Hey. A friend of mine is looking to buy herself a desktop for using at uni solely for doing her Architecture work on, which is a lot of Photoshop rendering and, I'm guessing, CAD-like stuff. She'll be using her current laptop (which is more appropriate for gaming than mine is) for all her other stuff. But she says it struggles with rendering in Photoshop so wants something to improve it. With this in mind she found this and wants to know if it's up to scratch. She also needs the large monitor, keyboard and mouse to go with it.

Click Me!

And as you guys are quite nifty, can you let me know if something else is more appropriate for her.

It's a pre-made machine from PC World, it'll be naff.

Far better off either going to a computer indie store and asking for what you need, or just making the thing yourself.

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I think we need a picture of said Hot Girl in order for us to help I'm afraid.

TITS OR GTFO.

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Prime Directives : Prosecute those who steal memes from other forums.

Whoever find the best deal gets to see a picture of said hot girl.

With her tits out?

Or at least in her bra and pants?

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Prime Directives : Prosecute those who steal memes from other forums.

You guys are a bunch of failures. I'll just have to tell her to go with the one in the OP.

Might be better of upgrading the RAM on the current laptop.

A Mesh machine will be better built, have higher quality components and this price match at £500 offers better spec (especially the CPU) and a much better 1080p screen (would be awesomes for graphic work) from a good brand:

http://www.meshcomputers.com/Default.as ... ign=panel1

You have no indication of what resolution the PC World machine's screen is (which is what actually matters) and in my experience Advent machines are disappointingly built and do not last long. I don't think I need to lambast that offering as Mesh clearly offer a better deal.

I'd upgrade the graphics card on that however much she can afford to improve the speed of 3D graphics apps and Photoshop CS4 (which is 3D accelerated now).

Rendering speeds in CAD programs will fly with a quad core CPU in compatible applications (i.e. professional ones).

NEVER shop at PC World. 99% of the time you can find a better deal elsewhere and even if you do wind up with one of their computers their customer service is a gigantuan rip-off. They're deliberately short of a decent range of stock and quality goods because they expect no-one to know what they are buying and their sales clerks are paid to sell you something that is not a good deal but has the best profit margins.

By the way apparently there are only 39 of those PCs left and it does look like a good machine and the mags approve as well.. you also get a free upgrade to Windows 7 which is far better than Vista, and more efficient.. so you will essentially get a free performance boost by upgrading to Windows 7; a faster booting system, less lag etc. I doubt "hot girl" would be disappointed.

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What he said. Now where is that pic?

Edit - graphic card/monitor - she should also look into running multiple monitors as a lot of these CAD programs throw up a lot of windows, so a graphic card that is capable of running multiple monitors is a must.

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Pretty much all discrete GPUs (i.e. cards not embedded chipsets) support dual monitor these days unless they are very low end indeed. I know the Mesh must.

There are some good machines on Overclockers.co.uk that are overclocked (surprise surprise) but they don't come with a monitor or KB&M so the Mesh package is generally less hassle. I know these people prefer to just buy a package from one place with one number to call if it breaks.

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PM is your friend.

Cheers for the help GG and OnlyShallow. Think she's already gone ahead and bought the OP rig though. I'm aware that PCWorld isn't the best bet for PCs but it was her starting point and somewhere for everyone to leapfrog from.

Bums. Oh well it should be able to handle CAD applications pretty well.. just bang for buck, reliability and all that shizzle.. seeing as it's a PC and not a laptop hopefully it will be less likely to break down especially if she is only using it half the time (in addition to her laptop).

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PM is your friend.