Members t-rey Posted June 24, 2012 Members Share Posted June 24, 2012 I am looking to replace my aging Dell desktop, which with a whopping 1gb of ram and Intel Pentium processor is really not cutting it for anything but general interneting at this point. I am not a serious gamer, but would like a computer that could play some games (probably strategy games since I don't dig fps games and I generally game on consoles) so nothing too demanding as far as graphics go. I would like to be able to do some basic audio recording and video editing stuff, but I assume that nearly any machine would suit my needs in that department. I am pretty fascinated by the all in one machines since they involve one plug and that's it. The budget is $1k or less (preferably $800 or less). I have had my eye on the HP Omni 220xt here which has an i5 quad core processor with 6gb of ram. Any opinions? So yeah...just looking for suggestions/advice on how to make the most out of my cash on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members cryptosonic Posted June 24, 2012 Members Share Posted June 24, 2012 Just about any PC you can buy these days is more than powerful enough for the average user. While Intel has a definite performance advantage the AMD A series stuff represents tremendous bang for the buck and shouldn't be disregarded. I am still running an old Propus 630 clocked to 3.2 ghz and have yet to hit the performance ceiling in Reaper with 35 tracks/50 fx plugs/10 VSTi densities. Given that nearly anything you buy will handle general and even somewhat advanced usage price/support/warranty are where the value lies. All in one stuff is sexy but I do like being able to repair and upgrade my own {censored} if the need arises. For what it's worth I still build my own even though there is no longer any real savings there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members t-rey Posted June 25, 2012 Author Members Share Posted June 25, 2012 The all in one is definitely a double edged sword - super sexy and only has one plug. But would be a total bitch to repair and can't be upgraded. Would the Intel built in graphics card be good enough, or should I spring for one of the upgrades? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Amigo Posted June 25, 2012 Members Share Posted June 25, 2012 your best bet is to go to a computer specialty store (where they sell individual parts like hard drives, ram, pc cases) and get a computer made to your specifications. Not only is this usually much cheaper. You get a better machine that is completely independent of the parts you are using. To put it more simply you have a machine where every single part is very easily replaced. So if 2 years down the road, you find you need a different motherboard, but your graphics card is still good, it's a much cheaper and simpler fix than dealing with a company build PC that has a case that will only fit it's hardware. Even if you don't know what you're doing, someone will work with you to build your ideal machine. That's what I'd do. If it means anything I have a computer science degree and work with and fix computer hardware everyday. you can build an awesome computer for like $600 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members cryptosonic Posted June 25, 2012 Members Share Posted June 25, 2012 Depends on the game. Here is where the trade-off between Intel and AMD comes into play. Sandy and Ivy are more powerful than the AMD A series stuff in terms of CPU but the AMD onboard graphics destroys Intel. No modern four core CPU will bottleneck your system though, these days it's all about graphics capability and disk speed. If the Intel on-chip graphics are not up to task you could always spring for a new card down the road. One can pick up a very capable unit for under a hundred bucks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members caeman Posted June 25, 2012 Members Share Posted June 25, 2012 Buy refurbished and save a lot of money. Then you can piece-meal a reasonable system. For example, you can pick up a refurb Dell Optiplex 745 and load it with 8GB RAM for about $300 running 64-bit Win7, and with none of the bloatware. Buy a $30 PCI-Express video card that has 512MB video RAM for a better gaming experience and overall video performance. A pair of 19" refurb Dell LCD monitors for $80 each. You have enough scratch left in your budget for a good audio interface like a Tascam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members t-rey Posted June 25, 2012 Author Members Share Posted June 25, 2012 Depends on the game. Here is where the trade-off between Intel and AMD comes into play. Sandy and Ivy are more powerful than the AMD A series stuff in terms of CPU but the AMD onboard graphics destroys Intel. No modern four core CPU will bottleneck your system though, these days it's all about graphics capability and disk speed. If the Intel on-chip graphics are not up to task you could always spring for a new card down the road. One can pick up a very capable unit for under a hundred bucks. Right on - as long as it is fast enough for some moderate tasks and/or multitasking basic things I know I'm fine. But I always get caught up in the biggest/fastest/best thing when I am replacing old electronics Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members caeman Posted June 25, 2012 Members Share Posted June 25, 2012 My philosophy and the way I manage the PCs at my company is: Computers will break, so how can I minimize that disruption. