Desktop Upgrade Time

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timmmay

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#682103 6-Sep-2012 07:25

$700's a bit low for what you want, check out ascent for an example

http://www.ascent.co.nz/pcbuild.aspx

maccasparks

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#682526 6-Sep-2012 19:27

timmmay: $700's a bit low for what you want, check out ascent for an example

http://www.ascent.co.nz/pcbuild.aspx

Had a look - yes I will need to pay more.
Any suggestions for a motherboard/cpu/ram?
Do I need seperate GPU for HDMI - just want to dual display on the Sammy LED?

Cheers again

maccasparks

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#682543 6-Sep-2012 20:25

Just found this :

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing.aspx?id=509666044

I know its AMD but seems a good start?

Lias

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#682707 7-Sep-2012 10:32

Personally I wouldnt touch a company selling via Trademe like that with a 10 foot barge pole. You'd be much better sticking to a well known reputable company with a good record of after sales service.

Computer Lounge is widely recognized as the best store in NZ, but Playtech and Ascent are also very well thought of. I'd suggest one of those 3.

I'm a geek, a gamer, a dad, a Quic user, and an IT Professional. I have a full rack home lab, size 15 feet, an epic beard and Asperger's. I'm a bit of a Cypherpunk, who believes information wants to be free and the Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. If you use my Quic signup you can also use the code R570394EKGIZ8 for free setup. Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

maccasparks

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#683170 8-Sep-2012 18:21

Thanks for the good advise. Now I think I'll go for an i5 build but not sure what to use.
Any suggestions?

ssd boot drive
Usb 3.0
Hdmi out for TV
Onboard graphics
8G Ram
Case and Power
1 T HDD
DVD writer
Card reader
Win 7

Budget up to around $1000

Cheers

mattwnz

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#683176 8-Sep-2012 18:49

maccasparks: Okay - sounds like Intel is the way to go with Win7.

Any suggestions - ?don't know any Intel stuff? Budget around $700- will need the whole thing case and all or am I dreaming?

I could do a build if I knew what to get

wishlist is:

i5
SSD Boot Drive
usb3.0
HDMI
DVD
Card reader
Win7 Home Premium?(32 or 64??)

The cheapest way is to do the build yourself, if you like doing that sort of thing and know what you are doing. It is fairly easy and heaps of youtube videos too. Use pricespy to build the PC and find the cheapest prices. I have done this for my last two PCs, and saved about $1500 doing this over what a fully built PC would cost to buy fully made up. Most good brand components seem to have a 3 year warranty, which is probably better than you would get if you buy a fully built PC from a store.

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Lias

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#683296 9-Sep-2012 08:27

mattwnz:
The cheapest way is to do the build yourself, if you like doing that sort of thing and know what you are doing. It is fairly easy and heaps of youtube videos too. Use pricespy to build the PC and find the cheapest prices. I have done this for my last two PCs, and saved about $1500 doing this over what a fully built PC would cost to buy fully made up. Most good brand components seem to have a 3 year warranty, which is probably better than you would get if you buy a fully built PC from a store.

Absolutely it is the cheapest way, but not always the best.

If you start having problems with a homebuilt PC you need to troubleshoot it yourself.. Do you have spare motherboards/psu/sram/etc lying around at home? :-) Plus the skills to actually troubleshoot and figure out what is happening when your PC plays up.

gzt

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#683297 9-Sep-2012 08:38

That's a good point. What does a guaranteed build usually cost in labour on top of the components from places that will do that for a customer?

Lias

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#683302 9-Sep-2012 09:07

gzt: That's a good point. What does a guaranteed build usually cost in labour on top of the components from places that will do that for a customer?

Of the 3 I mentioned earlier in this thread

Computer Lounge starts from $149 for a standard build with 2 year warranty, right up to $599 for an advanced build with sleeved cables, optimized cable routing, bios tweaking, overclocking yada yada (CL specialise in gaming builds, and OC and watercooled type stuff in particular)
Playtech charge $49 to assemble the parts, and $99 to assemble and install software, with no warranty (other than what's on the hardware)
Ascent don't do build's they only supply parts.

PBTech which is another company who are usually pretty good (but sometimes can be a headache for RMA'ing stuff after a year or two), charge from $35 (assemble basic PC) to $113 (assemble advanced PC and install windows) and then have addon warranty options as well starting at $79 to extend the warranty on a PC under $600

gzt

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#683312 9-Sep-2012 09:41

That CL price is very attractive - if it covers hardware troubleshooting in the event of failure and the relatively rare situations where one component dies horribly and takes out a related component as a consequence.

http://www.computerlounge.co.nz/components/componentview.asp?partid=7104

I also had a quick look around PlayTech but did not see a page for their build service offering.

Lias

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#683502 9-Sep-2012 18:35

CL are generally VERY good to deal with when things do go wrong.

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