Hi chaps.
It's been a while since I've been shopping for (modern) computer stuff. The last time I got my rig was a good 5 years ago or more, so obviously technology has moved on and I simply haven't kept much up to date with it since I bought mine.
My Dad is still using an ancient AMD 3500 939 CPU and simply put, it isn't upto the task of performing modern tasks anymore and he's been eyeing up some systems advertised at a local computer shop window.
They're offering sub Intel i-series (Core-2 and Pentium) machines for around £60 per tower, but from my experience, I think it's probably worth spending a little extra for something like an i5 system to have something that's going to age a little more gracefully over time. Speaking from experience, my PC a pretty old generation now and I'm still really happy with my i5's performance, not to mention my overclock is still as reliable as ever after a number of years of use.
So he's has tasked me to look for a second hand machine for around £100 and after looking, I see you can get Intel i5 machines around £80 - £120 without too much trouble on eBay (mostly HP 6200 machines). To me atleast, it seems like an i5 system would be the better and most cost effective solution but ofcourse that's only part of the story and there are countless different configurations for the budget.
Memory and other factors also come into it too but these are things easily added later on and are generally cheaper bits of hardware so these are not as vital IMO.
So question is; for the money, what would be best?
Should I go ahead with the easy option and just use a local place or should I hunt on eBay for a more modern machine? And if so, what should I be looking for/avoid?
Thanks in advance.
It's been a while since I've been shopping for (modern) computer stuff. The last time I got my rig was a good 5 years ago or more, so obviously technology has moved on and I simply haven't kept much up to date with it since I bought mine.
My Dad is still using an ancient AMD 3500 939 CPU and simply put, it isn't upto the task of performing modern tasks anymore and he's been eyeing up some systems advertised at a local computer shop window.
They're offering sub Intel i-series (Core-2 and Pentium) machines for around £60 per tower, but from my experience, I think it's probably worth spending a little extra for something like an i5 system to have something that's going to age a little more gracefully over time. Speaking from experience, my PC a pretty old generation now and I'm still really happy with my i5's performance, not to mention my overclock is still as reliable as ever after a number of years of use.
So he's has tasked me to look for a second hand machine for around £100 and after looking, I see you can get Intel i5 machines around £80 - £120 without too much trouble on eBay (mostly HP 6200 machines). To me atleast, it seems like an i5 system would be the better and most cost effective solution but ofcourse that's only part of the story and there are countless different configurations for the budget.
Memory and other factors also come into it too but these are things easily added later on and are generally cheaper bits of hardware so these are not as vital IMO.
So question is; for the money, what would be best?
Should I go ahead with the easy option and just use a local place or should I hunt on eBay for a more modern machine? And if so, what should I be looking for/avoid?
Thanks in advance.
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