Buying A New Pc

[mca]

I'm going to treat myself to a new PC but seeing as I'm not exactly a tech wizard I'd appreciate it if you good folks could point me in the right direction as to what to go for concerning the hardware. There's a Tukcom where I live so I should be able to buy what I need. My budget is 20k baht excluding monitor. What I'd like is a mega fast processor and loads of storage capacity on the hard drive because I download a ton of movies.

Approximate prices of the hardware would be appreciated

Many thanks for any input

[JSixpack]

A continually recurring question. Best to listen to the real experts here:

http://arstechnica.com/guides/

http://anandtech.com/guides/

These guides are regularly updated. Just find your price range and look for the same or equivalent hardware in Thailand:

[ballbreaker]

Another good site for computer info is: http://www.tomshardware.com/us/#redir

For prices check out this site: http://www.busitek.com/

[spacemunk]

Mega fast proc , movies download.

how fast is fast? what will u be using the PC for? Gaming , movies , music , surfing , work? wat kind of work?

[PastEgo]

for playing games, a fast graphics card or even two graphic cards

for converting media files, rendering graphics a fast processor and 4 gig memory

for running lots of programs at once and loads of windows a fast processor and 4 gig memory

for using the internet a bit of word processing, playing old games or the windows games, a standard pc nothing special not too expensive, dual core should be ok, 2 gig memory, 500 gig hd

nowadays for people who just want to do a bit of "office" work and use the internet whilst on the move people are buying netbooks , low power devices and cheapish

if you intend to do lots of downloads have at least 1tb of hd disk space and get yourself a SATA dvd/cdrom combo

you can spend anywhere for 25-60K baht on a pc

the monitor: good brand, fast refresh rates anything between 6-15K baht

make sure when you buy it you test it there an then

specially in Panthip

not saying there is anything wrong with the shops

thai shops are different than western shops and expect you to check everything works to your satisfaction

shop around, read a few tech sites like www.tomshardware.com / www.hexus.net to get a feel for the prices then when you have found what you want compare prices in the shops with what is on the net and do not be afraid to haggle

pay by cash not visa as they add 3% and do not forget the receipt because they might

[Crushdepth]

thai shops are different than western shops and expect you to check everything works to your satisfaction

There are ethical shops even in Pantip who will happily honour warranties for defective gear. Granted, there's a lot that aren't too.

[mca]

Thanks for all the replies. Good stuff. Basically I want my PC programmes to run as quick as poss. For example, I use a converter to convert and burn torrent downloads to DVD format and on my laptop it takes about an hour. On my PC it's 2 hours plus. It's a bit of a system hog as well so when I'm using it I can't use any other programme.

[PastEgo]

then your best bet is to get a fast hard disk a fast cpu and about 2-4 gig memory

or just buy a tv which has USB input and can play divx/xvid about 9000-12000 OR buy for about 5000 a WDTV can handle most formats i.e MKV/XVID/DIVX and a USB stick

cheaper than a new pc and then you can still use the pc/laptop to do something else

do not bother to convert to dvd you always get loss of quality when converting formats - no matter how small - and it just takes ages even the media i own i download as i cannot be bothered to convert it lol

[dave_boo]

Which convertor for the videos?

If it's multi-threaded, than going with a slightly slower 4 core processor is going to reap more benefits than a faster dual-core. The Intel Core i7 is the king of the hill right now (although the budget i5 gets it a run for the money), but Baht for Baht you can't beat AMD's pricing. I think if I was limiting myself to a budget of 25 000 THB I'd look at AMD.

I do agree that the more memory the merrier. However, anything above 4 GB is probably a waste of money for you. While a 64bit OS will see it, how many 64 bit programmes do you know of that can utilise it?

Video card isn't that important, apparently, to you. If you're going to do multi-monitor setup, than a lot of RAM on your videocard will help everything be nice and smooth.

Obviously for video transcoding the biggest disk is the best disk. While some would argue that you need the fastest drive possible, I'd be willing to bet that your bottleneck is going to be the CPU, not the 60+ mb/s that modern big drives push. Best cost per GB right now is the 1 Terabyte models.

The biggest thing to worry about if you are looking for longevity is the motherboard and power supply. The motherboard is obviously the foundation of your build and skimping there can wreak havoc with your system. I always recommend Supermicro, Tyan, Intel, and then Asus. Asrock is an Asus daughter company, and seems to get good reviews for their budget motherboards. I've been burned by Gigabyte in the past, so I can't in good faith recommend them. Abit has sadly passed on. Iwill has caused me nothing but grief. I don't buy Foxconn motherboards on principle--in fact I try and stay away from all Phoenix bios due to their handling of Linux. The power supply is equivalent to your own food choices. Granted you can live on McDees...but how healthy would you be?

There is another choice mentioned earlier in the thread; getting a Western Digital TV or a dvd player that will play those divx/xvid files you've been transcoding. I'm hesitant to recommend that, because if you have a laptop that is doing the transcoding job 2x faster than your desktop, you really need to replace your desktop. Every purchase that we consumers makes generates profits for the companies that they can re-invest in R&D resulting in even better computers.

[Benjie]

Why do you convert the videos?

[mca]

Thanks for all the great replies. Much appreciated for you all taking the time to answer. I use the ConvertXtoDVD 3 programme to convert my files and then burn them to play on a regular DVD player. I don't like watching movies on a PC.

[surface]

As was mentioned, you can pickup a DVD player that will play divx, xvid, etc., from a DVD or USB flash drive. You can find the generic ones for around 1,000 baht, name brands in the 2,000+ range. Just load a DVD or USB flash drive with a few of the files you want to play and bring them to the store to test out compatibility with the different players.