Hi forum,
tl;dr: laptop died. Want a desktop to replace it.
Use cases:
Multitasking,
Video & image editing,
Video playback,
Some streaming,
Some gaming (mostly old school games, and/or newer games played non-competitively - currently - perhaps scope for future upgrade; I.e. frame rates and such not a huge deal),
Lots of tabs,
Support for my triple-screen display.
Budget: $1.5-$3K
I’ve been using laptops for my entire adult life, usually as a desktop replacement. For the past two years I’ve been using an XPS 17 docked with a WD19TB. This week, the motherboard died. Out of warranty*, Dell has advised a repair technician will contact me when the replacement part is available. Ballpark this week but who knows. Their service is generally poor.
Don’t really want to wait and also was planning to look at a desktop for my next system as I rarely use my laptop away from my desk. In any case I’ll hopefully have a repaired XPS and several other laptops if I need one. So I want a desktop with a bit more grunt. I do photo and some video editing, and often multitask with a browser open/YouTube playing, sometimes my music library or other miscellaneous programs. I also do some old school game modding and would maybe like to play some newer games in the future, but it it’s better to save some coin (I know parts are scarce) now and upgrade later, that’d be fine. Hopefully I could do some future proofing in that department. I even would like to look at streaming my games/making videos.
Not really sure where to start. I think I might be competent enough to build my own once I have the components, but selecting the components - I’m pretty lost. Happy to go prebuilt as well, or maybe a custom builder, though not overly inspired by the reviews of some of the companies that advertise deals here on OzB. Still, open to it.
Ballpark budget is $1.5K, but could spend more. My existing set up makes use of an OzB favourite, the Xiaomi Mi monitor, 1440p (DisplayPort from memory), as well as a basic Lenovo monitor in a portrait config (HDMI). Would be looking to add a 3rd monitor (in lieu of the former docked laptop) at some point - not necessarily straight away, but maybe something 4K with a good overall size - something ‘big’ but not wide. Any suggestions on that front would be awesome. In short, would need a motherboard/GPU/CPU/RAM capable of running those 3 monitors at a decent frame rate and also handle my multitasking. Too much to ask? :P
Any help would be amazing. Even point me in a good direction to read/learn. Unfortunately I’m in a crap position without the XPS available for my work, which I can put off short term but not for very long, and I don’t rely on Dell.
*In the future, on any tech/PCs/phones, etc., I’m ALWAYS going to spend the extra money on extended service/repairs warranties. I’ve had that many bad experiences/bad luck in recent years.
TechFast and BPC prebuilts are a great starting point. They generally cost less for a complete working system than buying your own and building; yes, the market is weird right now. Do note that lead times can be a significant issue however.
Don't make that promise. Save the cash and replace the PC parts that you need to yourself where possible (obviously a laptop might be a different scenario). That $300 you save is generally best put towards a new system or component if/when it dies later.