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members cryptosonic Posted June 25, 2012 Members Share Posted June 25, 2012 This is really solid advice. Whenever I build I forget about the Windows tax adding a hundred bucks to the cost of my system. Buy refurbished and save a lot of money. Then you can piece-meal a reasonable system.For example, you can pick up a refurb Dell Optiplex 745 and load it with 8GB RAM for about $300 running 64-bit Win7, and with none of the bloatware. Buy a $30 PCI-Express video card that has 512MB video RAM for a better gaming experience and overall video performance. A pair of 19" refurb Dell LCD monitors for $80 each. You have enough scratch left in your budget for a good audio interface like a Tascam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Amigo Posted June 25, 2012 Members Share Posted June 25, 2012 refurbished isn't a terrible idea, but the idea of buying a used computer isn't really something I'm into. It really depends on how seriously you would be using it. If I could make a comparison youd understand buying something referbished from a company is like buying a used or economy all in one pedal effects unit. Like a zoom or something better that's had heavy use, it does the sounds you want, not always very well and it's not very reliable due to its quality or previous treatment. It's also not covered by any warranty so you could very easily buy a lemon if you're not careful Buying something from a company is like buying an M9 or some all in one unit that sounds good and is relatively reliable or at least is warranted for a certain period of time, but is relatively expensive and is hard to troubleshoot or fix if something actually does go wrong. Getting a computer built from a store is like building your own pedalboard using individual effects. The tone of your board depends on what you put into it. Like the computer, you pay more for the parts that matter to you more (example you buy an expensive dirt pedal but cheap out on a phaser or make a whole board out of boss pedals) you can buy more ram and cheap out on a graphics card for example or just plain go all out and spend a fortune. Also if one thing goes wrong you don't lose your whole machine or pedal board you just swap out the pedal or part in the computer. It really depends on how you want to go about it. I personally prefer building it myself as I know for a fact it will work for what I want it to do. Nothing worse than buying a $2000 mac only to learn the hard drive doesn't spin fast enough to run pro tools. (happened to me) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 I agree with Cryptosonic and Amigo's excellent advice. If you can get a local shop to build one to your specs, you won't be saddled with a system that you can't upgrade as needed later - that's a big concern with an all-in-one. If it dies, you're stuck until Dell, Apple or HP can get around to fixing it... which is why I build my own PCs for the studio. Better something that I can get fixed (or fix myself) locally and quickly than having to wait a week or three to get it done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members cryptosonic Posted June 25, 2012 Members Share Posted June 25, 2012 Start discussing PC builds and spend I the next hour browsing Newegg and speccing out a new system. It is a pretty weird time to build right now. AM3+ is kind of dead in the water and FM1 will get Trinity late this year which sucks because the stars cores will be dropped in favor of a revamped Bulldozer. Not a lot of upgrade path available there unless AMD kind of rocks the Bulldozer>Piledriver revamp. I really don't see that happening but again, even the FX8150 would likely smoke my current CPU and would drop right into my mobo. At 200 dollars though the i5 2500k is price competitive and destroys all AMD chips. On the other hand Intel is dropping socket 1155 so anything built today with mainstream Intel parts has zero upgrade path. The advantage is that a system built around the 2500k is likely a five year build for the average and even somewhat specialized user. If an audio interface is in your future I recommend building around that. I am sort of tied to AMD because I am tied to my Delta44 sound card and Intel mobos have many known issues with PCI sound cards. Speccing a new Intel build means shopping for a new audio interface and that is a hassle and a half let alone ditching a rock stable audio setup. Sorry for muddying the waters! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members caeman Posted June 25, 2012 Members Share Posted June 25, 2012 Amigo, I cannot help but disagree. Buying Refurb is just liking having bought it new, except, you are getting it much cheaper because it is now 3 years old. A more apt comparison is like buying a Boss BF-3 new, or waiting for someone to flip it for 75% of its original value. Computers are a commodity. For what the OP wants to do, a standard PC will be more than sufficient. Why waste money on a custom build for something that will be over-built. It would be like buying a Klon delay, when a DMM is sufficient. The OP isn't a power gamer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members cryptosonic Posted June 25, 2012 Members Share Posted June 25, 2012 Ok so I just loaded up a PC stress project in Reaper in order to stop the new PC gas. Not really music [quite the cacophony] but 15 audio tracks and two instances each of poise, z3ta2, dimension pro, twin2 and arturia minimoog plus one instance on each track of pro-c and pro-q. Master bus runs pro-c, pro-l, span, valhallaroom and pro-q. Every like instance is bussed with pro-q, pro-c and reverberate core with various drum parts triggering several bus compressors plus various sends to three effects busses. At 128 samples latency the system spikes around 70% CPU with no zippers or dropouts. At 256 latency CPU drops to 40%. Granted I am using pretty light plugs as Omnisphere or some huge orchestral library would likely tax the hell out of my PC and Reaper {censored}s all over other DAWs in terms of resource usage but these are the things I use. You're going to be fine whatever you choose. Just be certain that it is four modern cores or better, min 8gb of RAM and works with the audio interface you prefer. Video capability can be added as needed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members LSDis4me Posted June 25, 2012 Members Share Posted June 25, 2012 Mac Mini Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted June 25, 2012 Share Posted June 25, 2012 Mac Mini The quad core i7 Mini with Lion server actually looks like a cheap yet very powerful option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Amigo