Desktops or laptop?

[vincerooney]

Hi all,

I'm in my late 30s now and always just had a desktop pc since i was like 11. I'm struggling to find a potential replacement for my 6 year old PC and i'm really, really confused about

1) Why prices are high compared to what i paid 6 years ago but the specs dont seem that much better

2) why SSD storage is like 50% less than the 1TB PC i got last time

this is the PC I've got currently:
HP Pavillion Gaming Desktop 690-00. Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8400 CPU @ 2.80GHz 2.81 GHz

8.00 GB (7.87 GB usable). 1.1TB hard drive

Everything else around the £700-800 price seems WORSE than my current desktop unless tech has gone past me in my old age. can anyone recommend a good desktop for me? i use it to mainly go on the internet, use MS office and the games i use were that modern version of theme hospital and football manager 2024 haha.

I'm starting to think desktops may now be easier going via apple macs since they seem to still be investing in desktops.

Unless laptops are the way to go now? are they cheaper than desktops? i always thought laptops would be more expensive as they have to be put in a much smaller base?

Thanks in advance all

[peanut]

I'm not the best person to answer but I do agree that prices are higher today than 6 years ago. But tech has changed a lot since then.

My last Desktop PC cost around £1500 9 years ago, and at the time was pretty much top spec. Because it was top spec I didn't have to upgrade for quite some time. Sure I upgraded a few bits over time but it lasted. I don't think a laptop would have lasted anywhere near as long as they're limited when it comes to upgrading parts.

This year I decided to replace it with a new PC and my graphic card alone cost a lot more than that PC (ASUS GeForce RTX 4090 24 GB TUF). Also with the new tech it's pointless without upgrading the monitor which is just as important too which does add quite a extra cost on top. I went from a 24" 1080p 60hz to a 28" 4k 144hz which added close to another £600.

For every day stuff I don't notice a single thing that's different from my old PC. Apart from transferring 50gb files from one drive to another in around 8-10 seconds which is mind blowing compared to my old mechanical or SSDs drives.

But software / games have changed a whole lot since. That's where you notice the differences. 4k, Ray-Tracing on max, every setting on ultra, higher FPS etc etc. That's where the money has gone. If gaming isn't your thing then costs will be considerably lower. The games you like could easily be run on a decent laptop.

Laptops are better today as well, but I just can't get on with them. I prefer the power of a desktop and have a desk with a proper monitor not some tiny screen, slower hardware, louder fans and their crappy keyboards. But it's down to personal choice, space and costs.

If you spent £800 back then, then you're looking at around £1k-1.2k for something similar but you will notice a difference and it will be an upgrade. A laptop in that price range would easily work for you.

Sorry I can't be much help. I'm sure others here will help you more.

[Jaymoss]

Looking at your old PC it had the 1060 GFX is some models not sure about yours as you have put useable ram down which means some went to the IGPU but lets go with the 1060

The below PC has 12th gen i5 which although a gen back (14th Gen do not count as it is just a refresh) will still far surpass your CPU a 3060 GFX again far and away surpassing the 1060 16GB ram and if you increase the SSD to 1TB it comes in @ £807

https://www.awd-it.co.uk/awd-it-x-mi...gaming-pc.html

---------- Post added at 07:56 ---------- Previous post was at 07:51 ----------

Bare in mind this. Up until July this year I was running a flagship (of its day) i9 9900K the 13th Gen i5 out performs it so your 8400 i5 will be like a Celeron compared to the 12th gen i5. CPU performance has come a long way

---------- Post added at 07:58 ---------- Previous post was at 07:56 ----------

As for laptops you are hardly going to get the gaming performance out of one the same as a desktop at the same price. It is all down to what you want it for. If you do not want to game you will be able to configure and computing beast for £800 without a dedicated GPU

---------- Post added at 08:04 ---------- Previous post was at 07:58 ----------

I do have to ask though why do you want to replace your old PC ? if it does what you want it to do why replace it?

[Taf]

Our twins are into gaming, so most of the cost went into top-level graphics cards. The missus and I don't play PC games, so the cost of ours dropped by £hundreds by choosing basic graphics cards.

We all opted for SSD to speed up boot times, And I opted for extra RAM as I do a lot of graphics and video work.

Many builders seem to think we are all either SOHO or Gamers, so offer PCs based on those requirements.

[tweetiepooh]

I too am looking at upgrading my PC. My current unit is about 12 years old and mostly it works fine. I have upgraded RAM to 18GB (triple channel - you put in sets of 3) and replaced the graphics card (GTX260 -> GT1030) and PSU. It is an i7 720 CPU.



