A build for my sister (why did I volunteer for this?)

[iftiq]

Hi,

My sister would like a new computer to replace an ageing laptop. It should be stable, quiet and powerful enough to run Windows 7, including the visual effects, do general office/internet tasks as well as media playback. I'd like to give her at least 1TB of storage as she's got a lot of music, videos and pictures stored across various hard disks. She's also requested an SSD after watching a video demo or something on YouTube (?!?) and seems happy to pay for it despite my attempts to explain elsewise. Anyways, I've talked over the pros/cons of the various components with her and she seems to have settled on the following:

Board: ASUS P5Q SE Plus ~£70
CPU: Intel E7400 2.8GHz ~£83
RAM: 4GB Corsair 667Mhz ~£45
GPU: HD4670 Sapphire Ultimate ~£55
HD: 1TB WD Caviar Green ~£65
SSD: 32GB Corsair X32 ~£115
Case: Silverstone SST FT01S ~£148
Wireless: Belkin 125G ~£25
PSU: 450w Corsair Modular ~£60
DVD: Sony DL RW ~£17
Keyboard: Logitech 660 ~£17
Monitor: 22" Neovo ~£125
Cooler: AC Freezer LP 7 ~£13

Total: ~£850

We've decidedly gone down the Intel route for the moment. I realise it seems a bit overkill for what my sister wants to do with it, but I'm hoping it will at least be solidly reliable and quiet, as well as powerful enough to last 24 months. As I've said the key requirements are long term stability and quietness and not so much raw speed or power.

Just wanted to check I hadn't made any glaring errors/omissions/other mistakes. Budget-wise I think it's about the kind of money she was hoping to spend, but could probabaly chuck in another £50-75 for something more if it's worthwhile.

I'd appreciate any thoughts.

Thanks.

[Terbinator]

I'd cut the SSD and case and go for a UATX motherboard with integrated graphics, the smaller board will result in you being able to use a smaller case and be quiter and consume less power. Also if your looking at the E series of processors for the money your spending its probably worth upgrading to a core 2 quad - a Q8200 for example at just over £100 !!!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Go with a 785G based motherboard as this has the same UVD2 as the HD4670 for media decoding.

This is the motherboard I would go for:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...-SATA-RAID-VGA

The IGP has 128mb of GDDR3 integrated onto the motherboard which makes it very similar in performance to an HD3450. Any more for media decoding and accelerating the OS is a waste of money.

I would look at this triple core processor too:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-P...che-95W-Retail

In fact this processor would do the job too:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-P...che-80W-Retail

The 3.1ghz X2 550BE trades blows with the 3ghz E8400 which costs around £50 more:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/athlon...50-be-review/1

The X2 545 will only be slightly slower and is much cheaper than an E7400.

The E7000 series has less cache than the E8000 series and is slower clock for clock.Also the E7400 is clocked lower than an E8400.

4GB of DDR3 can be had for under £50 from Ebuyer too.

TBH,the E7000 and E8000 series are rubbish value for money now. It makes more sense to go for the E6000 series dual core or jump to a Q8000 series quad core.

[Jasp]

Tbh at the price you are looking at you could have a quad core 955, 4 gig of DDR3 ram and a 4890 vapour x driving a 23" full HD monitor, seems a seriously waste of money on the dual core, SSD and the case.

As cat has already said i would look at spending a hell of a lot less since its just for office use and go with a dual or tri core setup in a more down to earth case, antec 300 maybe?

[sjbuck]

Go with a Q8200.
Ditch the SSD unless it's an essential status symbol for her
Consider buying a standard dell for about £400.

I put together a similar system for my dad and his mate recently. It came to £260 per system (without KVM). uATX motherboard, Quad core 8200, 4GB of 1066 DDR2 RAM, integrated VGA/Sounds/NIC. Works great, inbuild PSU on the case isn't as quiet as a corsair, but it's fine, case/PSU was about £40, bargain!

As always, if she wants to spend £800 then go for it, but the objective can be achieved for MUCH MUCH less.

Steve

[Phage]

+1 sjbuck.
Save yourself the effort, and save some cash. I'm surprised that Scan couldn't help you out with something similar for a basic spec. Give them a call.

