Authoring [add $79]
Unlock your DVD-burner power: edit and enhance your video project!
Blu-ray Disc (BD) Combo (Reads BD and Writes to DVD/CD) [add $120]
Single Drive: Blu-ray Disc (BD) Burner (Writes to DVD/CD/BD) [add $200]
Dual Drives: Blu-ray Disc (BD) Burner (Writes to DVD/CD/BD) and DVD+/-RW [add $230]


ATI Radeon HD 4350 512MB [Included in Price]
ATI RADEON HD 4670 512MB [add $90]
ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB [add $120]

This is the stuff that basically loses me... I hate to just feel like "you must get what you pay for."

[QuikSand]

Here's a system listing from Costco, as well...

An award-winning American manufacturer, ZT Systems is celebrating 15 years building high quality PCs right here in the USA. All ZT computers feature Lifetime 24/7 Toll Free Technical Support.

Processor & Memory:

*

Intel® Core™ i7 Processor 920 (2.66GHz)
* 8MB Intel Smart Cache
* Intel X58 + ICH10R chipset
* 12GB DDR3 SDRAM triple channel memory (2GB x 6)

Drives:

* 1TB (7,200RPM) SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
* DVD±RW optical drive
* Front Panel 19-in-1 digital multimedia card reader

Graphics & Video:

* 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400 GS graphics
* VGA and DVI outputs

Communications:

* 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN

Audio:

* Flexible 8-channel capable audio with jack sensing

Keyboard & Mouse:

* ZT 104-Key Desktop Keyboard
* ZT Optical Mouse

Expandability (total bays):

* 4 x 5.25" external
* 2 x 3.5" external
* 3 x 3.5" internal
* 2 x PCIe x16
* 1 x PCIe x4
* 1 x PCI

Ports and Slots (total):

* 6 x USB 2.0 ports
* 1 x IEEE1394 (FireWire)
* 1 x eSATA
* 2 x PS/2
* 1 x RJ45 (LAN)
* Audio output jacks (rear)

Operating System:

* Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit)

Additional Software:

* Symantec Norton Internet Security 2009 (90-day trial)

Additional Information:

* CPU dimensions: 17.5" D x 8.5" W x 20.75" H
* Power supply: 430W
* Lifetime, 24/7 toll-free phone support
* Email and fax support from 9am-6pm EST
* For information, visit www.ztsystems.com/support

[Model Affinity 7416Ti-41]

...priced at $1,000.

[Marc Vaughan]

Basically you need something fairly decent as you want to play games and also use it for heavy duty memory intensive tasks from the sounds of things (ie. lots of various docs at once).

I'd recommend looking for a system with at least 4Gb of RAM, preferably 8Gb if you can afford it.

For the types of games you're playing by the sounds of it you don't need a ninja graphics card BUT having one which is reasonably up to date is a good idea imho.

If you want to run LOTS of leagues in FM then I'd recommend as fast a processor as possible with as many cores (QuadCore = good, basically twice as good as my current Windows dev system ) as possible - FM is HEAVILY into multi-threading and such things will make a huge difference to the games performance when processing.

PS - Just read your prior post about the CostCo system, buy it that rocks imho ... blows my development laptop into the ground and them stomps on it several times just to be on the safe side (I've a oldstyle Pentium Duo with 8Gb) ...

[Daimyo]

A few general points...

If you need to save money don't worry about sacrificing processor clock speed. The trend of the last four years has been to scale out in number of cores and not to scale up in clock speed. If you need to save money I'd get a quad core processor at the lowest/cheapest clock speed. Scaling back clock speed (even a little bit) also saves a lot of power if you're into that environmental stuff.

Don't sacrifice on memory/RAM. 4GB should be considered the absolute minimum and 8GB should be considered if its affordable. (I wouldn't spend an extra grand to go from 4 to 8GB as Apple charges for the iMacs and Macbooks, but I'd spend up to a couple hundred to do so). Keep in mind, however, if you go above 4GB you will need to run a 64-bit OS to take advantage of the extra memory.

Vista wasn't a great leap over XP, but its not bad on good hardware. Almost all the horror stories were from people running it on computers that weren't really cut out for it. If you go with more than 4GB RAM (and thus a 64-bit OS), I wouldn't consider XP because the 64-bit version of XP has a lot more compatibility concerns than the 64-bit version of Vista. Windows 7 is releasing very soon (anytime from between a few weeks from now and September) and is supposed to be much improved over Vista in terms of performance and usability. I haven't played it with it, but my guys at work who have like it and say it is faster than Vista. If you can wait for it, you should consider it.

You don't need a great graphics card, but don't get a crappy one either. I don't really know what's out there now so I can't say much more than that. Vista (and OS X) both need decent graphics power and the emerging trend now is to start offloading non-graphics stuff to the GPU so you'll at least want something decent.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by Icy

As for graphic card, i can help as i recently bought one and researched a lot the market. Unless you want to over-expend on the latest gaming toy, i would go for an Ati Radeon 4750 that is a middle level new model that has surpassed even more expensive gaming ones on different tests. The reason of it's great performance at low price is that it uses the new 40nm chips that use less energy, heat less and have incredible performance. You can run any modern 3d game at full detail with that card, and it has 2 DVI outputs for dual monitors, that i also run my my desktop with that card. that card is under $100 right now, and surpasses in performance some $200 older models.

