New computer

Hello
at 5:30 this morning I heard a bang and my computer wasnt working anymore. I'd done a full back up onto an external drive yesterday
It is 5 years old at least so I'm writing it off and getting a new one and I'm hopin people can help me decide on things

Firstly let me say I use intensive charting apps and stuff but these days I dont really consider myself a super power user. Sure I play Starcraft and Civ and DOW sometimes but even my old computer with only 128 MB of vid memory did those ok

I will stick with a desktop, portability isnt required and so one gets better value and expandability with desktops.
I will go to W7 (was on XP) so what version is good enough here?
all hardware is 64 bit these days I think but what of the OS - are they all 64 bit too? should I get that if its not the default.

I am not even sure what questions to ask myself. Any suggestions ? Pls no one suggest building it myself. I want one today or tomorrow with no stress. I dont want to spend more than 2500. Thats all the last one cost me.

oh and recommendations where to shop in the CBD.

my suggestion until someone shoots it down (unless they agree) is go small form factor and maximise deskspace. You can already get so much bang for buck that you may as well turn your attention to also getting the thing out of sight or at least deal with aesthetics too.

thanks for your imput smiley. the old tower one I had sits under the desk, and wasnt't really a problem. but yeh its something to consider, though I tend to think the bigger the box the longer it lasts (heat dissipation)

imac 27" - best of both worlds but pricey

not an option NR, I'm a Microsofty through and through, all my apps are Windows etc... no chance of changing.

i'm just not up with all the i5,i7 or types of ram etc, so I'm lookin for comments along those lines , not looking for a paradigm shift.

imac can run windows, silly and is splendid form factor

$2758 best price

http://pricespy.co.nz/#rparams=ss=imac 27

its not happening. please accept that. but I'm sure NR being such a bright chap you could make a valuable contribution to this thread by mentioning fucntionality that I havent considered given my 5 year old hardware.

My first reaction when people say they need a new computer is to recommend MacBook.. but thats the exact opposite of what you want. So how about one of these: http://www.compulink.co.nz/cart/index.php?route=product/product&path=20_26&product_id=454

stupid quote button too close to the edit button

Dell. End of the thread. Seriously, I paid $1,000 delivered to my door, with specs that would usually cost me at least double with any other brand.

thanks kroniq, thats not a bad suggestion. makes me wonder that if I used 4 gb in XP and I did, I should really bump it up to 8 in W7 huh? also that that shop is in CBD is very useful to me cheers kroniq

oh and btw I still have my 40" samsung for a monitor, so wil stick with that. I assume all current video cards will do DVI output.... would HDMI output be better though, if thats an option? tho DVI was perfectly fine.

Have you been to PB Technologies on Queen St?

They have pre-made machines and can probably upgrade parts if you require.

http://www.pbtech.co.nz/index.php?page=2&s=PB SYSTEM&PHPSESSID=6f5f2867da8947e376a163e3500d68bf

That's where i'd get a machine if i was in the market.

yes micarl I am looking on their website now... I am a VIP there from buying stuff , would need to be assured about their hardware followup and support but yeh certainly keeping them in mind

maybe just an upgrade box is the story
something like this
http://pbtech.co.nz/index.php?item=WKSPB1277, probably more than I need but generally with computing it pays to overspec. with an OS its over 2 grand

On a sidenote, fuck pbtech's website is awful.

oh and the 64 bit win 7 allows for much higher ram upgrades as 32 bit is limted to 3 or so gb

yes exactly NR that was a constraint for me before although 4gb ram was enough under xp.
wondering though whether my applications will work on 64 bit OS. eg I already have MS Office 2007, dont want to have to get a diff version (though I think this will be ok)?? its mainly drivers rather than apps I think

will I have any problems using Win7 restore from a WinXP backup (ntbackup)

your apps should be fine... and windows 7 is pretty bloody good from my experience (missed vista and upgraded from xp)

can't help with your puter choice

I have yet to encounter an issue with x64 windows.

Well, except for a 64bit driver for an old scanner.
I'd have downloaded the XP VM that you get free with Win7 but MS went some weird route and you need a CPU that supports virtualisation blah blah and my CPU was *just* a little too old (AMD4800 9-something pin, I forget). However running XP in VMware solved that. Buying a newer scanner might have also helped but it's not really worth it.

yes that looks to be the case thanks bob_d, I am looking forward to WIN7 , cant really see much of importance in the diffs between home premium and professional either given i wont be joining a domain.

