HTCPCP

As others have said, all depends what your budget is, and what you want to use it for really. If you are looking at cutting a few pence off the build, the Ryzen 7 3700X is around the same price as the Ryzen 5 5600 and scores about the same (not as good for gaming, but for core based work its better), but deals are always to be found on the former, and supply of the latter is non existant. The Ryzen 5 3600 and its x variant is a great performer still, and widely discounted too, and possible to get around the £200 mark too. From memory, all of them come with the Wraith cooler from AMD which is fine, so means that you won't need to get another cooler. For RAM, the 3000 series works well with 3200mhz DDR4, but the 5000 series sweet spot is reportedly 3600mhz DDR4. In and around the £200 range, Intel do have a sensible offering too - the 10600 and 10600K are probably worth a look at too compared with the 3600 and 3600X. And being on the Intel platform, it is less fussy with RAM too. Power Supply - a 750w 80+ Gold from a reputable manufacturer should be way more than enough, and should give you enough if you want to go into gaming reasonably heavily later on too (enough for a 3080). I tend to go for Corsairs RMX range, or the Seasonic models, but there are other really good quality models. I tend to replace my PSU after around 10 years as it does degrade a certain amount. Modular is a nice to have, especially if you want a cleaner build, but having a PSU where the fan turns off when not on heavy load, can really reduce the sound. Motherboard - B450 is still perfect for a 3000 series processor, many will also work (with bios upgrade) with the 5000 series processors in the new year. B550 if you want the latest gen stuff. Even though I have used X470 boards, they aren't really worth it, and X570 is overkill too for most use cases. Intel wise - K series processor - go for the Z series chip is the current format still, if not, then B series will work fine. Storage - m.2 now for me - There are some great ones out there for not too much. Samsung are still the king, but you have companies like Sabrent that make some really great value alternatives. PCIe 4 models really aren't worth it IMO, and if you aren't on the B550 or X570 AMD boards, then completely pointless at the moment. You can then (subject to the case) reuse your normal SSD as something like a scratch drive/game drive and your hard drive for storage. Graphics card - stick with it at the moment. The GPU market is a complete show at the moment, and your current one is more than enough for many games still. Then look next year when stock comes back into the market! Case - If you like your components, don't get one that is closed off. Airflow optimised cases are so much better than closed systems (and you can run your fans slower too and keep the same temps).

Speak to your account managers at the big few computer makers and they can often give you better prices than what they show on the website. That being said, I'm sure if you hit up VeryPC/Stone they will be able to set you up with some decent pricing too for kit. Another thing to look at would be to speak to ICT Direct, and see what Dave could hit you up with. A 7th or 8th gen i5 will offer a good step up, and if you go for a latitude and (this is based on old thinkpads as I haven't bought any for about 6 years now) Thinkpad X series, then should be easily serviceable and be really well built.

The main problem is (and its a real killer at the moment), that AMD produce the best CPUs, however, these aren't available with the big OEMs widely, so won't get the main business machine markets still. Don't get me wrong, I will be buying an upgrade for my 2600x rig at home once the new BIOS is available, and am a massive fan of what Ryzen and Epyc has done for the market, but for work at the moment, where we buy hundreds of machines a year (on top of servers) until they get into OEMs properly like Dell, then Intel still have a great income source. Is it that Dell are still getting the substantial intel "rebate" that was so controversial?

