With air-cooling, it tends to be a tradeoff between the size of the case and the quality of the cooling, since larger cases mean more room for better airflow by default. This is actually one of the major problems gaming laptops have to deal with, which is why their performance (and lifetime) is generally sub-par to a desktop's. In my view, cooling is one of those things where if you want to optimise for it, you definitely can (some people even go as far as to build water-cooling systems into their PCs) because it can improve your maximum performance, but this really shouldn't be much of an issue if you're not planning to stress the machine to its absolute maximum 24/7, which you will in all likelihood not be doing with your normal editing/developing work.
Again, of course you can optimise for it, and technical folks who love to drive their system to its limit will want to, which is why someone might scoff at what they perceive to be only a standard cooling solution. Better temperatures, after all, represent more room for overclocking and driving the system further. I took a look at the video that was being referred to, and smiled slightly when the guy said "there's nothing extravagant about this case at all" and how the cooling solution was mostly "lazy choices". For his "combined torture workload", he concludes that customers "aren't getting the full value of the parts that they purchased". Which I guess technically isn't wrong! But it's not a realistic use case either. I don't think it'll be a major issue, even though you might of course expect better for £2k.
But if you want to keep looking for something that's better in this regard, of course you can! You'll want to look for reviews that show the temperatures under full load for a given configuration, where under 80°C is ideal and anything above ~90-95°C is critical. The maximum CPU temperature in the Alienware review was 92°C, which isn't great, but only represents what you'd get when stressing the entire system at full power for a while.
For explicit suggestions on my part, there's a ton of custom PC builders that may be able to fit more exact speficiations better than a prebuilt by Dell. Since these tend to use larger cases, cooling issues are even less likely. I don't have a lot of knowledge here, but a good place to start might be [LINK], where you can set up the components as you see fit. The Novatech one that Wolf mentioned looks good as well. The downside is that these might be more expensive than the Alienware for the same configuration.
1
Tobias 1102~2Y
I remember having frequent overheating issues with my laptop... back when I lived in Australia and the temperature was regularly around 40 degrees (C) outside. It's a lot cooler in the UK, obviously. I wonder if that's something that people who assess these things even take into account?
I've been concerned that my current PC might be overheating since it's been on the floor in a carpeted room for years... which is something I only learned was an issue relatively recently, such is my ignorance, but which I've still not actually done anything about, such is my depression (I know I could/should move it and blow away the accumulated dust and it's bad that I don't... but it's hardly the most serious thing I neglect due to poor mental health). It's why I'm hoping to get something that'll be low-maintenance, and why hearing these kinds of PCs have issues with overheating is concerning and making me doubtful about my ability to make a good decision.
I've just been playing around a bit with the site you linked to, but with that - and I suppose the Dell site too - sure I can choose between options, but it's not as if I understand fully what each one actually does, or the highest one I'd realistically need, so all I can really do is choose the ones with the highest numbers, and that feels like the wrong idea?
0
MontyCallay99~2Y
Honestly, you don't have to wonder whether your PC is overheating, you can just install a tool like [LINK] and check its temperatures. That'll also allow you to monitor the usage of your other components.
This one would be fine in terms of what I mentioned earlier in regard to specs, but adding the drives you want would put you over budget. Another alternative would be just ordering it with the included SSD to run your system on and installing the drives from your old PC, which you already have experience with and therefore know it can be done! It's really no big deal - if you're really all that worried about static electricity, you can even do it in another room without a carpet or get some plastic gloves or something.
Alternatively, this one [LINK] which has a slightly older (though still decent - slightly older is 2019, here) 8-core Ryzen processor in the 3700X (which I doubt will make all that much of a difference, you can look up its performance if you want) and would allow you to order the drives you want and stay within budget. The included GPU is a 3070, so even better than the previous ones I mentioned. Make sure you take the 32GB of RAM, though. In terms of specs and budget, this seems like a good solution. It ships in ten days, apparently, and you get a three year warranty! Probably one of your better choices if you just want to buy something and forget about this entire thing.
I can't guarantee that any of these have perfect cooling, but they have fairly standard cases and decent fans, so I think you'll be fine.
1
Tobias 1102~2Y
A program like that is how I monitored the heat of my overheating laptop back in Australia. I tried finding one recently while wondering if overheating was the cause of the lag issues with this one, but there was some barrier to installation or something and I gave up? I can't remember. I should probably install that one now, but... ehh...
The budget's just the vaguest of ideas that came to mind before I'd done any research, and I'm absolutely not bound to it! I don't mind going up to £3000 if I'll get something better and longer-lasting for it.