Oh and I have installed ALOT of different things on it.

cool smiley will def go 64 bit then for future prooofing though may only get 4 gb of ram for now.

Be easier to just plug the SATA drive in the new machine rather than needing to restore the data.

Have you considered building your own mac?

Hassle!!
Plus he's a windows man.

I haven't got 64 bit but this is what cnet had to say:

Backward compatibility: Most, if not all, 32-bit software applications (except for drivers) can operate in Windows 64-bit the way they do in Windows 32-bit. In other words, Windows 64-bit can run all what Windows 32-bit runs plus 64-bit applications.



Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10302050-1.html#ixzz1695c0lAs

lol Pechora you're a funny bugger
yes I will try to plug the old drive in for ease data restore.... or get them to do it for me.

Dell is an option if you don't have much technical know how,

but I've always built my own. A lot of shops nowadays will help you out building a system and can give you good recommendations on stuff. It always works out cheaper than a dell.

checked out dell online. seems that I'd have to buy a monitor though.... and dont need to.
also deliver is 7-10 days, and I cant live without a PC that long - I've borrowed this lapop for a couple of days off the ex (I said to her when she left that I retained borrowing rights for emergencies given I paid for the bloody thing)

neil, its more about hassle free and minimizing down time.

I found when I updated and was installing older programs that windows will automatically go off and find drivers and anything else needed to get the thing to work - this worked brilliantly for everything practical I needed/wanted - only things it didn't was some very old games

this is probably sufficient for me....
http://pbtech.co.nz/index.php?item=WKSPB1470

I5 760 cpu P55 MB
4gb DDR3 1600Mhz RAM expandable to 16
1Tb HDD (7200rpm) Western Digital
Nvidia GTX460 1GB (DVI out)
with Win7 Pro 64bit its $1607 incl GST of $209
and theyll put the old HDD in for me

forgot to ask about sound card but my PC speakers are USB anyway. but presumably it has a half way decent sound card.

bob I'm not too worried about software , that was my job for a long time.... I will get shit to work ok, more worried about missing some recent new cool function that I didnt even know about.

i5 is plenty fast, but I'd go i7 if you want a bit more futureproof. Don't get me wrong, i5 is a nice CPU.

No problems I know of with PBTech, they've been around for donkeys.
4gb is fine, unless you're HAMMERING Photoshop etc. Don't be alarmed by Win7 using up all of that 4gb - that's what it does by design, pre-caching commonly used files into memory.
Only caveat with 64 bit these days is you MUST ensure you're installing 64-bit drivers.
Sound card is onboard. Might not be much chop to an audiophile, but I assume you've been putting up with much worse up until now anyway.

Teach you for buying AMD

apreciate your comments kris
yeh I will stick with the I5 I think just from a cost perspective , consider I've been using a Pentium D up till now and it was ok. if 4GB is not enough I can add more, my charting programmes arent photoshop but I do have masses of windows open sometimes.
re drivers, I dont actually have many peripherals , but yeh I will take care with any driver installs for sure
Will the USB speakers actually care about the soundcard?

and yeh I prefer Intel for some possibly irrational reason

i'm just confirming that one of the main charting apps I use is 64 bit compatible and after choosing all the correct options on the 0800 nyumber (IT queries ) I cant believe that wehn I asked he just said I needed 2 Gig CPu and blah blah ram, and completely ignored my question. So i pressed the point, and he had to ring fucken London to find out , geezus,
Apparently its not supported - they're still testing - so I said "but does it work? coz as we all know being unsupported doesnt mean it doesnt work. And he eventually found out that some people are running it in 64 bit. Talk about getting blood out of a stone. I'm going to chance it, they actually do have a web version of that software as well which I could use as a fallback.

USB speakers won't care AFAIK.
It's rare that you'll find some showstopper to running a 32-bit app on 64-bit. Usually that's only for old shitty vertical market apps which talk direct to hardware, or have some odd system services. Doubtful a charting app would meet any of those criteria.

sweet,, I'll get the old HDD out and wander down to do the deal.
PB Tech have got a huge sale on Friday 6PM, I hope it wont be cheaper then lol

Fuck I can be thick sometimes... I was being distracted though.

Personally I would buy an HP desktop from ascent.

Add an after market HDD - maybe a 2TB for data and away you go.