It kind of depends on what game they are wanting to play really, for that price you are looking at 1080p gaming, but what option you should go for will depend on what games you go for within the budget For the main kit, look at what CPU is going to fit the bill, for many users something like the Ryzen 3 3300X will be fine, and its quite a good little chip - if you can get it and its priced sensibly. If not a 2600 will equally work fine. While Intel is technically a faster CPU, unless you can get a good deal, you are probably going to overspend. The cheaper (within reason) you can get the processor and motherboard without going super bargain basement, then the more money to spend on what is going to really improve performance - the more you can spend on graphics. If you do see a 1600AF at a good price, jump on it! For storage - 240GB SSD for boot, but get a spinning rust disk in there too for the games library - more and more games are over 100GB each. A new 1TB drive isn't that expensive, and doesn't affect load times too much for games Power supply - get a decent one - reputable brand etc etc. Just a word of warning though - reccomended PSUs for the RTX3090 is 750w, the 3070 is 650w. Getting a 650w now should see you through 2 PCs at least if you get a decent one. 80+ bronze is really a minimum here, but if you can get gold within budget, go for it. However at the moment, supply is quite eratic at the moment, so shop around Case - look for one with airflow. If in doubt, GamersNexus has RAM - 16GB ideally 3200mhz, but be willing to drop down to 3000mhz. Now, for the graphics card - we are in a fair bit of flux. nVidia have just announced the high end RTX 30 series cards, and Big Navi is set to be launched in a few weeks, there is already an increase in the used supply of the nvidia 10 and 20 series cards on the market, so expect there to be some price drops in there coming up if performance is as good as nVidia say their 30 series cards are. As for how Big Navi is going to perform - who knows - hopefully it won't just be another Radeon 7 kind of card...

Probably a vostro of sorts, or 33XX series latitude. Vostro's are a lot better than they used to be (very low starting base), but have very limited ports. We have 1 Vostro out of around 500 daily use laptops and it's held up quite well so far (not edu, but in a homeless shelter). Latitude 3000 series, limited ports, slightly heavier but more rugged, often previous gen processors (unless they've released new models recently, its 8th gen mobile processors?). If it's going to be going into bags etc, the edu model is quite good. As for pricing, speak to your account manager (or reseller if you go that way), as it varies with how many you order, what warranties you want, and other discounts.

Over the last few years, I feel that quality has severely deteriorated on the probook range (probably to try and push business into elitebooks and the premium they charge for those). It's a real shame, as going back a few years ago, the Probooks were really popular among users however the ones we picked up last year were particularly bad - especially the 2 Probook 430s. In all honesty, because of the problems caused by them, HP have been dropped to emergency purchase only having been one of the companies we would go to for tenders. The issues we have noticed/warranty repairs have been: 1 x battery - fully charged lasted 2 hours under light use (in meetings where you are just looking at PDF documents) - eventually and reluctantly repaired under warranty and now lasts 4-5 hours for the same user. Engineer noted that the battery was dud, and he'd seen a fair few 1 x keyboard - replaced under warranty - some keys not working from start 2 x Audio issues (driver linked) - Driver not up to date on HP site - found off site. 2 x overheating - Cooling solution is far from decent where users are reporting devices are getting overly hot, fans are quite noisy, and have noticed the HP fans are picked up more on the inbuilt mic than rivals. Both users have also moaned about the trackpads - having come from previous generation models flex - these devices flex quite badly, especially for a device that is being marketed as an entry business grade, I am not expecting these to last the full refresh cycle, but hopefully enough to bring them back into line with our main one would be good...

it all depends on how much they are going to be printing. For low throughput, I tend to go for the Epson Workforce - decent prints, good running costs and reliable. Not had any issues with cartridges either, apart from a really cheap set of inks someone picked up from ebay, but was easy enough to clean. If they are going to be printing, the Canon Pixma range is really good and got one for my parents when my dad got into photography so he could show them around without having to get them professionally printed or having the extra kit, but having 2 different black inks does add to running costs. For laser, HP are reasonable, but not as good as they were in the past, and i've been daily driving a Canon laser at home for years with minimal problems.

