desk top PC info/help needed...

[irocfan]

hi all, the situation is as follows. I've been tasked with buying a desk-top computer as a present and really haven't got a clue what I'm looking at. The requirements are as below:


- it must be a small tower (do they even do big ones any more?) as space is limited.
- it will be used in the main for work (word/excel etc)
- a secondary (though important!) use will be FIFA/Football manager..- not a huge screen (17"/19"?)- I'd like it to be upgradable should the need arise.

- I suspect a sound card would be beneficial.
- I'd like the possibilityof having a graphics card fitted if required at a later date.t
I would imagine that by today's standards that this would end up being a low spec machine, which is handy as the budget is also quite low spec - possibly £5/600? Finally where is a reasonable place/site to buy from - PC World no longer *seem* to employ joke pricing, but that could just be me being ignorant of what's available/possible.

Any advice gratefully listened to.

[Bullett]

Just the tower or keyboard/monitor/mouse as well?

Most of the requirements scream laptop to me.

As soon as you start to talk seperate GPU the size of the box and cost goes up. 17" is a tiny tiny standalone monitor. Mine is 28" and I'm thinking that is a bit small.

[irocfan]

Bullett said:

Just the tower or keyboard/monitor/mouse as well?

Most of the requirements scream laptop to me.

As soon as you start to talk seperate GPU the size of the box and cost goes up. 17" is a tiny tiny standalone monitor. Mine is 28" and I'm thinking that is a bit small.

my apologies: Tower, monitor, keyboard, mouse.

I'd tend to agree with you vis-a-vis a lappy but then he already has a lap-top, of sorts (my old one which is, quite frankly, shagged), and is insistent that it's a PC he is after (I suppose it could be a mindset type of thing - sit at the desk for work rather than lounge on the sofa). Given that he is in a one-bedroom flat and the PC will sit in a bay window there is a definite limiting factor for screen-size.

[sgrimshaw]

That's a healthy budget for a desktop.

Take a look at somewhere like palicomp https://www.palicomp.co.uk/

or PC Specialist https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/

Both well respected

Start with one of their preconfigured PCs and just add a monitor and keyboard/mouse. You'll get a great pc for your budget.

[grumbledoak]

That's decent spec desktop money. Any of the box shippers will do you something suitable in their standard ranges -
a 9th generation i5 with 8GB and SSD seems the norm at that money

https://deals.dell.com/en-uk/productdetail/3utu
https://store.hp.com/UKStore/Merch/Product.aspx?id...
https://www.lenovo.com/gb/en/desktops-and-all-in-o...

You could drop the price if you drop the spec. or try the Outlet stores.