New desktop PC help

[loves2plan]

I don't want to panic buy a new PC, so I've dug out a laptop I bought a couple of years ago that I haven't used. Hoping this will be okay to get me by while I do a bit more resrarch. I won't be using Photopshop or InDesign on this one, just internet, Word and Excel. Does it look okay?

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by loves2plan

I don't want to panic buy a new PC, so I've dug out a laptop I bought a couple of years ago that I haven't used. Hoping this will be okay to get me by while I do a bit more resrarch. I won't be using Photopshop or InDesign on this one, just internet, Word and Excel. Does it look okay?

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That's fairly similar to my own laptop...

Your processor is a bit older than mine but not too dissimilar. Memory is the same.

My laptop is perfectly fine at running internet, Word, Excel, Outlook, etc with multiple tabs open. I'll often have a dozen tabs open on Edge or Firefox, half a dozen Word documents and 3 or 4 Excel spreadsheets open, Outlook running, video conferencing occassionally running, and so on.

It's just Photoshop (and similar) that really needs a bit more umpf. Standard MS Office should run on most PCs/laptops.

[loves2plan]

I've finally got around to looking at a new PC using the Palicomp link that Dinglebert posted. Would someone mind running their techy eyes over these specs please and letting me know if they look okay, if there are thinkgs I don't need, or there are things I'm missing:

palicomp/pc_of_the_week_140621
AMD RYZEN 3 3200G - 3.6GHZ/4GHZ TURBO - 4CORE/4THREAD + VEGA 8 GRAPHICS
16GB 3200MHZ RAM + 480GB SSD
WINDOWS 10
HEATSINK/FAN FOR CPU INCLUDED; TO COVER OVERCLOCK IF APPLICABLE
ASUS PRIME A320M-K A320 CHIPSET - USB 3.1 - USB3.0- M.2
INTEGRATED GRAPHICS
500W PSU
INTERNAL WIRELESS (WIFI) WIRELESS N - 300MBPS
PCI-E USB3.0 CARD - 4 PORTS
2 X BLACK 120MM FANS - COOLERMASTER
Q-JUMP FOR NEXT DAY DELIVERY
3 YEAR CARE FREE WARRANTY
Cost: £469

Should I add a hard drive too? 500GB is £25 and 1TB is £35
There's no sound card included. Does this mean that it won't make sound at all, or will there still be sound when I plug the speakers in? I wasn't sure if it comes with stanard sound and adding a sound card was for improved sound, like upgrading the graphics card is for improved graphics.

Thank you!

[bighal]

Looking at the specs you have onboard audio so no need for a sound card, I haven't put a separate sound card in my PC for several years now.

If you can upgrade the SSD to 1tb capacity at least. You can add a second hard drive if you want, personally I would go with an addition 1tb drive which can be a normal SATA 3.5inch drive rather than another SSD one to save costs.

[loves2plan]

Originally Posted by bighal

Looking at the specs you have onboard audio so no need for a sound card, I haven't put a separate sound card in my PC for several years now.

If you can upgrade the SSD to 1tb capacity at least. You can add a second hard drive if you want, personally I would go with an addition 1tb drive which can be a normal SATA 3.5inch drive rather than another SSD one to save costs.

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Thank you. Do I really need a 1tb SSD if I'm not gaming or doing anything particularly heavy duty? Just Word, Excel and internet, with the occasional bit of Photopshop (3-4 times a year)? The cost of upgrading the SSD to 1tb plus upgrading the RAM to 16gb takes me over my ideal budget, but I'm happy to add the 1tb HDD to the existing specs as I thought it would be handy for storing photos and videos. Or would a 1TB external hard drive be a better option?

[BevS97]

I would just add on the £35 1TB hard drive then you have the best of both worlds, speed from your SSD for every day tasks, and the larger storage for long term photo storage which doesn't need to be fast.

Personally, I'd avoid an external hard drive as they have an unfortunate tendency to fail.

I would also look at some sort of cloud storage for your photos, as any hard drive can fail eventually.

I used to recommend Google photos as it was free and unlimited but it's not free anymore. It is still good in that you can set it up to automatically back up every photo on your PC and phone and really any sort of backup needs to be automatic or it doesn't happen.

But that's an aside...

[cartoonp]

Originally Posted by loves2plan

Thank you. Do I really need a 1tb SSD if I'm not gaming or doing anything particularly heavy duty? Just Word, Excel and internet, with the occasional bit of Photopshop (3-4 times a year)? The cost of upgrading the SSD to 1tb plus upgrading the RAM to 16gb takes me over my ideal budget, but I'm happy to add the 1tb HDD to the existing specs as I thought it would be handy for storing photos and videos. Or would a 1TB external hard drive be a better option?

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Hi there this is my set up I am diffrent from you as I do lots of picture taken I all so do my own sever so I can stream to our TVs which runs though our TVs.

I have 1 6 tb drive 2 4 tb drives one tb in the pc and a ssd in the pc as I said I do stream a lot I got all our dvds and cds stored on a hdd all so al, our pictures stored as well.