PC Advice

[Phil Magill]

My grandson is looking for a desktop computer for his school work in graphic media and for playing some online games.



It will be used with Photoshop 12 for creating adverts and animations and also using a graphics pad, he's told his ma that it needs to be :-




Fast processor.


A good graphics card for games.


At least 1TB HDD.


And hopefully cost up to £500.


So what's out there, I'm a computer numpty so I don't want to go into a computer shop to be spun a whole crock of shit by some salesperson trying to get an easy Christmas bonus by flogging me something that's not up to the job.

 

[RedRick Esq.]

A 2nd hand Mac !

 

[rjsmith26]

+1 for mac

 

[cookie]

games = no mac IMO.

 

[RedRick Esq.]

games = no mac IMO.

I guess it depends on the game but my boy plays all the online games and prefers the mac to his powerful lap top

He is currently playing league of legends whatever that is

 

[Deleted account 190920001]

Seriously for £500 you can forget the fast processor and good graphics card. For that money your going to get low to middle of the road.

For graphics design it will need plenty of RAM as well.

 

[AberdeenAngus]

If he expects to be playing latest generation games a full chat, he'll be disappointed.
I too would go for the Mac. Good for what he 'needs' it to do.
He'll just have to play the games that'll play on it.

 

[stolzy]

An appropriately specced mac will play any games just as well as a PC with a copy of Windows installed as well.

 

[AberdeenAngus]

An appropriately specced mac will play any games just as well as a PC with a copy of Windows installed as well.

Do you work for Microsoft?

 

[sparky56]

Have a look at these guys, they built my son a cracking laptop. Top spec for a good price.

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/

Plus you can have a bit of fun with your grandson specifying the build aswell.

 

[Phil Magill]

Thanks for the replies guys


I will have to speak to the lad to see what his priorities are, gaming or his graphic media studies.

 

[Titto]

He doesn't need a mac at all.
He can still get a decent spec pc for around the budget.

Personally I find Intel i5 or i7 cpu's are far more effective and efficient than AMD offerings. The gpu built into the latest gen Ivybridge or Haswell i5/i7 processors will still allow him to game on lower settings no problem.
8gb ram.
A decent gpu? My preference is nvidia and anything 6 series onwards (660 onwards) would be a good starting point. Or get him a gtx 970 and he won't need anything ever again!!!
Check out the hotukdeals, there are plenty of fantastic offers put on there daily.

 

[doolittle]

Have a look at http://www.ankermann.com/en/