Posted June 25, 2012 Members Share Posted June 25, 2012 Amigo, I cannot help but disagree. Buying Refurb is just liking having bought it new, except, you are getting it much cheaper because it is now 3 years old. A more apt comparison is like buying a Boss BF-3 new, or waiting for someone to flip it for 75% of its original value. Computers are a commodity. For what the OP wants to do, a standard PC will be more than sufficient. Why waste money on a custom build for something that will be over-built. It would be like buying a Klon delay, when a DMM is sufficient. The OP isn't a power gamer. I agree with a lot of what your saying. A refurb can be an excellent option, but I'm just putting out some caution in terms of warranty and reliableness. Also if it's a refurbed "dell" for example, its still going to be a bitch to get any work done or any parts, and annoying to upgrade. I don't game, so I have never built a gaming pc, so I'm not talking about building that type of computer. I have built mainly standard, bang for your buck computers, a number recording studio computers and I work at a hospital where I deal with the best you can get to the bare minimum. You can get a great computer brand new for cheap, you can always find deals on "old" motherboards and ram etc.. (parts that are usually just as old as the refurbs) that are brand new and come with warranty still. At the hospital we often have to refurbish older computers to be put back out into the field, we keep stats on all of them and I can honestly say that the refurbished ones are almost always problematic even the computer hardware checks out just fine. Computers will often have strange quarks and nuances that develop into bigger problems. That's not to say we refurbish them poorly, but that more often than not, age and heavy use will degrade components (especially moving parts) even if they seem to currently work %100. Not saying that's always the case, If you can get a screaming deal on a refurb, do it, but make sure it's upgradable and replacement parts are easily found. That's my experience, take it or leave it.... You might save $100 or so, but you're buying older, used technology that is not guaranteed. All of a sudden you may have to replace something with that money you saved, which can be a massive pain in the ass, especially if you lose work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TravvyBear Posted June 25, 2012 Members Share Posted June 25, 2012 Get a Mac Mini. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members cryptosonic Posted June 25, 2012 Members Share Posted June 25, 2012 Get a Mac Mini. upgrade and open system fail Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jisatsu Posted June 26, 2012 Members Share Posted June 26, 2012 Just get a barebones kit from tigerdirect. I've been building my computers for the last decade on the cheaps. The only time it really gets expensive is when you throw in the cost of OS these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members iMpreno Posted June 26, 2012 Members Share Posted June 26, 2012 Definitely build your own. Get some serious advice on the right specs and order the stuff online, then learn how to build it (it's really easy if you're confident enough and there are plenty of decent tutorials on youtube) or have someone build it for you. As someone mentioned, Intel i5 2500k is a solid cpu and still, in my opinion, the most reasonably priced mid tier cpu for what it offers. I don't know what AMD has to offer right now but I can definitely tell you that I regret settling for a 955BE Phenom for my backup machine instead of spending a little bit more for a i5, but that could just be benchmark frenzy. RAM is really cheap nowadays and a no-brainer really, just make sure that the stuff you get is fully compatible with the motherboard (there's always a compatibility list on the manufacturer's webpage). 8gigs is more than enough for the average user and you don't need more to game sporadically.Get a decent mid range video card, like an NVidia GTX560 or the AMD equivalent. That will sail smoothly for the next 2 or even more years at a reasonable price, or you could try to get some info on the new NVidia range. Get a good motherboard that's compatible with everything else (I've had good experiences with Asus and really good experiences with MSI recently) and get a GOOD power supply. Don't ever go cheap on the power supply or you could deeply regret it. Right now I have Corsair power supplies on both my machines (GS series or something like that, I guess they would cost like 70$ over the pond or something like that. 500 or 600 watts for an average configuration are more than enough). Get a decent case like a Cooler Master Elite series if you don't want to spend > 60$ on it, a random optical burner and the OS licence and if you want to keep your old HDD you're set for a lot less (I think, I don't know that much about hardware prices in America) of your budget. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members juri Posted June 26, 2012 Members Share Posted June 26, 2012 I would also either build your own or get one built. A decent cooler master or antec case can make a huge difference for future upgrades, etc... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members decode6 Posted June 26, 2012 Members Share Posted June 26, 2012 Just get a barebones kit from tigerdirect. I've been building my computers for the last decade on the cheaps. The only time it really gets expensive is when you throw in the cost of OS these days. Amem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members t-rey Posted June 26, 2012 Author Members Share Posted June 26, 2012 I had never thought about the kits from Tiger before - that is a definite possibility. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted June 26, 2012 Share Posted June 26, 2012 Adding a few things to a barebones system would be an easy way to ease into DIY system building IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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