Computer advice PLEASE!!!!

[dee6075]

Hi! My current computer is over 6 yrs old, I know it's a dinasour almost! I am in a position to buy a new tower at the end of this month and as I am completely computer illiterate i decided to ask the advice of those you who have the know-how. I have a fairly new 22", 1080p, full HD flat screen, so that is fine but the brain of the computer needs to be completely replaced. I would like to be able to watch blue-ray and other high resolution anime. A lot of the subbers are putting their stuff out on 1080p or 720p, which means I need something that can play that with ease.
I have been thinking of getting 4-8gb RAM and 4TB hard drive, a tech did advise me to get an i5 or i6 mid to high range cpu instead of a low range i7. admittedly he makes a sound argument. I only have about $1,500 AUD to spend, so I can't afford mid to high range i7 (unfortunately!). What sort of sound card and video card should I get and is there any PCi cards I should be considering? I will take all suggestions under consideration so please only respond if you know what you're talking about cause it could be disaterous if I follow the advice of someone who really doesn't know.The main uses I have for my computer are watchng anime, reading manga, surfing the net, visiting forum sites like these, watching streaming files online, and hopefully soon I will use it to support my family via the net. Plus I watch dvds on my computer. That is mostly what I use it for. Oh and I use it to do things with photos, etc on it. Thankyou for taking the time to listen, have a great day wherever you are in the world!

[DaemonDragon]

Oooh, if you shop around, you can get very, very nice specs for $AUD1500. I picked myself a laptop with a second-gen i7 processor for $AUD999 + shipping not too long ago. (This laptop, note the RRP) I NEVER pay retail for computer stuff, I usually go to online or elsewhere. You live in Aus, I'm assuming, so I suggest you check out WOW Sight and Sound, JB HiFi and MSY. They have stores throughout Aus and you can order online from them too.

From the looks of things, you won't be needing high specs; watching anime and using the internet only requires low specs. But it's always good to get high specs as you won't need to upgrade as soon XD

I'd suggest you look around various stores for stuff. Instead of focusing on what model of graphics card, etc, look for a computer with high specs. With ~1200 I'd personally recommend at least:

Second-gen i7
4GB RAM
1GB of Video Card RAM (VRAM)
750GB Hard drive (The more space the better tho)
Windows 7 Home Premium
1 Year Warranty
Essential stuff such as DVD burner, etc

Don't worry about sound cards unless you're an audio enthusiast.

Are you installing components or buying a new computer entirely?

I usually don't trust salespeople, I'm very paranoid. Also keep in mind the Australian Dollar is strong at the moment, so you can expect to get more specs.

[KarumA]

You want a desktop I presume.
I'll put in falcon guide which lists decent to very good builds with parts etc.
The thing is are you going to build it yourself, is someone else going to build it?

As for parts, if you want to play blu-ray then you need a good graphics card, processor and enough ram. I5 and I7 are nice but I7 is out of anyones budget for a desktop so forget about that, it's also pretty over kill using it. I5 is nice as well but you might want to consider ATI if you want to stick to budget. Many people swear to Intel but price wise sometimes it is ridiculous. I build a pc recently, set this one together yesterday and use an ATI 6 core which should be enough.
The thing is there is a major difference between watching something 1080p and blu ray, blu ray is about twice the size of a 1080p mkv file. Aren't you mixing them up or anything?

http://tinyurl.com/FalconGuide

If you are building that big a computer make sure you have enough power in the psu to handle it. Check how much your graphics card is going to use, make sure you stay well above it.
With what you listed Daemon pretty much hits the spot, his recommended are not suitable for the direct blu ray rips for that I would throw in a better graphics card GTX 260 or higher and more ram at least 8gb.
I would however buy 2 hard discs, use one to store your OS and the other for all the data such as anime and other downloaded files such as movies. This because if your OS starts troubling you then you can easily decide to reinstall windows and not lose your video files and manga. 750 gb is enough for an OS HD, 1TB discs are not that expensive anymore but stick with the good brands.

[dee6075]

Thankyou, your link wasn't working when I went to look at it. As for 1080 & blu-ray I'm going on the specs that the uploaders put on their files as I have no idea, I would like to be able to do both. I think I'll get a shop to build it just for the warranty issues if nothing else. Will probably go in tomorrow and look.

[libertypo]

Make a compromise. Put the accent on cpu, vga, and ram. Use a small ssd for the operating system alone and a second hd for everything else. As karuma said, watch out for the psu. Must be of good quality and at least 10% over the calculated consumption. And use a 64bit OS

[KarumA]

64 bit is pretty much the standard if you also buy Win7. But yes it is important to have in this current age with the high number of ram, 32bit does not support over 4gb. Windows 7 home premium does not go over 16gb, home basic does not go over 8gb. Home premium would be a better purchase if you ever upgrade your ram over 8gb.

The thing with prebuild computers is they either screw you over with the video card by using a low end one or one that sounds good but does not have proper video ram (yes those cards hold memory also). That or they do it with the memory / ram itself. Sometimes the number sounds incredible, 8gb or 16 gb but if you look at the stats of the ram itself (because there is a speed to how fast it can handle things) then you can see that they are actually bad.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...uide/Guide.png
The actual address to the build guide, though it is useless if you are going to buy a pre-fixed computer because you then do not decide on what is inside it and will end up paying too much for your hardware.