AMD have a chance to close the gap a bit - will they ever be as big and influential as Intel - unlikely. But yes, it would be good for all of us if the market shares were more even (60/40 or even better 50/50), but also, its not good if 1 company has the complete dominance, either way. Will AMD become as complacent as Intel? the roadmap for the next few years seems rather good (although with the lack of APUs in the stack and rarely of the same generation as the main chips this does hit them), however, AMD are unlikely to ever get to that stage, as it is very unlikely they will ever overtake Intel. The interesting one is going to be seeing how ARM do, with Apple taking the leap, and rumours of nVidia wanting to buy them and make a target onto desktop and laptop and make the duo a trio. There are some interesting times coming up

Looks like the Ryzen XT isn't (at least on launch bios) that great of an option - might be interesting to see if the prices of the X and the non X versions come down a bit more, but would be surprised on much movement until later on with the 4000 series set to launch later this year

first step would be to replace the Power Supply with something decent - that will rule out that as a faulty component. You haven't specified a make and model of the existing one, or if there are cable extensions too (its an area where people often skimp out, and cheap extensions can be horrendous). Draw should be around 600w, so a 750/850w Gold or better rated modular PSU should be fine (850w should give you a bit more manouverability if next gen GPUs draw more power too) - not had any issues with either Seasonic or the Corsair RMX range. While AMD have closed the performance gap on Intel for gaming, Intel still holds the crown for the fastest gaming CPU in desktop and until the reviews on the XT's come out, its just speculation if AMD can nulify that gap. I would probably stick to keeping the Intel i9 9700K, its a quality CPU with great performance. Add in, if partnered with a decent cooler, and a good motherboard, you can get some great overclocks on it too, which will boost the gaming performance even more. Motherboard - potentially a point of failure - might be worth checking for any damage in the CPU socket, or scratches on the back of the PCB. A decent Z390 motherboard is a good investment to partner a K range CPU. Other things to look at - you say there is an AIO cooler - its probably worth checking that the fans are either the ones that came with it, or are high Static Pressure fans, as other fans can dramatically affect performance.

You can go either way, I tend to try both Direct and use a third party reseller, and sometimes one gets better pricing than the other. I've had some great pricing for laptops directly through Dell, and sometimes that pricing is way off, and a third party reseller has given amazing pricing. Both go through different teams at Dell, so pricing can vary.

New Ryzen 3 1200 AF is apparently in the wild now too on the 12nm process - so should be some reasonable headroom for overclocking too!

If you can get it anywhere near RRP, prices between the 2 flick around so shop around. I wouldn't be surprised if it has been given the chop by AMD now the Ryzen 3 3000 series has been launched.

The 1300x is no doubt an interesting CPU, it all depends what you are wanting to do. The 2600 is around the same price on many sites, and while not having the same single core performance, does offer a better multithreadeded performance, and has 2 cores, 4 thread advantage over the 1300x. It Motherboard - Looks reasonable, but with only 2 DIMM slots, will reduce future options. On mATX boards, I will tend towards 4 slot boards over 2. Case - Corsair are normally pretty reasonable. Doesn't need to be high end or an airflow designed case, so this will be fine for normal use. The side window is Acrylic, so can scratch quite easily PSU - Not the most efficient, but will do fine. Modular is a luxury, but I tend to go for at minimum 80+Bronze, but always aim for 80+ Gold rated if I can. Fans - The case comes with 1 by the looks of it, an intake in the front. I would suggest getting 1 other fan, rather than a 5 pack. A Corsair, BeQuiet or Noctua fan would be quite a decent exhaust fan at the back, and offer more than enough performance for this. You should be able to get away without it too, as unless you put in a high end graphics card (which you really shouldn't be with a Ryzen 3 CPU) heat shouldn't be an issue) Other things to think about: Graphics - the CPU you are looking at doesn't have onboard graphics, so you will need a graphics card for this. If you don't wont a graphics card, The Ryzen 5 3500G is around £150 and is fine for light use, and fine for 720p gaming and light 1080p gaming Memory - The faster the better - AMD likes fast memory. A 3200mhz kit is well worth the few extra pounds investment in performance. Ryzen optimised is a nice to have and guarantees the best performance with the processor, but not essential. Just make sure that you change the memory speed in the BIOS. Storage - SSD for boot is key for any machines now, but that really shouldn't need saying. As always, avoid the random brand imports for these, and stick to a reputable brand - While some are really quite good value, many cut corners to bring costs down But as per previous posts, its really not a great time to be buying components at the moment.