When installing the second drive a few years ago, I think I found that I could only install that additional one and there was no space for any more? But again I can't really remember. Are hard drive slots typically limited?
And how much should I be worried about static electricity? I was only basing that on several beginner's guides that I saw that all mentioned it as if it was a major concern, but obviously I don't have a clue.
I'm looking at the one you linked to, and at the memory options in particular, but there are several that say 32GB and I don't know how to distinguish between them. The same is true about all the part choices! It's hard to make a decision when I don't really understand what I'm actually choosing between.
1
MontyCallay99~2Y
The importance of the static electricity thing... is somewhat debated, it seems, and appears to depend on your conditions. I've never worried about it too much, and under normal circumstances it's unlikely to be an issue. This article [LINK] goes into it a bit:
"Here's a dirty little secret: our hardware expert Jarred Walton never wears a grounding strap, and he says he can't point to a single case of a static discharge causing a component to fail. Having said that, he says he isn't in an environment where he builds up a lot of static, and has usually touched enough grounded metal objects by the time he reaches for a CPU or GPU that anything built up would have dissipated. [...] Our recommendation is to simply touch your case before touching anything delicate. It's fairly unlikely you'll have actually built up enough to do any damage (unless you're shuffling around in socks trying to be Electric Man), but it takes half a second and just might save the life of your CPU. As for a grounding strap—grab one if you're paranoid, but we think it's an unnecessary precaution." Note that the only things this would even apply to when handling components are the Motherboard, CPU or GPU, less so for installing/removing hard drives or just opening the case.
As for the listed RAM, any of those will be fine. Some people distinguish different speeds of RAM (and some even overclock their RAM) but even for high intensity gaming it matters very little. The only difference between the RAM listed on the website seems to be the manufacturer. Kingston and Corsair are both reputable names.
Concerning your budget, of course you want to future proof, but at the level of components you're looking at right now you're really going to suffer from diminishing returns. If you want to spend an extra few hundred pounds on getting a 12-core instead of an 8-core when you might not even need either for your day-to-day work is up to you (it certainly won't reduce the lag in windows file viewers, which I can basically guarantee you is hard-drive related).
What was the most demanding program you mentioned - DaVinci Resolve? That seems to be more GPU-bound, according to what I've read (though RAM and hard-drive speeds will make a huge difference also), so if you want to spend extra money there, upgrade that. This systems builder [LINK] lists a lot of different cards and says to go "with the best one your budget can afford" which is not very helpful, but with the level of editing that you're doing I think it's likely an RTX 3070 will be just fine. Again, if you're really worried about if it will be enough, check what the problem is in your current configuration, but if you just want to spend enough money that it will last you the next 3-5 years, the configurations I mentioned will be more than enough.
1
MontyCallay99~2Y
Oh, I just realised you were asking about hard drive slots as well - that will primarily depend on the case. Technically, the only limiting factor is the number of connections on your motherboard, but since you need a place to put the hard drives as well...
If the PC builder lists the case, you can google that to see its specifications. The once I last recommended (with the "Kolink castle midi tower case") comes with "2x 3,5/2,5“ Drive slots and 4x slots for 2,5” drives". 2,5" drives will be regular SSDs, 3,5" drives will be your regular HDDs. So nothing to worry about there!
Again, of course you can optimise for it, and technical folks who love to drive their system to its limit will want to, which is why someone might scoff at what they perceive to be only a standard cooling solution. Better temperatures, after all, represent more room for overclocking and driving the system further. I took a look at the video that was being referred to, and smiled slightly when the guy said "there's nothing extravagant about this case at all" and how the cooling solution was mostly "lazy choices". For his "combined torture workload", he concludes that customers "aren't getting the full value of the parts that they purchased". Which I guess technically isn't wrong! But it's not a realistic use case either. I don't think it'll be a major issue, even though you might of course expect better for £2k.
But if you want to keep looking for something that's better in this regard, of course you can! You'll want to look for reviews that show the temperatures under full load for a given configuration, where under 80°C is ideal and anything above ~90-95°C is critical. The maximum CPU temperature in the Alienware review was 92°C, which isn't great, but only represents what you'd get when stressing the entire system at full power for a while.
For explicit suggestions on my part, there's a ton of custom PC builders that may be able to fit more exact speficiations better than a prebuilt by Dell. Since these tend to use larger cases, cooling issues are even less likely. I don't have a lot of knowledge here, but a good place to start might be [LINK], where you can set up the components as you see fit. The Novatech one that Wolf mentioned looks good as well. The downside is that these might be more expensive than the Alienware for the same configuration.