My experience with buying the parts to make one up is that its best for technically minded people who dont mind fiddling or upgrading bits.

Dell are ok but I have had some bad runs with them of late and you would have to wait longer.

He's buying a whole box, not components.

i've got the (upgrade) box, as above and posting from it now after installing AV and currently doing windows updates. so all good so far no apps yet though.

etccomputers.co.nz

EFT
Best service ever and I buy everything from them

i just saw they have this new one being tested. Looks much better.
http://new.pbtech.co.nz/

Any more details on this sale? Wouldn't mind a new HDD myself..

they are only saying discounted stock but no specifics
Fri 6 PM - 10 PM

Because EVERTHING INSTORE is going to be on special for you our VIP Customers. 20 Million Dollars worth of stock on hand has to be cleared at close to cost price. Both DEALERS & CUSTOMERS get these BLACK deals.
Come in and see for yourself. You won't believe your eyes and you will surely NOT leave empty handed. Save LOTS of money and don't forget to tell your friends.
Management of PB Technologies wants to say a BIG THANK YOU to all our customers.
JUST FOR 4 HOURS OF MADNESS.
No Web orders - no reservation - no phone order - JUST WALK IN WHEN DARKNESS FALLS.

POP in to our branch to get these deals or email us sales.akl@pbtech.co.nz

Massive improvement!

Yeah I might pop in there on Friday too, looking for a firewire enclosure for my new approach to my personal computing. MBP is the main computer (but with keyboard and monitors etc attached) and the desktop is becoming a dedicated media centre.

lots of fiddling around to get things back the way you want them after an OS change. but I've installed my apps - all good. old hard drive easily accessible lol at it being 120 GB and the new one a terrabyte but its a bit disturbing that I cant access the NTBackup I did from XP using the backup software in Win7 - in this case I dont need to but what if I did need to !! ?

How do you become a VIP customer?


AMD was better at the time, - that's how old my computer is.

the only way you can restore from backup is same computer hardware same OS same Service packs etc.

buy lots of stuff.

weird that the utility software on the Gigabyte CD identifies the CPU as an I7

Likely the board is capable of taking i7's too. What does Windows report it as? (Windows Key + Break for System Panel)

turners penrose the place to be this w/e for no reserve chch quajke auction if you don't mind no warranty

http://www.turners.co.nz/Goods/Pages/BrowseGoods.aspx?scope=Goods&view=Goods&ctype=Goods&keywords=Clearance Auction imac&loc=Auckland

Yes the board can take an I7 but still...

Windows reports as i5.

Sweet. That software is often sketchy as anyway, knocked together in 5 minutes by some 14 year old Taiwanese kid.

Win7 is all good. I'm enjoying the aero features for whizzing around seeing all the pages you've got running from the taskbar. It doesnt appear to be using more memory than XP either, I have all the charting programmes and IE and various things running with only 2.5 GB memory being used.

try aero snap, drag a window to the side and it snaps to half the screen and to the top and it snaps to full screen. Drag away and it goes back to it's original size. ctrl+cursor keys (I think) do the same thing to the current window. Rather handy feature.

Obligatory mac-users equivalent: download hyperdock, it's free.

hrm. I found my memory usage doubled under win7. That said it win7 is a lot smarter about how is uses ram. My guess is that because you have a clean install it is using less. Anyway theres no point having ram spare, the comp should be using and caching as much as possible to speed up things.

Win7x64 with 4gigs ram - using 1.25 at idle (with firefox open which is using almost 100mb). up to 2.15 with all the programs I might use open. My laptop seems to use a hell of a lot more but im pretty careful what I install on my desktop.

heh, straight after that post I swapped out a graphics card in my computer and it wont even get to post now.

It was always a dodgy MB and I cant find a cost effective one with the same cpu and ram slots.

Back to vista32 :/

Seems that the processor I got is considered pretty well by TomsHardware

This info as of August

The Lynnfield-based Core i5 has been a price/performance favorite since its introduction and the new Core i5-760 ups the ante ...

we have a hard time recommending anything more expensive than the Core i5-760. This is especially the case since the Core i5-760 can be overclocked to great effect if more performance is desired, easily surpassing the stock clock ate of the $1,000 Core i7-980X Extreme Edition.


http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gaming-cpu-core-i5-760-core-i7-970,2698-6.html

I've got an i5-750 in my server at home, love it. Rock solid, runs cool, heaps grunty, and was stupid cheap.