My wife has finally won her disabled student's allowance, which includes £1550 incl VAT for the cost of a new PC. There are specialised suppliers, but looking at their prices it's a joke. For example, £169 + VAT for a 17" TFT. I therefore want to build a sensible PC for her, quiet and powerful, within the £1550 budget. She will NOT be gaming, and the most cpu-intensive programme she will be running is probably Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred.
I have tentatively put together the following spec at ebuyer. If you work through the spec, you will see that I have two motherboards, because I was thinking of replacing the E6600 CPU with an E6750 when it comes out on 22 July. Any comments on this please?
I have included 2 HDDs for RAID1, but I wasn't entirely sure whether the MSI mobo supports that.
1 Antec P182 Gunmetal Grey Super Mid Tower Case - No PSU 126946 215 in stock £68.88 £68.88
1 ASUS P5W DH Deluxe SKT 775 dual-core Core2Duo Conroe ready Crossfire
8channel audio ATX 113951 209 in stock £85.25 £85.25
1 Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.4ghz) Socket 775 FSB1066 4MB Cache Retail Boxed
Processor 112706 902 in stock £117.64 £117.64
2 Samsung SpinPoint HD501LJ 500GB SATAII Hard Drive 16MB Cache - OEM 130454 39 in stock £68.35 £136.70
1 Scythe Mine Rev-B Socket 478, 754, 940, 775, 939 & AM2 CPU Cooler 127438 87 in stock £19.85 £19.85
1 MSI P35 Platinum Socket 775 FSB1333 onboard 8 channel audio ATX 128048 19 in stock £88.35 £88.35
1 Corsair 2GB Kit (2x1GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 XMS2 Memory Non-ECC
Unbuffered CL4(4-4-4-12) E.P.P. Heat Spreader Lifetime Warranty 111439 99 in stock £70.97 £70.97
1 Corsair HX Series 620W Modular PSU - ATX12V v2.2 APFC 114941 94 in stock £81.69 £81.69
There's a fanless graphics card I was considering here:
http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/pro...600gt-t2d256ez
There are a few more bits to add in, such as the 24" TFT, which all comes within the budget.
Any and all comments gratefully received.