What do you think of this spec for my new pc?

[d000hg]

I'm really tempted to get one for my old dev PC. It's got to be about 6 years old now but I reckon switching to SSD would give it another lease of life.

[VectraMan]

As for laptops, I use my current desktop machine at home almost every night. It's rare that I travel or go away on holiday for more than a night or two, and in that event, I think I would be wanting to get away from computers rather than taking a laptop with me. I therefore don't think it is worth the extra cost. I reckon I'll get more for my money with a desktop.

I haven't taken my laptop anywhere for years. But it uses less power, produces less heat and noise, takes up less room, and goes to sleep when I close the lid (and instantly wakes up when I open it again). And if I need to, it's easy to move out of the way, or even, possibly, use it on my lap.

It seems to me that a desktop is a bit pointless, unless you're going for ultimate performance (i.e. a games machine), or mega storage (in which case you might be better off buying a NAS).

But it's your money.

I've said before I didn't think the SSD made a huge difference to my laptop. Some things are faster, but I think if you have plenty of RAM that tends to mask the benefits of a faster disk system in general use. It is however perfectly silent and vibration free. I would say chucking one at an old machine is a false economy. I have a 6 year old Dell Core 2 Duo that I use as a server/build machine. Even with an SSD it's not going to be anywhere near as fast as a much more modern cheapo i5 laptop. A better upgrade would be more RAM, but I don't think it'll take more than the 4GB it already has.

[craig1]

The trick is looking for performance bottlenecks and how much you're willing to pay to eliminate them. In almost any modern system using processors, motherboards, graphics cards and memory from the last three years and using a standard HD it's going to be the HD that's the bottleneck meaning the most effective thing is to use a SSD.

[d000hg]

A laptop will always cost more for the same spec though. And if you want a proper experience, you likely will still have external keyboard, mouse and monitor(s). Without a docking station, a laptop has a bigger footprint than many desktops.

Question: will laptops these days happily power dual external monitors and not use the built-in display at all? Or is that a bit specialist?

[MicrosoftBob]

The trick is looking for performance bottlenecks and how much you're willing to pay to eliminate them. In almost any modern system using processors, motherboards, graphics cards and memory from the last three years and using a standard HD it's going to be the HD that's the bottleneck meaning the most effective thing is to use a SSD.

True, I've got 3 year old a mid range AMD processor, chucked a 1/2 tb ssd in there and can max out Battlefield 4 still, as well as coping with any development environment I need

[craig1]

Question: will laptops these days happily power dual external monitors and not use the built-in display at all? Or is that a bit specialist?

Yes. Even basic Dell laptops through a docking station can handle dual monitors quite easily with the lid closed. I wouldn't want to be running very high res dual monitors though...

[kevpuk]

SSD should be top of your list...i7 is generally the better choice if VMs are going to be used (Virtualization support in hardware)......no need for dedicated sound/gfx from what you have said.......RAM is pretty cheap, so 16GB is not too extravagant (again, more reason if VMs are on the menu), but 8GB is not to be sniffed at either.

For years I upgraded my desktop with fervour, but have recently gone completely the other way and spent many ££s on a replacement laptop. As I tend to vary location frequently, having the whole shebang with me wherever was worth the premium, but it really is a ££s premium over a desktop of similar spec.

As for W8/8.1, I really don't have any issues with it. 8.1 brought a few decent changes/implementation fixes to 8, and - for me - it gets worse press than perhaps it deserves.

[captainham]

(another) +1 for SSD.

2 years on and my Win7 laptop still feels near-as-dammit box-fresh in terms of performance, without any of the noticeable slowdown/general crappery I've always experienced on every other laptop before (which have all had HDDs, and for which the only answer was always to do a clean install in Windows).

[DimPrawn]

What sort of IT contractor can't afford an i7, 16Gb RAM AND an SSD?

FFS, a 1TB SSD is £370 inc VAT

Crucial M550 1TB 2.5inch SATAIII SSD | Ebuyer.com

Jeez I despair. I wonder if the plumber forums are asking if they should buy a new hammer OR a new saw.....

[Sysman]

FFS, a 1TB SSD is £370 inc VAT

Crucial M550 1TB 2.5inch SATAIII SSD | Ebuyer.com.

To put that into context the 8MB RAM I bought for my first laptop in 1995 which took it to 12MB cost about £350.