Piece together a desktop

[Confortguardian]

I already have a Vizio smart TV ew inch, a wireless keyboard and mouse. Can I just buy a tower with i7 processor and put together that way.  Do tower hooks up to TV / monitor? Is it possible?

[BambiBoomZ]

Comfortguardian,

Yes, it's certainly possible to run a TV from a desktop.  The secondary office system, qn HP z420 uses Samsung 40" 4K smart TV as a computer monitor.  This is connected by an HDMI cable from the GTX 1060 graphics cardto the z420 to the HDMI 1input on the TV. As the z420 is connected to the Internet, it's possible to visit any site, stream movies from various services and onlne.videos. In a larger city, a connection of to a simple antenna to the TV coxial connection means it sould be possible to see local broadcasts.

As workstations typically have CD/DVD player/recorders, it's possible to play owned, or library disks, althought the players can be a bit noisy and  a seperate played can be directly connected to a TV input.

The use of a Computer /TV system is enhanced by adding a reasonable sound card to the com[uter and running an external speker system. In the case of the TV here, there is an ASUS STX Essence soundcard to a Logitech Z-2300 2.1 speaker system- very good sound.

Plus, the computer can used for all kinds of tasks, reading online newspapers and journals, writing, photo editing, email, and etc. With a fast processor and graphics card, some gaming will work- up to a limit.  If the monitor is 4K, the graphics card needs to be a really good one. The GTX 1060 6GB in the office system shows some screen tearing- the top and bottom portions of the screen are not always in sync if there is fast movment in a 4K video.

I'd recommend a system such an HP z420 with a processor such as an E5-1620 v2 or E5-1650 v2- unless there is a space limitation, at least 16GB of RAM memory, and an SSD solid state drive for  Windows and the programs. Workstations are a good choice for this use and they are ultra-reliable, upgradable, and in general noticeably quieter than consumer systems.

BambiBoomZ

HP z420_3: (2015) (R11) Xeon E5-1650 v2 (6C@ 4.3GHz) / z420 Liquid cooling / 32GB (HP/Samsung 4X 8GB DDR3-1866 ECC registered) / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB/ Samsung 860 EVO 500GB + HGST 4TB / ASUS Essence STX / Logitech z2300 2.1 / 600W PSU > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (HP OEM ) > Samsung 40" 4K