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Hardware req's - what's best for me?

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Deej

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All we need is a system that has good speed and power, runs programs like outlook, word, excell and myob, and it needs decent memory capacity. A cd-rewriter would be desirable too.

What's a good mix of stuff? I know little about motherboards or gigabytes or ram or rom or hdd's and i don't want to get ripped off.

My budget is 1300 per computer and i want 2 computers and i want to get the most for my money.

Fire away.
 
Go to these guys:
http://www.msy.com.au/LOCATION/pascoeshop.html

They're good, won't rip you off, although their website sucks, they do know their stuff.

Walk in, tell them what you want, and they will cut you a very good deal.

The other people to talk to are
www.cworld.com.au
who are better on individual parts and notebooks, and have a significantly better website, but their systems are more expensive.
 
Probably just an Athlon XP 2000, with 512mb of ram and a 120GB hard disk. I wouldn't say there is one particular brand of CD burner that you should aim for, they're all pretty cheap these days as DVD burners are coming in.

Seeing as you won't be playing games there really is no need for anything more than that.
 
Wait for it...

...waiiiiiit for it....


It depends! (groan)

Processor: Athlon XP or an Intel Celeron - no need to go too high, 2.0Ghz will probably meet all your needs. Go a bit higher if you can afford it though.

Motherboard: get one with onboard video and audio cards. There's no point in you spending extra on high-end light and sound.

RAM: Yep, 512MB.

Hard drive: 120GB is probably too much, but the price differential is so little these days you may as well if you can afford it. 80GB would be plenty though, I'd think.

Burner: These things are getting cheap as chips these days - $50 to $80 will get you a perfectly decent one.

Monitor: 17", no bigger. You don't need anything else unless your eyesight is deteriorating. Try getting one second hand, if you're feeling lucky.

Just make the effort to shop around.
 

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For the apps you're running, $1300 would be overkill. Which is to say, that budget would get you something REALLY nice for what you need ;)

Mr Eagle has some good advice. The only thing I can add is that if you know someone who knows computers, it might be a good idea to have them along for the ride just to suss it out.

If you're not sure if you know anyone you can bug for help, then you may want to consider going for one of the brand name machines like Dell, Compaq, IBM etc. They are not the best value in absolute hardware terms, but you will get software & support with a package.

There are bargains to be had, but (and I can't stress this enough) only if you know what you're doing.
 
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Thanks. I'm going to get a quote on some stuff and come back here and list it and maybe you can tell me if it's a good deal or not. Be back to you by monday.
 
Are you planning to use the the CD-rewritter as a backup source?
If so, make sure you stay away from Lite-on. They are cheap and have a life span of about 4-6 months.
 
From my experience most CD writers have a fairly limited life span. I've had a number of different models in different machines (particularly around the office where I run the IT), and none have lasted all that long. The best surprisingly is the CD burner I have in my work laptop which has had no problems in over a year.

That said, the Liteon ones are at the top level of craptitude.
 
Originally posted by Mr Q
From my experience most CD writers have a fairly limited life span.
Click to expand...

Ive had me SCSI burner for about 6 years (off the top of my head), burns at 4 speed, and reads at 8. It has been reliable over that time period. It is a Matshu****a (Panasonic) CW-7502. The only problem is that it has a ball bearing in it, and it can make one hell of a racket (although it is a known and common problem with that model). Apart from that, no troubles.

Maybe it's just IDE burners that are crappy.
 

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Originally posted by Korn
how about Sony CD burners? do they last long?
Click to expand...

I had an 8x Sony burner which lasted me almost 2 years before I sold it with my old computer. I should have kept it. My Liteon is a 40x12x48 which will only now write at 4x or else the burner freezes the computer and just makes loud noises destroying blank discs :(
 
By the sound of it this is for business use. If the case - don't buy a clone - get a Tier 1 brand box (HP, IBM, Dell or even Acer). You'll get a 3 year warranty and confidence you have genuine components and no risk of your supplier going bust or skipping town leaving you in the lurch with a worthless warranty - plus 24 x 7 technical support.

Rather than pay cash up front - lease or rent them over a 2-3 year period. That way you won't impact your cash flow (assuming it's for a small business) and the rent/lease payments become 100% tax deductable as they sit differently on the balance sheet. i.e. The PC's become an expense of the business rather than an asset which is a tax liability.

If the tax benefits are of interest - I suggest you talk to an accountant for a 2nd opinion (the tax deduction is genuine).
 
Given what you need them for, you should literally spend $130 per machine, not $1300! That's all my beastie cost, and I haven't found anything it can't do. I got it second hand from some mob in Clayton who advertise in the Trading Post. Well, ok, if you haven't got a monitor get a 17"er, which will cost some more. Even if you spent $500 each on new computers, they would still be way more powerful than what people used 3 or 4 years ago for exactly the same purposes, and at 25% of the cost.

For $1300 you could get a computer that would be great for running the next Mars mission, but it won't make you word processing go any better.

So go cheeeeeap.
 
Originally posted by Joel
If you want to spend some extra, get yourself a DVD Burner (if you have a DVD player capable of playing Burned DVDs).
Click to expand...

I bought myself one of these beauties....VERY good investment.

It's a Pioneer 106 DVD Burner, cost $300 from **** Smith in Southland (although you can get it cheaper from places like www.eyo.com.au). BTW, if you've heard it is impossible to burn movie DVDs, you have heard wrong, because there are ways (of which I won't go into here).
 

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Hardware req's - what's best for me?

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