Advice on All-in-one pc's

gr0uty

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whilst looking to purchase a new laptop or desktop I noticed the all-in-one solutions. The one that catches my eye most is the HP Omni 100-5130UK which is around £450 on amazon. Space is an issue so not to have cables everywhere is appealing. It would be used as a work horse PC and not a gaming PC so specs dont have to be too high but im a bit out of the loop at the moment and as far as I can make out the processor (AMD Athlon II X2 260u) is'nt really all that, or would it be ok for movies office, surfing etc?. Or if anyone has any better suggestions I would be happy to Listen. Budget is arond £500 mark.
 
Personally I'm not a great fan of the all-in-solution. Will drastically limit your expandability in the future and for what you getting it doesn't really make good value.

I would go with a custom build and look at getting an Athlon II X3 tri-core. Great sweet spot in terms of performance and value for money for day to day office tasks etc whilst still being future-proof for when more and more applications can make full use of multi-core systems.

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit, Operating System, Single, - OEM - £72.08

Asus M4A88T-M, AMD 880G, S AM3, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 1866(OC), SATA RAID, mATX, On Board Graphics - £56.26

1TB Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9ms, NCQ
LN28746 1TB Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9ms, NCQ - £37.79

4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 Classic DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, 1.5V
LN37493 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 Classic DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, 1.5 - £38.39

Coolermaster Elite 334 Mid Tower Case, Black, with Coolermaster Elite 460w PSU
LN39076 Coolermaster Elite 334 Mid Tower Case, Black, with Coolermaster Elite 460w PSU - £50.39

AMD Athlon II X3 450, Rana, Triple Core, S AM3, 3.2GHz, 1.5MB Cache, HT 4000MHz, 95W, Retail
LN35086 AMD Athlon II X3 450, Rana, Triple Core, S AM3, 3.2GHz, 1.5MB Cache, HT 4000MHz, 95W, Retail - £55.19

This lot comes to around £310 from SCAN.

Add a 22" monitor for around £100 and you've got a much quicker system made form quality components that you can easily add to in the future.

As you also eluded to the Athlon II X2 260u is essentially a laptop mobile CPU so will be nowhere near as quick as dual core athlon desktop cpu.
 
Personally I'm not a great fan of the all-in-solution. Will drastically limit your expandability in the future and for what you getting it doesn't really make good value.

I would go with a custom build and look at getting an Athlon II X3 tri-core. Great sweet spot in terms of performance and value for money for day to day office tasks etc whilst still being future-proof for when more and more applications can make full use of multi-core systems.

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit, Operating System, Single, - OEM - £72.08

Asus M4A88T-M, AMD 880G, S AM3, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 1866(OC), SATA RAID, mATX, On Board Graphics - £56.26

1TB Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9ms, NCQ
LN28746 1TB Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9ms, NCQ - £37.79

4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 Classic DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, 1.5V
LN37493 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 Classic DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, 1.5 - £38.39

Coolermaster Elite 334 Mid Tower Case, Black, with Coolermaster Elite 460w PSU
LN39076 Coolermaster Elite 334 Mid Tower Case, Black, with Coolermaster Elite 460w PSU - £50.39

AMD Athlon II X3 450, Rana, Triple Core, S AM3, 3.2GHz, 1.5MB Cache, HT 4000MHz, 95W, Retail
LN35086 AMD Athlon II X3 450, Rana, Triple Core, S AM3, 3.2GHz, 1.5MB Cache, HT 4000MHz, 95W, Retail - £55.19

This lot comes to around £310 from SCAN.

Add a 22" monitor for around £100 and you've got a much quicker system made form quality components that you can easily add to in the future.

As you also eluded to the Athlon II X2 260u is essentially a laptop mobile CPU so will be nowhere near as quick as dual core athlon desktop cpu.

Nice post, thanks mate. I must admit it's been a while since I built up a pc but im tempted to give it a go. I always tell myself that I don't need too much oomph but it's always nice to have a bit more speed if you need it.:smashin:
 
Also worth having a look at the new Intel Sandybridge i3 21xx series. A bit dearer in price, so will come close to £500 including a monitor but they are awesome performance (click me), run very cool and efficiently and are newer technology. Building a system if pretty straight forward, thing generally can only fit one way and assuming nothing is dead then you can be up and running in a matter of hours.

Change the case (& PSU) to something you like the look of but here is a basic Intel Sandybridge system;

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit, Operating System, Single, - OEM - £72.08

MSI H67MA-E45 (B3), Intel H67, S 1155, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 1066/1333, SATA 6Gb/s RAID, mATX, VGA - £81.20

1TB Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9ms, NCQ - £37.79

4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 Classic DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, 1.5V - £38.39

Coolermaster Elite 334 Mid Tower Case, Black, with Coolermaster Elite 460w PSU - £50.39

Intel Core i3 2100, 1155, Sdy Bridge, 3.1GHz, 5 GT/s, GPU 850Mhz, 3MB Cache, Core R 31x, 65W, Retail - £87.59

Total - £367.44 inc free delivery.

Leaves you upto £150ish for a 24" screen or save a few bob and get a 22". Getting a 24" screen for me personally was one of my best upgrades. So much space, esp if you have lots of windows and applications open at once. This i3 is significantly quicker and has SATA 6Gp/s and USB 3.0 (hand for future upgrades). You could get a smaller case, that will take mATX boards, if you wanted something a little smaller to save space.
 
Also worth having a look at the new Intel Sandybridge i3 21xx series. A bit dearer in price, so will come close to £500 including a monitor but they are awesome performance (click me), run very cool and efficiently and are newer technology. Building a system if pretty straight forward, thing generally can only fit one way and assuming nothing is dead then you can be up and running in a matter of hours.

Change the case (& PSU) to something you like the look of but here is a basic Intel Sandybridge system;

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit, Operating System, Single, - OEM - £72.08

MSI H67MA-E45 (B3), Intel H67, S 1155, PCI-E 2.0 (x16), DDR3 1066/1333, SATA 6Gb/s RAID, mATX, VGA - £81.20

1TB Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3, SATA 3Gb/s, 7200rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9ms, NCQ - £37.79

4GB (2x2GB) Corsair XMS3 Classic DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, 1.5V - £38.39

Coolermaster Elite 334 Mid Tower Case, Black, with Coolermaster Elite 460w PSU - £50.39

Intel Core i3 2100, 1155, Sdy Bridge, 3.1GHz, 5 GT/s, GPU 850Mhz, 3MB Cache, Core R 31x, 65W, Retail - £87.59

Total - £367.44 inc free delivery.

Leaves you upto £150ish for a 24" screen or save a few bob and get a 22". Getting a 24" screen for me personally was one of my best upgrades. So much space, esp if you have lots of windows and applications open at once. This i3 is significantly quicker and has SATA 6Gp/s and USB 3.0 (hand for future upgrades). You could get a smaller case, that will take mATX boards, if you wanted something a little smaller to save space.

Thats very tempting and I know I would get much better value from doing it this way but to be honest im a bit nervous of getting back into the building pc game. It's been a while and I could do without the stress of it all not working...
 
Ok, had a think about it and may well go for the sandybridge configuration. I have time on my hands at the moment so may just go for it.

I have added a DVD drive and wireless adaptor but im a bit stuck on a decent 22" monitor. I have singled out the

Iiyama ProLite E2208HDD 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor Black PLE2208HDD-B £111

any opinions?.

I will probably stick with the Coolermaster Elite 334 case even though the mboard is a matx.

After putting all parts into Scan it comes to around £510. This is about the amount I was going to spend on an all-in-one but with vastly superior parts!.
 

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