How are these PC's?

Im looking to buy a desktop computer and need some opinions.

HP Pavilion Elite HPE-310t W7HP-64 i5 750 2.66GHz 700GB SATA 6GB DVDRW(LS) 512MB NIC 15-in-1 Rmkt PC 463$

HP Pavilion Elite HPE-310t W7HP-64 i5 750 2.66GHz 1TB SATA 6GB DVDRW(LS) 512MB NIC 15-in-1 Rmkt PC 496$

HP Pavilion Elite HPE-350t W7HP-64 i7 860 2.8GHz 1TB SATA 8GB DVDRW(LS) DVD 512MB NIC 15-in-1 Rmkt PC $591.20


I dont have allot of money to spend so how are the cheaper ones? They have most of the same ones areound the high 4 low 500. Plus i have to buy a monitor too. Its mostly going to be for Ps Lightroom and any thing else but mostly photo stuff.

Cheaper one is fine. The new "Sandy Bridge" CPUs are out, which are faster and priced about the same, HP and Dell should both have systems build around them available. Look for a 4 digit model number after the i5/i7 to identify sandy bridge.

cpu comparison charts for photoshop...

http://www.tomshardwar​e.com …-Photoshop-CS-4,1387.html

The 860 is a bit slower than the 870...half-way between the i5-750 and 870...

http://www.xbitlabs.co​m …mark-highend_7.html#sect0
scroll down for photoshop chart....

The i7 probably isn't $100 better than the i5...I'd get the cheapest and add a 2nd HD for $50...a quick search should find a 1Tb drive for about that.

I got the 310t-i7 on cybermonday, and 6gb of ram has been enough for running Photoshop CS...If your version of lightroom is 32bit, move the performance/memory slider to 100%...

I haven't decided on whether to get the extended service contract...but I seem to leaning on NOT...since the HP is running VERY cool and very quiet, suggesting that it's running under capacity...for a long life, I hope...

I can imagine many computer makes will be putting their older Intel machines on sale to make room for units based on Sandy Bridge units. Personally I would not be buying one of those older machines unless it was one heck of a bargain.

Consider building your own PC reusing the exist case, keyboard, and mouse. You many be able to also reuse the power supply, DVD drive, and HD. You may even be able to reuse memory if it is DDR3. If you were lucky, all you would need is a new P67 mobo, new i7 or i5CPU chip, and likely a new graphics board. You can get a good Radeon 5670 board for around $100. Later you can swap out the video board for a killer one for gaming if that is a priority for you.

A cheaper approach would be a new H67 mobo that uses integrated graphics on the i7 CPU chip. With the H67 chipset and a non-K CPU (K CPUs are unlocked), the focus is not on overclocking capabilities...it is on lower initial cost of ownership.

Ok i was thinking about building my own but thought these were good. When is the sandy bridge coming out? And im not to familiar with computers what would be a good setup for around the 4-500 range?

Sandy Bridge CPUs are not much more than 1st gen i7 CPUs....same for the basic Sandy Bridge mother boards... the better SandyBridge mother boards cost $100 more than the 1st gen i7 boards....so if you're building an i7, you'd be better off to build a Sandy Bridge

...pre-built Sandy Bridge units under $1000 will be a bit better than the series one i7 boxes (15% is estimated...a few seconds for casual use) because they won't have the better motherboards with USB3, SATA3 and other MB upgrades that are found on the better MBs....
...the new HP Sandy Bridge boxes (i5-2600) start at $630 and are comparable to the 1st gen i7 boxes...so THAT ($35 more) would be better than the i7 you listed
....but whether to spend $175 more than the i5 box you listed...well that's up to you...

What will that 630 come with? Does anyone know yet? My thing is i just dont know what to buy. Its mostly just going to be for editing my pics from my 5d (All RAW). Basically using Photoshop and LR3 then internet etc.

Hows this computer?

http://www.bestbuy.com …01&skuId=999914​6400050001

Or

http://www.bestbuy.com …14&skuId=999913​9100050014

http://www.shopping.hp​.com …series_name=p67​80t_series

and

http://livehotdeals.co​m …1377?utm_source​=google_ad

If you are not a heavy user, there's no need for a PC more powerful or more expensive...just add a 2nd HD for your data files.

unlimited6986 wrote in post #11649642
Hows this computer?

There are better deals to be had than these. The first one from Worst Buy is an AMD Quad-core....and I wouldn't be paying that kind of money for AMD performance.

The 2nd one is from Gateway, and they have just about the absolute *worst* customer satisfaction rating of any PC maker out there. I know two people that bought Gateways within the last 12-18 months, and neither of them still have their original computers.

Dell has had this past week some pretty nice XPS 8100 buys at their Outlet store with last year's i7 chips, but it looks like apparently a lot of the nice i7 deals have already been snatched up. Otherwise, I'd probably just go with one of the new XPS 8300's (w/ the Sandy Bridge updated chips). Even the cheapest-option i5's for $750-800 are pretty good bang for the buck. The HP's listed above by Kita are nice if you are trying for the absolute lowest entry price into the i5/7 world of Sandy Bridge...but Dell's XPS line is a better grade of computer, a step up from HP's Elite and Dell's own Inspiron line.

Yes, the Elite is on par with the Inspiron....the nice thing about both generations of the i-series of CPUs is that they run under capacity (hence popular with gamers), cool and so, (hopefully) long life.

For this one

http://livehotdeals.co​m …1377?utm_source​=google_ad

Adding a monitor and i5-2500 (Should i stay with the 2300 for 60$ less? and add 8gb for the other 60) and a 1GB nvidia gforce is 969 good for a complete system? and does anyone know if the refurbished Elites i listed above come with any operating system?

Or this one for 760. Its a dell Inspiron 580

PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ i5-650 processor(4MB Cache, 3.20GHz)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit
MONITORS ST2220L 21.5-inch Full HD Widescreen Monitor
MEMORY 6GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz- 3 DIMMs
HARD DRIVE 1TB - 7200RPM, SATA 3.0Gb/s, 16MB Cache

Inspiron 580 Inspiron 580
Network Card Integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet
VIDEO CARD 512MB NVIDIA GeForce G310
MODEM No Dial Up Modem Option
OPTICAL DRIVE 16X DVD+/-RW Drive
SOUND CARD Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
SPEAKERS No Speaker Option
Adobe Software Adobe® Reader 9.0

Here's the basic skinny --

Among the i7's....either go with a 'discounted' box running last year's chips (i7-8XX or 9XX) OR this year's new Sandy Bridge i7's (i7-2XXX). In both cases, you are getting 4 cores and 8 threads.....which maximize performance very well in LR3 and Photoshop. You can't go "wrong" either way...unless you overpay for last year's chip, now that Sandy is out! Dell had some great deals on refurbed i7's last week, but they look just about all sold out (today).

Among the i5's.....this is basically where you want to be careful. Because the biggest jump in performance came between last years i5's (i5-6XX) and this year's new i5's (i5-2XXX). Here, you definitely want the newer i5 if at all possible....because the performance benchmarks in PS and LR3 were significantly better in the new ones. Only way I buy an i5-6xx now is if I am on a budget AND I find one for a a screaming low price.

So of those choices you just listed....I would definitely go with the HP. And I would pay the $60 to upgrade to the i5-2600.

Ok thanks for your help so look for anything with an i5-2xxx or the new sandy bridge system. Ill look around more to see if i can find a better deal.