Helping friend get a work PC

[danny_galaga]

Basically, they've been using a low end laptop (new, but not expensive) for their laser cutting machine. It runs the software for that, and Corel Draw, and stacks of files, but little else. Going to help him buy one tomorrow. I believe Dell are normally reasonable. What OS are MS up to now? Which OS should he avoid? Other than that I guess get something that is easy to upgrade the RAM? Box rather than laptop I'd say? And I know it's hard to ask if you don't know exactly what the specs of the old laptop are, but I'm guessing he won't need the most high speed gaming rig eva? What sort of speed is reasonable without going into big bucks territory?

[fallacy]

These questions are getting less and less relevant as the years go by. He could buy a 4 or 5 hundred $  premade desktop from Newegg and it will be more than he ever needs.

Most new PC come with windows 8 even though most people don’t like windows 8.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229285&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-All+Desktop+PCs-_-N82E16883229285&gclid=CInXivSi7bkCFfA7Mgod4W4AXA

[MonMotha]

I just built a PC for ~$300.  That was mobo, CPU (AMD A8 "APU" w/ usable integrated graphics), memory, and an SSD (I had a case with usable power supply).  It scores 6.7 out of 7.9 on the Windows 7 "Experience Score Index" and is limited by the integrated graphics.  The next lowest score is the "CPU" at 7.2.  The $60 bottom of the barrel SSD scores the maximum 7.9.

For comparison, my multi-kilodollar laptop from 4 years ago scores 5.9, also limited by its graphics (FireGL V5700, basically an HD3650 IIRC) with the CPU and memory throughput tying at 6.6 (the drive has been updated to a ROFLOVERKILL SSD that scores only 7.7 due to the laptop only supporting 3Gb/sec SATA).

Now, these scores are far from the end-all, be-all.  However, you probably don't need anything more, from the sound of it.  You could probably got a little lower end, even.  Using the cheapest stuff I could get at Fry's, I could have built a system for about $200 that would probably still outperform my professional/workstation replacement laptop from 4 years ago!