Laptop to Desktop time

[Bison]

Undercover

Not sure what your budget is for a new rig or parts, but here are a few that I looked at on a UK site.

i5
http://www.ukgamingcomputers.co.uk/scout-i5-gaming-computer-p-118.html
http://www.ukgamingcomputers.co.uk/eos-i5-gaming-pc-p-117.html

i7
http://www.ukgamingcomputers.co.uk/hermes-i7-gaming-pc-p-98.html

[undercovergeek]

You're a star bison thanks and thanks for everyone elses input.... I used to subscribe to a magazine called custom pc that helped a heap years ago... I went and bought one and they still run a budget/average/top of the range and kick ass awesome kit build with the prices, website and part number of their recommendations so you can mix and match or just build parrot fashion.

I suppose I'm dabbling in the 1000 market but when I take a long hard luck at my games library and what interests me coming up the gtx680 and i7 are just way more than I need.... I'm tempted more by the i5 and 7870 from ati even though I prefer nvidia, and 8 gig ram. This would have been the first time I seriously considered no optical drive but then I couldn't get windows on the thing!!

More chin scratching and toms hardware reading to do 

[Staggerwing]

You can get an external optical drive. Not sure if you can get a PC to boot from it by setting the bios to 'boot from usb device' though. I do know that most flavors of Mac can. I'd be curious if Ubuntu (linux) could as well.

[junk2drive]

You have to check in bios and see if the MB will boot from USB. Ubuntu has a program to make the iso a bootable drive on a USB stick.

[undercovergeek]

I'm reading a lot about how awesome solid state drives are..... What's so great about them?

[Staggerwing]

They are fast, quiet, and use less power. Rumor has it that they may not last as long as spinning drives (though close). Also, I don't know if this is true or not but another plus I've heard is that when an SSD breaks down it is still readable, just not writable, so your data is still there. Can anyone verify this?