Here is a review of that card:
Radeon HD 4750 RV740 review | preview |test

That's helpful... the review is positive, but gets a bit technical for me. Should I basically presume that the model numbers are in ascending order relative to quality? That review seems to suggest so, but that doesn't really give me too firm footing, if you follow my worry.

[gstelmack]

I slapped this together pretty quick at Dell, it's a $1049 Core i7 system. Depending on your work ordering system (Dell also has an EPP program and other ways to order) you may be able to get it a bit more customized, like tweak the warranty, get rid of Office Works (or get full Office), etc. But you want 64-bit and a good quad-core. I'm a fan of the i7 and Vista 64-bit (which is MUCH more stable than XP 64-bit) and you can upgrade to Windows 7 when it comes out fairly easily. 6 GB of RAM is probably enough, but feel free to go to 12 if you REALLY want room.

Date 7/12/2009 4:05:58 PM Central Standard Time Catalog Number 4 Retail 04
	Catalog Number / Description		Product Code		Qty		SKU		Id
	Studio XPS: Studio XPS 435		435TB		1		[224-4375]		1
	Processors: Intel® Core™ i7-920 processor(8MB L3 Cache, 2.66GHz)		MI7920		1		[317-0067]		2
	Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1, 64-Bit		VHP61E		1		[330-3184][420-6436][420-8873][420-8874][420-9691][421-0084][421-0323][463-2282]		11
	Service: 1 Year Ltd Warranty, On-site Service, and HW Warranty Support		Q1YOS		1		[412-0359][960-8700][988-7347][992-6060][993-5457]		29
	Office Productivity Software (Pre-Installed): Microsoft® Works 9		XWRK9		1		[420-8103]		22
	Memory: 6GB Tri-Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1066MHz - 6 DIMMs		6G1066D		1		[317-0076]		3
	Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 4350 512MB		AT4350		1		[320-8143]		6
	Hard Drives: 500GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive		500S		1		[341-8516]		8
	Optical Drives: Single Drive: 16X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability		16DVDRW		1		[313-7425][420-8152][421-0997]		16
	Monitor: No Monitor		N		1		[320-7810]		5
	Sound Card: Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio		IS		1		[313-7186]		17
	Speaker: No speakers (Speakers are required to hear audio from your system)		N		1		[313-4514]		18
	Modem: No Modem Option		N		1		[313-3607]		14
	Mouse: Dell Studio Optical Mouse		SOM		1		[330-3826]		12
	Keyboard: Dell USB Consumer Multimedia Keyboard		MMK		1		[330-0915]		4
	Security Software: Norton Internet Security™ 2009 Edition 15-months		NIS915M		1		[410-2156]		25
	LABELS: Windows Vista™ Premium		VPD		1		[310-8626]		750
	Installation: No Onsite System Setup		NOINSTL		1		[900-9987][900-9987]		32
	Adobe Software: Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 9.0 Multi-Language		AAREAD		1		[410-1867]		15

[QuikSand]

Thanks for taking the time, Greg, it's a great help to see one way through the maze.

[Icy]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

That's helpful... the review is positive, but gets a bit technical for me. Should I basically presume that the model numbers are in ascending order relative to quality? That review seems to suggest so, but that doesn't really give me too firm footing, if you follow my worry.

Yes usually ascending numbers into the same chip brand means more quality and more price but have on mind that ATI or Nvidia are for graphics like Intel and AMD in the CPU market and they name their chips differently, so you can't always say that a higher humber in ATI is better than a higher number in Nvidia.

Here i found a couple of charts for ATi and Nvidia, ordered from worst to best and listing directx compatibility:

NVIDIA: nVidia Chips Comparison Table | Hardware Secrets

ATI: AMD ATI Chips Comparison Table | Hardware Secrets

Another chart:
http://www.techarp.com/article/Deskt...idia_4_big.png

And here you have a video cards comparison tool:
Video Card Comparison - GPUReview.com

But do not drive yourself crazy looking at those charts, as a rule of thumb, find a graphics card compatible with directx 10 and do not expend more than $100 in a graphics card unless you want that extra FPS to beat other guys playing the latest 3D shooter.

[flere-imsaho]

I was ready to write up a big post, but the advice has been excellent here. Greg's system looks like a good fit for you and I'll echo the sentiment that you can never have enough RAM.

As for Dell or not-Dell, if you do have an IT guy in your office and he prefers dealing with Dell, I'd see if there's a way to go with that, just to lessen the potential hassles. I still tend to steer friends & family towards Dell who ask for advice on what computer to buy, simply because the systems tend to be reasonably solid and the support is usually hassle-free.