[shaithis]

I'm with CAT. The AMD system with integrated gfx offers considerably better VFM for the tasks you have specified.

Also, that case is seriously expensive....and IMO, is ugly

[scaryjim]

frankly, a Sempron 140 + 785G Chipset, coupled with 2GB DDR3, will do everything she needs. The Asus 785TD-M EVO + Sempron 140 costs less than £100. Also, the Sempron 140 can be unlocked to a dual core, although you don't really need it to be for office + DVD / BD playback!

On the other hand, if there's plenty of money in the pot couple the 785G mobo with a Phenom II X3 - I'd recommend a 705e so you can charm her with with the energy efficiency which will save her on her electricity bill Don't bother with discreet graphics - if she's not gaming she won't need them (besides, the ASUS EVO board has sideport and is very overclockable so can play modern games at sensible (1280 x 768) resolutions quite happily )

[mac124]

Go with a 785G based motherboard as this has the same UVD2 as the HD4670 for media decoding.

This is the motherboard I would go for:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...-SATA-RAID-VGA

The IGP has 128mb of GDDR3 integrated onto the motherboard which makes it very similar in performance to an HD3450. Any more for media decoding and accelerating the OS is a waste of money.

I would look at this triple core processor too:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-P...che-95W-Retail

In fact this processor would do the job too:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/AMD-P...che-80W-Retail

The 3.1ghz X2 550BE trades blows with the 3ghz E8400 which costs around £50 more:

http://www.guru3d.com/article/athlon...50-be-review/1

The X2 545 will only be slightly slower and is much cheaper than an E7400.

The E7000 series has less cache than the E8000 series and is slower clock for clock.Also the E7400 is clocked lower than an E8400.

4GB of DDR3 can be had for under £50 from Ebuyer too.

TBH,the E7000 and E8000 series are rubbish value for money now. It makes more sense to go for the E6000 series dual core or jump to a Q8000 series quad core.

Also gets my vote, .

IMHO its not really sensible building a ground up build based on 775 these days.

[Pob255]

I'm with CAT. The AMD system with integrated gfx offers considerably better VFM for the tasks you have specified.

Also, that case is seriously expensive....and IMO, is ugly

Silverstone fortress ugly???
That sir is an insault!

Back to the topic

However looking at the actual build . . . AMD route is very tempting esp over a e7xxx series cpu
A low cost Intel pentium dual core, over clocked a bit would be a better and cheaper option if you wish to go the intel route.

I'd also agree on a good onboard graphics chip not a seperate graphics card as there's no gameing involved.

I would look at the nvidia 9300 chipset if you're sticking with intel
Zotac GF9300-a-e
http://www.cclonline.com/product-inf...203&tid=frooct
Asus P5N7A-VM
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...-uATX-VGA-HDCP
Scan says it's 730i but it's is the 9300 onboard http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_I...AqY&templete=2
It's far better for video decodeing than the intel onboard on the G motherboards

mATX means a nice smaller case, have a look at the antec mini-P180
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/140996 @ £60 a real bargin

SSD . . . try to talk her out of it.
It may be a good idea to try to get 3 or 4 500gb or 640gb Hard drives and put them into raid5 instead, will still be 1tb+ and will provide redundancy of one disk dies.

edit: and cooler, get something better than that, for good low cost look at the Akasa AK-967 Nero
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Akasa...-120mm-PWM-fan
or
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Xigma...T-D1284-cooler
or
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Scyth...M2-AM2plus-940

[Flibb]

I would go for one of these mesh things
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=19825
and either replace the HD or add an external drive

and then let mesh deal with any problems

Would wait a bit until somebody has had an ear on one, hopfully it wont sounder like a hoover

[morda8]

if ur sis wants a very quite system then try passive cooling, i got thermal take sonic tower dam me it makes ur system a hell of a lot quiter if combined with a decent psu it keeps my q6600 below 38c on idle and below 52c on load (wen run prime 95) and thts without a fan....there are probarly much better passive coolers out there but sonic tower cost me £25 fits both on amd and intel.

i think this would be similar or probarly better
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Therm...r-(Without-Fan)

http://www.ocia.net/reviews/si128se/page4.shtml


but then again there are fans tht are very quite aswell this days