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Sigh Roland00 Send a noteboard - 29/09/2010 02:28:38 AM
I ain't saying HP Elites are bad, but this is not a good balanced computer.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2960/1

No normal person needs the Intel Core I7 6 cores, it is not worth the return on investment. Only people that will benefit from it are (and I quote) people in "compute intensive 3D work, video encoding or (extensive) Excel modeling." If you are doing these fields you should be looking at nothing better than a core i7 860 ($284), i7 870 ($294), i7 930 ($294), or i7 950 ($294 this processor just had a recent price drop if you buy in quantities of 1000 or more). Now the i7 980x costs $999 for quantities of a 1000 or more. The reason why you shouldn't care about the intel Core I7 6 cores is that if you aren't in those fields you won't be stressing the processor enough where you will gain a benefit of 6 cores instead of 4. The 4 cores have similar clock speeds and similar latency cache that you just won't see a benefit unless your stressing your system enough. This was shown in the synthetic benchmarks I linked above where you only got a 5% speed gain.

Now HP like many OEMs are tricking you into buying that video card. You will see no performance benefit going from 1 gb vs 2 gb, but people think the bigger number makes it better. That video card is a so/so card that costs about $100 on the open market but in reality performance wise (compared to other cards) performs as well as a $70 dollar card. What determines the speed of your video card is not the amount of memory your card has but the number of calculation units the card has (stream processors and rops). That card has 400 ATI stream processors (which is not bad), but ATI has cards going all the way up to 1600.

Finally if you are going to spend 2 grand on a computer, you really really need an SSD. An SSD is a hard drive that doesn't have moving parts but instead uses flash memory in parallel to access the data. The slowest SSD is still 3 times faster than the fastest hard drive on the market (and some SSDs are about 5 times faster.)

See the below youtube video to get an idea of how much difference their is between ssd vs harddrive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_Jz7IMwBt4

The reason why the computer runs much faster on the right is SSDs have much lower latency on how long it takes to read files as well as write to them. Now here is the sad news, SSDs are still expensive on a gigabyte basis when compared to a harddrive. This isn't really a problem on a desktop since you can get a 80 or 160 gb ssd for your operating system and all your programs and a normal hard drive for all your data. The second problem is that most OEMS don't have SSDs preinstalled in their systems or if they do they charge double for the luxury. I know you are wanting a simple prebuilt, but installing a ssd is something quite easy to do for a computer shop or a techie.

