New Work Computer... what to buy?

[Joanne]

So I've got £700 for a new machine. I was thinking of getting a Surface Pro and using it as a machine, plugging in a monitor and my USB keyboard/mouse combo. Is this realistic? Although for £700 it's not going to be one of the best Surface's's's is it?

 

I've spec'ed up a machine on ebuyer if I build myself... it's a beast with i7, 16GB DDR4 RAM, SSD and a 27" monitor... because WHY NOT!

 

I've had a look at buy as is desktops and you don't get much bang for your buck. I guess Lenovo or Dell would be my weapon of choice, but then... I dunno... feel like I'm cheating buying a ready built one, but it would mean I wouldn't have to faff about with the possibility of stuff being incompatible... easier if something goes wrong etcs.

 

Then there is secret option 3 - laptop... but to be honest, I don't really consider this an option. I don't need a laptop at home, and I don't really need to be mobile in school... although it would mean I could go and hide in random rooms... hmmm...

 

Anyways... thoughts?

[Arreks]

I'd say option two, build your own! can't really go wrong then.

[john]

Talk to the wonderful ICT Direct Dave! He will make you something amazing

[MattDLEA]

I have beasts of machines from @ictDirect-Dave ( one in each of my schools) and even one at home

[matt40k]

I'd say avoid building your own, last thing you need to do is waste time fixing your own machine. I use to use an old server before switching to one of the Dell desktops that were being deployed across the school. If you do build your own, make sure its stable and ideally use an old case or the same style case as the rest of the school so they don't think they have cruddy hardware and you have all the best kit.

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Talk to the wonderful ICT Direct Dave! He will make you something amazing

 

I have beasts of machines from @ictDirect-Dave ( one in each of my schools) and even one at home

 

Thanks guys!

 

For £700 I can knock together a beast of a Xeon Powered workstation. Somethihng with a couple of processors and bags of everything. Drop me a PM if you like and I'll make something nice.

[vizubeat]

I'm sure Dave will come up with a good machine, and if you want a workhorse PC then building your own is definitely the way to go. I would just like to shout up about my i5/8GB/256GB Surface Pro 3 - it's awesome! It has basically replaced my 8-ish-year-old PC and my old MacBook Pro. I've got the dock plugged into two screens and my wireless keyboard/mouse and printer and other stuff so it works as a desktop replacement just fine. I will admit I don't play games on the SP3 but do a lot of work with multi-track audio and stuff, web stuff, code, writing for my uni course, it runs a couple of VMs in VirtualBox....It's awesome. Plus the portability of the form factor, the surface pen is great for note-taking and meetings, I love it. Best single bit of kit I've ever purchased.

 

But that's just me! Really depends what you actually want out of your machine.

[Steve21]

Wouldn't touch a surface with bargepole So so so horrid haha

 

Personally always prefer a nice desktop myself, would get dual 22-23s rather than single 27 too as generally works out near enough same pricing but helps a lot more imho

 

Guess a lot of it depends what you're planning to use the machine for, if you are planning to use anything like HyperV on it for tests will you ever hit 16GB RAM etc, vs some nice big SATA drives for storage/all the faff you don't want clogging on network etc

 

Steve

[pcstru]

Then there is secret option 3 - laptop... but to be honest, I don't really consider this an option. I don't need a laptop at home, and I don't really need to be mobile in school... although it would mean I could go and hide in random rooms... hmmm...

Personally, I was going to suggest the Surface Pro (3), but then why would a surface pro be different in this respect from a laptop? So for £700, an ICT_Direct special sounds like a good plan.

[pcstru]

Wouldn't touch a surface with bargepole So so so horrid haha

I love mine, although I wouldn't be without a proper desktop PC.

[Joanne]

The only reason I wanted a surface was purely new toy factor and drawing silly pictures on it... (ask @ZeroHour about those!)

 

I think it will look better if I have a normal desktop PC, then people won't be asking why I'm taking it home and stuff!!!

 

Got a sexy quote off @ICTDirect_Dave and going to speak to the Bursar about it this aft!

[Gaz]

I would consider the laptop route, I had the same options as you @Joanne and I went the laptop route. Its just as powerful as a desktop for what I do. Far more portable for the "unknown" and can still use multiple displays and docks.

@ICTDirect_Dave do those Xeon workstations sound like hoovers?

[plexer]

I would consider the laptop route, I had the same options as you @Joanne and I went the laptop route. Its just as powerful as a desktop for what I do. Far more portable for the "unknown" and can still use multiple displays and docks.

@ICTDirect_Dave do those Xeon workstations sound like hoovers?

 

Hoover? pfft, they sound like a Dyson at full tilt much better.

 

Ben

[ICTDirect_Dave]

I would consider the laptop route, I had the same options as you @Joanne and I went the laptop route. Its just as powerful as a desktop for what I do. Far more portable for the "unknown" and can still use multiple displays and docks.

@ICTDirect_Dave do those Xeon workstations sound like hoovers?

 

Hoover? Nah, they're not that bad. They do have LOTS of fans though, but most of the time they're decently quiet unless you're really driving them!

[3s-gtech]

Just got in our HP Elite 8300 Touch PCs from ICT Direct, utterly lush and not very expensive. Probably not the most practical choice for a NM's PC, but awesome for the money.

[Gaz]

I purposely didn't use a capital "h"

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Just got in our HP Elite 8300 Touch PCs from ICT Direct, utterly lush and not very expensive. Probably not the most practical choice for a NM's PC, but awesome for the money.

 

Glad they landed safely, I've still got some left if you want a few more?

 

I considered suggesting one of these as they are really rather nice, but you can't pack six cores and 24GB of ram into one like you can with a Workstation

[gsk]

If this was me, and it was my workstation rather than a test/lab machine running VMs, I would get a 5th Gen Broadwell i5 NUC, 16gb 1866MHz RAM, 240gb m.2ssd and 2x 22" FHD monitors, win 7 pro lic, for £700. They are lovely and quiet and very fast and can be mounted on the back of one of the screens so you can forget about it.

[Joanne]

Yeah I'm gonna be slamming VMs on it. 22" monitors? TOO SMALL!! Hah! I currently have a 24 and it should sit nicely next to the beast 27 I'm getting