Part of the reason why it hasn't taken off as much in business as it could have (well apart from the Intel bri... I mean rebates that the big producers get) is the point that there aren't any current generation AMD APUs (the 3000 series processors with integrated graphics are 2000 series processors with some Vega cores for the graphics). I know I tend to avoid buying any computer with discrete graphics unless its for a specific purpose for work machines, so am limited by options. That being said, I'm a massive fan of Ryzen, and am really glad that after all those years in the darkness of living with A Bulldozer gen CPU, I finally have a decent AMD system again!

Yup, worked for us too. Microsoft - the gift that keeps giving!

Sorry, nothing. And without having the laptop infront of me, its really hard to find out what exactly is wrong with it.

Bit stumped, one of our new laptops which was hastily purchased to provide home IT equipment for staff has been giving us a bit of a headache. The user is regularly getting the a BSOD with the error system service exception bindflt.sys - anyone come across this before? Its a fully up to date laptop, and the logs show nothing. Normally would try reimaging the laptop, but for obvious reasons, thats not exactly feasible at the moment. Suggestions welcome

ours is currently a 6 core, 12 thread 5+year old server with 12 GB RAM - going up to 64GB this week to tide it over incase we have everyone remote working. 35 users set up who use it somewhat regularly, and its not exactly a pleasant experience at the moment. Been pushing for a 32 core with 128 GB RAM expecting 24 core 64 GB to be the one we end up getting (although that is now looking like its going to be pushed back yet again, because a new IT manager has started and doesn't like having servers...)

Haven't bought any myself, but a couple of former clients used to have them. They are Clevos, and aren't bad. Would I pay a premium over other clevo rebrands? Not really. Yes, you have a load of customisation options, but unless you specifically need X graphics card with Y processor and Z model SSD, then there's usually an off the shelf version thats better and often cheaper. Personally, I would use VeryPC too - never had an issue with them, friendly, not pushy, good kit, well packaged and great support. On the other hand, they do have a bit of a reputation in the gaming world, so clearly know their stuff, and also have quite a wide range, so it's not just 2 blokes in a shed*. *with an inventory that big, they need to have at least a double garage!

From experience, AMD graphics are far from brilliant. Does your machine have inbuilt graphics, as if so, you can remove the AMD graphics card, boot in and remove the driver (and any other versions installed) completely using something like 'Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU)'. I also suggest downloading the latest driver from AMD, and disconnecting the machine from the internet to prevent Microsoft 'helpfully' installing its version of the driver for you when you turn on the computer with the graphics card again... shut down, re-install the graphics card, and install it from the downloaded AMD installer and see if that works. If not, have you tried a clean install of Windows 10, rather than an upgrade?

that was my thought - Li-Ion - those things are nasty when they go. Old battery, where the swell wasn't noticed or was ignored. I've now started to routinely check all 3 year old laptops after having a couple of laptops come in with swolen batteries. Once alight, flashpoint can be hit without too much around to help it

This However, from memory, I don't think that changes the login address, and that has to be done using powershell (although I've also thankfully not had to do it for a while). I'm sure I wrote some notes down somewhere from the last time I had to deal with it...

from what you are describing (and experience with Lenovo using the cheapest possible parts), it sounds like it could be one of the bearings in the fan that is on its way out (or something inside) so when the fans ramp up, it is causing vibrations. I would raise a ticket with something like - Grinding noise coming from fan when under increased workloads

Not used it, but it seemed quite interesting at BETT (and not just because of the rather fun freebies) - but InVentry might well be something to look at?