The current machine was built locally so I could chat with the builders and work out the best bang-for-buck, that point where less power doesn't save much but more power costs a great deal. Our budget is upto £2.5k. I prefer nVidia for graphics and everything needs to work with Linux. Because my current PC had 6 RAM slots, 3 free, I could put enough RAM in and it was easy to add more. I also want an internal optical drive.
My plan with disks is to have 2 very fast disks for O/S, one for Linux, one for Windows and maybe put the Windows home directory (user files) on the Linux disk and visa versa. I will also put some bigger storage disks for photos, music and other shared resources. At this moment 2TB disks on one site are cheaper than 1TB. Our current PC has 2x1TB hard disks and that is mostly enough. I could rerip my CD's to a non-lossy format with the space though, and I do need/want more Windows space.

I don't play high end games but some of the newer titles I do play sometimes struggle a little bit.

[Jaymoss]

Originally Posted by tweetiepooh

Big Snip.

You will not need to spend that much tbh

You could easily have built or build a system with something like a 13700K/7800X3d 32GB DDR5 RTX4070 with plenty of M.2 storage for that price and have change for a couple of nights out

---------- Post added at 09:58 ---------- Previous post was at 09:55 ----------

in fact you can get a prebuilt 14700K RTX 4080 32GB for that less

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/3xs-...-m2-ssd-win-11

[Hom3r]

I'm still using my Windows 8.1 Sony VAIO Laptop, I bought it 10 years ago and only use it for office type work and YouTube.


When I get back to working full time I'll get my nephew to build be a gaming machine

[Jaymoss]

Costco has this https://www.costco.co.uk/Computers/D...op-PC/p/475672

[tweetiepooh]

Trouble with pre-built is they can be a pain getting Linux onto them and are they supported if I do.
Query - why is Scan some £400 more than one rival for similar components - about the same price for the bits? Looking at an itemised list I see 3x build as an item, maybe it's that. Is Scan worth paying the extra? (The other builder wasn't a fly by night, unknown.)

[Jaymoss]

Originally Posted by tweetiepooh

Trouble with pre-built is they can be a pain getting Linux onto them and are they supported if I do.
Query - why is Scan some £400 more than one rival for similar components - about the same price for the bits? Looking at an itemised list I see 3x build as an item, maybe it's that. Is Scan worth paying the extra? (The other builder wasn't a fly by night, unknown.)

I often use Scan for components as I like to pay the little extra for the ScanSure insurance. I am getting older and my eyesight is not so good haha

Similar is not the same so unless it was a like for like basket then you can not really compare Z790 motherboards for example range from £230 to £1000

I was just grabbing examples to prove a point. I would not buy a pre built myself I would build from scratch

[tweetiepooh]

By "similar" I meant similar name (xx745t) and price for the components. Scan did have a different case and an internal optical drive but the latter was in the £20 region and I can't see the case costing £4-600 more, I do know cases can be expensive but they were both same brand, full tower cases with similar names)


I don't mind paying a bit more if there is a reason, e.g. Scan support is top notch and the other are good but not quite as good.


---
On a different, but related note, my daughter has requested a lighter laptop (she has a refurbished T460) to take to lectures. Budget to £500, weight more important than power as she will still have the other lappy for "real work". There look like some good deals on light Lenovos that will work nicely. I still don't want it to come with lots of vendor crap though. I can put on Norton, LibreOffice and the other bits she needs and set up accounts so she doesn't use "admin" for daily work.

[Matthew]

Looks like prices have gone up again looking at eBuyer. I am a desktop user, I do have a laptop for when away but rely solidly on my desktop. What I currently have is a custom build but when this gets replaced I will be likely going to a HP or Lenovo unless a custom build is cheaper again. I don't do much but I've always over spec'd my machines to last me, this one is coming up 5 years old at Christmas and will need to start to look at upgrading at some point before October 25.

I've bought a few friends Lenovo desktops who run small businesses at home and these have been solid machines and at the time maybe 18 months ago got them at a good price on eBuyer.

Between eBuyer and Overclockers over the years both have served me well although Overclockers has shot up quite a bit and their selections havent been as good I dont think. I'd even consider a good refurb machine with a new drive in these days if the price was right.

[tweetiepooh]

I have just purchased a refurbished Lenovo x280 for my daughter with Win 11 Pro. I'll create her a normal and admin accounts, install Norton, set up Megasync ( I still need to set that up on the other Lenovo). Just a bit over £200 and tagged excellent condition.

