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all in one pc to replace oldish laptop

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pollpott
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Posted March 7, 2013 at 1:42PM

I have an HP Pavillion dv6000 with intelcore2 duo cpu@2GHz, 2GB ram and 32 bit operating system x64-based processor, upgraded to windows 8. I mainly use it with Photoshop and I would like something with a bigger screen and obviously optimised for photo and sometimes video processing. Any guidance on what to look for would be appreciated. (Budget up to about £700)

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Diemmess

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Posted March 7, 2013 at 3:15PM

One question please. Are you choosing a desktop PC this time with its advantage of a 24" or even larger monitor?

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HondaMan

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Posted March 7, 2013 at 6:55PM

He did say all in one" which suggests an iMac or something similar

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Diemmess

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Posted March 7, 2013 at 9:08PM

If I were faced with the same question....... I would accept that for graphics and simple video editing I would need a lot more RAM and consider a huge separate monitor which is surely a must for that sort of work. Large enough and you can have several windows on display at the same time

Your present CPU is adequate, but even as high as 8GB of RAM would help your present computer enormously.

Very advanced video editing and of course games need as fast a system as you can afford, but then you are back to the first post of this thread

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pollpott

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Posted March 7, 2013 at 10:24PM

I am thinking of a desktop windows machine with something like a 20 or 23 inch screen. The laptop I use is only 15inch and I think a touch screen could be useful for moving open windows about.

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HondaMan

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Posted March 8, 2013 at 10:31AM

OK, but you can run Wiundows on an iMac (so they tell me)and that would then give you both platforms on which to work. People tell me that once you have used a Mac, you'll never go back to Windows. Plus the new iMac will take up to 32GB RAM and a 3TB HDD with a flash drive as well.

Take a look at this iMac

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pollpott

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Posted March 8, 2013 at 11:03AM

I think that the problem I would run into with the Mac is cost, the price to upgrade to 32GB ram alone is £480, but thanks for the suggestion. My wife recently bought a Mac for her work and though she loves certain aspects there are some things which are not as user friendly as people make out.

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pollpott

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Posted March 8, 2013 at 11:53AM

Having read up on the new processors now available and the upgrading of RAM and DDR3 that goes in to even modest sized pcs I think I need to rework my question. Starting with the spec of my current machine, described above, which of it's components is it most important to upgrade and by how much? Hope that makes sense, thanks.

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Woolwell

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Posted March 8, 2013 at 12:31PM

With a 32 bit OS the max RAM that can be seen is under 4Gb. However doubling your RAM would be a cheap and effective way of improving your laptop. Changing processor or graphics is not really viable in a laptop and the same is often true of all-in-ones.

With video editing you need to decide if you want to edit HD video. You will need a large hard drive and another external hard drive for back-up. If HD then you may want to consider a Blu-ray writer. I currently use an i7 machine with a 22" monitor. I think that I would prefer a 24" monitor. With a touch screen you have to consider reaching to touch the screen. I have a small laptop with a touch screen and that is fine but I'm far from sure that I would want a large touch screen monitor. I'm not sure that a touch screen is as accurate for fine details.

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pollpott

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Posted March 8, 2013 at 12:51PM

Sorry, I didn't make myself clear, I do want to buy an all in one windows pc so I am looking to see what I should consider most important to upgrade Compared to my laptop.

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Woolwell

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Posted March 8, 2013 at 12:57PM

With a new all-in-one you'll get an improved processor. You should be looking at a 64 bit machine with around 8Gb of RAM for video editing but could get by with 6Gb. I'm not an expert on graphics cards but you will not want integrated graphics. Hard drive around 1 Tb would be good.

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