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What sort of computers do people here recommend? - 28/09/2010 10:31:02 PM 674 Views
Get a Mac - 28/09/2010 10:48:13 PM 261 Views
Fuck you too. *NM* - 28/09/2010 10:58:58 PM 90 Views
It's been ages since I bought a computer or had to look into buying one, but... - 28/09/2010 11:06:32 PM 251 Views
your average dell is a piece of crap. - 28/09/2010 11:10:16 PM 230 Views
I restart my shitty-shit Dell four to five times a day at work. - 29/09/2010 02:51:56 AM 227 Views
Do not buy dell *NM* - 28/09/2010 11:18:11 PM 88 Views
I've worked at multiple companies using all Dell. They are shit. - 29/09/2010 02:48:13 AM 204 Views
I am very partial to both Acer desktops and laptops. - 28/09/2010 11:15:02 PM 231 Views
Just give Tom a heads up - 28/09/2010 11:20:17 PM 218 Views
just a heads up about gateway, don't expect customer service. - 29/09/2010 01:14:56 AM 216 Views
What do you do with your computer? Desktop or Laptop? *NM* - 28/09/2010 11:18:57 PM 97 Views
Desktop. I have network access storage for work files so I don't ever use laptops. - 29/09/2010 01:25:15 AM 208 Views
Okay, now what will you use the desktop for? - 29/09/2010 01:49:15 AM 208 Views
HP Pavilion Elite. ≥8GB RAM. 1TB Memory. 1GB video card. They offer about 3-4 models like that. *NM* - 28/09/2010 11:35:32 PM 98 Views
I just looked at an HP computer... - 29/09/2010 01:21:25 AM 350 Views
Sigh - 29/09/2010 02:28:38 AM 264 Views
Most of those options were only $20 - $40 more than the base options - 29/09/2010 01:50:20 PM 215 Views
Here is what I would recommend - 30/09/2010 05:36:08 PM 252 Views
It gives me an error if I try to set up that configuration. - 30/09/2010 06:19:34 PM 216 Views
Don't worry about that then - 30/09/2010 07:09:30 PM 199 Views
I would also recommend the HP Elites - 29/09/2010 01:50:31 AM 207 Views
That's what I have. - 29/09/2010 06:53:10 AM 203 Views
im in the market for a new puter and this is the one ive been eyeing.. - 30/09/2010 01:34:34 AM 196 Views
You might like a Sony - 28/09/2010 11:43:56 PM 217 Views
Sony machines, especially their laptops, are vastly overpriced in my opinion. - 28/09/2010 11:55:13 PM 198 Views
If you're looking purely at specs, yes that's true - 29/09/2010 04:36:52 AM 201 Views
I'm fairly sure that Sony no longer makes normal "desktops" - 29/09/2010 12:58:00 AM 229 Views
Correct - 29/09/2010 01:52:17 AM 214 Views
That's what I thought. - 29/09/2010 02:54:20 AM 244 Views
hmm, alright then - 29/09/2010 02:37:59 AM 198 Views
Yeah it bummed me out too. - 29/09/2010 02:52:28 AM 219 Views
Re: Yeah it bummed me out too. - 29/09/2010 03:39:52 AM 277 Views
I've found Sony to be frustrating to deal with. - 29/09/2010 01:26:33 AM 210 Views
Yeah they've been going downhill - 29/09/2010 02:42:33 AM 209 Views
HP used to be good, but I've been hearing bad things recently. - 29/09/2010 12:58:44 AM 221 Views
What bad things have you heard? - 29/09/2010 01:27:23 AM 220 Views
HP has many models - 29/09/2010 02:01:25 AM 293 Views
Re: HP has many models - 29/09/2010 03:01:43 AM 204 Views
If I were going cheap on laptops I would probably go for a lenovo - 29/09/2010 03:21:19 AM 735 Views
I had no problem running multiple programs for hours at a time. - 29/09/2010 07:11:08 AM 240 Views
I am curious what is your model? *NM* - 29/09/2010 01:15:09 PM 91 Views
It was a C500 I believe. - 02/10/2010 01:30:29 AM 202 Views
I like my HP better than my dell. - 29/09/2010 01:14:39 AM 217 Views
Did the bad computer lick your apples? *NM* - 29/09/2010 01:23:00 AM 91 Views
No, that would be a bad thing. - 29/09/2010 01:34:59 AM 205 Views
But that Dell was the bad computer. *NM* - 29/09/2010 01:37:09 AM 75 Views
Hmm. I've just made an amazingly stupid post. - 29/09/2010 01:40:02 AM 201 Views
Crack is wack, yo. Stick to grass. - 29/09/2010 01:41:21 AM 190 Views
Dell sucks more dick than a gay boy at his first Pride event. - 29/09/2010 01:21:06 AM 212 Views
Re: Dell dick gay boy event. - 29/09/2010 02:59:38 AM 214 Views
find a HDTV that can do at least 1440 x 900 resolution - 29/09/2010 02:16:30 AM 217 Views
Good advice *NM* - 29/09/2010 02:43:38 AM 75 Views
Anything designed by Cyberdyne Systems is the future. *NM* - 29/09/2010 09:51:56 AM 115 Views
I've heard they have problems with their customer service. *NM* - 29/09/2010 11:52:25 AM 81 Views
I heard the opposite. They respond quickly and effectively. *NM* - 29/09/2010 03:36:03 PM 88 Views
No customer ever complains twice, eh? *NM* - 29/09/2010 03:36:52 PM 80 Views
Nope. - 30/09/2010 03:24:23 AM 193 Views
I'd go to a local place and have them build one - 30/09/2010 08:36:31 AM 187 Views
Our Acer is very nice. - 30/09/2010 06:12:04 PM 201 Views
I like Acers as well - 30/09/2010 09:38:15 PM 183 Views
We've had ours for over a year, with no issues. - 30/09/2010 09:49:17 PM 192 Views

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