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by vincerooney

Hi all,

I'm in my late 30s now and always just had a desktop pc since i was like 11. I'm struggling to find a potential replacement for my 6 year old PC and i'm really, really confused about

1) Why prices are high compared to what i paid 6 years ago but the specs dont seem that much better

2) why SSD storage is like 50% less than the 1TB PC i got last time

this is the PC I've got currently:
HP Pavillion Gaming Desktop 690-00. Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8400 CPU @ 2.80GHz 2.81 GHz

8.00 GB (7.87 GB usable). 1.1TB hard drive

Everything else around the £700-800 price seems WORSE than my current desktop unless tech has gone past me in my old age. can anyone recommend a good desktop for me? i use it to mainly go on the internet, use MS office and the games i use were that modern version of theme hospital and football manager 2024 haha.

I'm starting to think desktops may now be easier going via apple macs since they seem to still be investing in desktops.

Unless laptops are the way to go now? are they cheaper than desktops? i always thought laptops would be more expensive as they have to be put in a much smaller base?

Thanks in advance all

Unless you need the mobility that a laptop is designed for, I'd stick with the desktop solution esp. if you have external monitors. Laptops are not designed for long periods of use at higher loads. They can have cooling issues and this can impact component life e.g. batteries.

If you are looking for a cheap desktop, this place is worth checking out: https://itzoo.co.uk/. They don't have that much at the moment but worth checking back now & again. This one looked interesting:

https://itzoo.co.uk/collections/work...110-16gb-512gb

Refurbished LENOVO THINKSTATION P720 Mid-Tower PC
Intel 4110 Xeon Silver 2.1GHz CPU
512GB SSD
16GB RAM
A Grade
Windows 10 Pro Installed

£379.99

I guess it would need a Graphics card though ...

[damien c]

Unfortunately prices are high because people have been willing to pay the prices that Intel and nVidia have charged for products.

Added to that was Covid which reduced production levels of core materials required for the components, and then you got hit with nVidia reducing production and supply of components to the Retail market in order to justify their extortionate pricing.

They even admitted to it on an "Earning's Call" and were found to be directly selling GPU's that were meant for the Retail market to Crypto Miners, because they were willing to pay X percentage over Retail to get the cards.

Then once that was sort of over, you get the Ukraine/Russia situation and the Oil/Fuel Cartel bumping the price to transport components and materials around which also jacked the prices up.


If you want to buy 2nd hand, then wait till the Mid/End Jan 2024 as nVidia are announcing new cards around the 8th Jan 2024, which will cause a bunch of used 40 series cards to hit the likes of Ebay, and will cause the prices of the 30 series cards on there to drop.

A 2nd hand Intel 11000 series and above CPU would be a good choice, or an AMD 5000 series CPU would be another good shout.

In terms of motherboards, with AMD you don't need a X570 board, you can go with a B550 and that will typically get you basically the same level of performance but you might not get 2.5G Lan and Wi-Fi etc etc.

Avoid 2nd hand Xeons if you game, the lower base core clock is not worth the 10% to 50% performance drop for the sake of a few quid, but if your not gaming then a 2nd hand Xeon would be a great shout.



Laptop's are getting pricey now because they offer basically the same level of performance as a desktop pc whilst remaining quiet and offering, the flexibility of moving around with them.

I have an MSI Stealth 15 laptop, that performs in the games I currently play at about 80% of the performance of my main pc and that laptop cost less than the GPU in my main pc alone!

I can sit playing games on that thing all day with no issues, even play games then jump in to video editing, recording a DJ Mix etc and have no issues.

Storage wise, well SSD's are a lot cheaper than they used to be, because NAND flash is a lot cheaper at the moment, so you can pick up a 1TB 2.5" SSD from the likes of Crucial for around £50, or a 1TB NVME Drive from the likes of Samsung for £70.

I am looking at a possible all SSD Server and a 4TB NVME drive is only £200 or there abouts when not on sale, currently on Amazon you can get a 4TB NVME PCI-E 4.0 drive for £169.99!


If you want brand new, then I would suggest a pre-built but try to avoid the likes of HP etc because they are all heavily overpriced for the quality of the components they provide, I would be looking at the likes of Scan/Overclockers/PC Specialist or one of the other "Custom Pre-Built" PC Builders, as they will often use off the shelf parts as you would, but they get them cheaper so don't jack the price up to much.

If you want brand new and a custom build, then start looking at the likes of PCPartpicker UK, it will let you build out a system and show the cheapest places to get the stuff from, but be warned they don't just go for the cheapest place, make sure you check them out first to see if they are "Reputable".