I've been concerned that my current PC might be overheating since it's been on the floor in a carpeted room for years... which is something I only learned was an issue relatively recently, such is my ignorance, but which I've still not actually done anything about, such is my depression (I know I could/should move it and blow away the accumulated dust and it's bad that I don't... but it's hardly the most serious thing I neglect due to poor mental health). It's why I'm hoping to get something that'll be low-maintenance, and why hearing these kinds of PCs have issues with overheating is concerning and making me doubtful about my ability to make a good decision.
I've just been playing around a bit with the site you linked to, but with that - and I suppose the Dell site too - sure I can choose between options, but it's not as if I understand fully what each one actually does, or the highest one I'd realistically need, so all I can really do is choose the ones with the highest numbers, and that feels like the wrong idea?
[LINK]
This one would be fine in terms of what I mentioned earlier in regard to specs, but adding the drives you want would put you over budget. Another alternative would be just ordering it with the included SSD to run your system on and installing the drives from your old PC, which you already have experience with and therefore know it can be done! It's really no big deal - if you're really all that worried about static electricity, you can even do it in another room without a carpet or get some plastic gloves or something.
Alternatively, this one [LINK] which has a slightly older (though still decent - slightly older is 2019, here) 8-core Ryzen processor in the 3700X (which I doubt will make all that much of a difference, you can look up its performance if you want) and would allow you to order the drives you want and stay within budget. The included GPU is a 3070, so even better than the previous ones I mentioned. Make sure you take the 32GB of RAM, though. In terms of specs and budget, this seems like a good solution. It ships in ten days, apparently, and you get a three year warranty! Probably one of your better choices if you just want to buy something and forget about this entire thing.
I can't guarantee that any of these have perfect cooling, but they have fairly standard cases and decent fans, so I think you'll be fine.
The budget's just the vaguest of ideas that came to mind before I'd done any research, and I'm absolutely not bound to it! I don't mind going up to £3000 if I'll get something better and longer-lasting for it.
When installing the second drive a few years ago, I think I found that I could only install that additional one and there was no space for any more? But again I can't really remember. Are hard drive slots typically limited?
And how much should I be worried about static electricity? I was only basing that on several beginner's guides that I saw that all mentioned it as if it was a major concern, but obviously I don't have a clue.
I'm looking at the one you linked to, and at the memory options in particular, but there are several that say 32GB and I don't know how to distinguish between them. The same is true about all the part choices! It's hard to make a decision when I don't really understand what I'm actually choosing between.
"Here's a dirty little secret: our hardware expert Jarred Walton never wears a grounding strap, and he says he can't point to a single case of a static discharge causing a component to fail. Having said that, he says he isn't in an environment where he builds up a lot of static, and has usually touched enough grounded metal objects by the time he reaches for a CPU or GPU that anything built up would have dissipated. [...] Our recommendation is to simply touch your case before touching anything delicate. It's fairly unlikely you'll have actually built up enough to do any damage (unless you're shuffling around in socks trying to be Electric Man), but it takes half a second and just might save the life of your CPU. As for a grounding strap—grab one if you're paranoid, but we think it's an unnecessary precaution." Note that the only things this would even apply to when handling components are the Motherboard, CPU or GPU, less so for installing/removing hard drives or just opening the case.
As for the listed RAM, any of those will be fine. Some people distinguish different speeds of RAM (and some even overclock their RAM) but even for high intensity gaming it matters very little. The only difference between the RAM listed on the website seems to be the manufacturer. Kingston and Corsair are both reputable names.
Concerning your budget, of course you want to future proof, but at the level of components you're looking at right now you're really going to suffer from diminishing returns. If you want to spend an extra few hundred pounds on getting a 12-core instead of an 8-core when you might not even need either for your day-to-day work is up to you (it certainly won't reduce the lag in windows file viewers, which I can basically guarantee you is hard-drive related).
What was the most demanding program you mentioned - DaVinci Resolve? That seems to be more GPU-bound, according to what I've read (though RAM and hard-drive speeds will make a huge difference also), so if you want to spend extra money there, upgrade that. This systems builder [LINK] lists a lot of different cards and says to go "with the best one your budget can afford" which is not very helpful, but with the level of editing that you're doing I think it's likely an RTX 3070 will be just fine. Again, if you're really worried about if it will be enough, check what the problem is in your current configuration, but if you just want to spend enough money that it will last you the next 3-5 years, the configurations I mentioned will be more than enough.
If the PC builder lists the case, you can google that to see its specifications. The once I last recommended (with the "Kolink castle midi tower case") comes with "2x 3,5/2,5“ Drive slots and 4x slots for 2,5” drives". 2,5" drives will be regular SSDs, 3,5" drives will be your regular HDDs. So nothing to worry about there!