£4-500 build for the parents, or off the shelf? - Suggestions appreciated

[jonny440]

Hello,

my parents pc is getting a bit long in the tooth (Athlon XP2800 I think), is starting to play up and is overdue for a complete reinstall. I suggested that perhaps it was time to get something more up to date and much to my surprise they were very keen.

So I'd be very grateful if the clever people here could help me with some suggestions

My criteria:

• Budget is £4-500.
• Don't need a monitor, keyboard or mouse.
• Will be used for much browsing of the internet, email, photos, writing letters and other parent type stuff.
• Quiet.
• I think Windows 7 would be a good idea.

I'm open to suggestions on either a build or something off the shelf (maybe sff?)

I'm a bit out of touch with processors recently, so don't know what Atoms or i3 or AMD would fit the bill.

Any help much appreciated.

Jon

EDIT:

Thoughts so far....

• CPU - AMD Athlon II X3 445 £58.47
• Cooler - Freezer 7 Pro £15.53
• OS - Windows 7 home premium 64 £71.76
• Motherboard - Asus M4A785T-M £59.91
• Memory - 4GB Corsair DDR3 1600 £61.09
• Hard drive - WD Caviar Blue 500GB 16MB 7200 SATA II £30.40
• Case/PSU - Antec NSK-3480 £77.30
• Optical drive - Samsung DVD±RW SATA £11.99

Total = £386.45

[kalniel]

Are you willing to be the constant tech support guy? If not, buy off the shelf and make sure they know how to ring Dell

[jonny440]

Heh, I'm already the tech support guy for my family and I don't think buying from dell with change that any time soon

They don't break anything, just manage to choke the life out of a pc by filling them junk and installing things they don't need. I'm sure you get the idea.

[kalniel]

Yeah I'm in a similar situation. Windows 7 and automating updates, virus scans and defragging is the way to go then. Teach them how to use firefox and stick ad-blocker on it too while you're at it.

I'd avoid an Atom, they're just not powerful enough to cope with being cluttered up. Getting something dual core with 2+gb of ram will help keep clutter from slowing things down too much, and will mean the background scans etc don't slow things down too much.

An i3 or Phenom X2 would be fine.

[jonny440]

Yeah, I converted them to firefox several years ago.

i3 sounds a good choice and seem cheap enough, W7 home premium and 4Gb of ram (may be overkill but what the hell).

So, motherboards....onboard sound and graphics would be nice, and would be perfectly adequate. Doesn't need SLi or RAID etc. Sff would be nice. RAM to go with this?

For storage a low capacity HDD by todays standards will be more than enough. Something like 500GB WD Caviar Blue? Or Samsung/Seagate/Hitachi?

Case? PSU?

[Saracen]

Assuming that you really mean "internet, email, photos, writing letters and other parent type stuff", and that "photos" doesn't mean heavy-grade Photoshop, I'd say the Athlon 2800 would be plenty powerful enough. Windows 7 is probably a good idea, and if so, I'd up the RAM to at least 2GB and preferably 4GB, assuming the motherboard supports it.

When you say the machine is "playing up", do you mean hardware, or the OS? If the latter, then a clean re-install can often give a machine a new lease of life, just by dumping all the clutter in the registry that tends to build up over time.

If you really want to replace the hardware, then give a long, hard look at Core Duos or even the old Core Quads, like Q6600. Yes, they're last generation, but they've got power to spare for the type of thing you say it'll be used for, and because they're last generation, you'll get good prices on both processor and motherboard. Why pay a premium for latest generation when it won't add anything to the user experience, and if all they're doing is the type of thing you describe, they'd never notice the difference.

As for buy or build, my preference is always build. Provided you've got the ability, you can cherry-pick the hardware you need, and don't risk corner-cutting from a builder (like cheap PSUs), or over-spec'd bits, like gaming graphics cards if they won't be gaming. It means you can spend the budget where it counts, economise where you can and pick quality items throughout. But, of course, as has been pointed out, you can't then just call Dell and tell them to fix it when (and if) something goes wrong.

Oh, and by the way, my home-office "admin" PC, which does all the things you're talking about there, except Win 7, is an Athlon XP1800 with 512MB RAM, and it copes with all that just fine so the 2800 can certainly do it. There's a lot of kiddology about needing powerful hardware just because it's available, and manufacturers and retailer would dearly love us all to replace our machines every year, but in truth, it's largely marketing hype and for the types of task you describe, you just don't need anything that powerful. If your parents want a new machine because they want a new machine, or if they want really low power consumption or small form factor, or a "designer" pretty case, then fine. But I wonder what they think it'll do (except perhaps use less electricity) that the old one won't?

[jonny440]

I hear what you're saying Saracen. I haven't had a chance to have a look at it to see what the problems really are. But something along the lines of things opening slowly, not shutting down and now not even starting up. Maybe the power lead has fallen out the back

I will of course wipe it and do a reinstall, which should make it as good as it ever was, which is a noisy beast in a crappy case (It was one of my first builds a long time ago ).

I agree that build over off the shelf is better for just such reasons as being able to pick each and every component to your liking. Just considered off the shelf as some of the small offerings from HP, Acer, Zotac etc seem nice.

The thinking was that they'd get a new machine with the benefits of W7, more ram, quieter, better processor. I'd do a reinstall on their old machine and they'd give it to an elderly friend.

I'll just price something up for now though in case we do go the route of a new machine.

[leonkehoe]

Unless it's a labour of love save yourself the bother, pick up one of these and a copy of Windows 7 Premium. Job done.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Dell Athlon II X3 435 based build in this list is worth looking at:

http://www.dmxdimension.com/dell-uk/inspiron-570-deals/

Alternatively,I would consider the following build:

AMD Athlon II X3 445 ~ £58

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/235421

ASUS M4A785T-M ~ £60

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/190087

Kingston 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz HyperX Blu Memory Kit CL9 1.65V ~ £60

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/239260

Coolermaster Elite 342 ~ £27

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

OR

Coolermaster Elite 340 ~ £27

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

380W Antec EarthWatts EA380D Green ~ £34

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

There is also the Corsair CX430W but this actually looks inferior to the Corsair CX400W.

Samsung SH-S223 22x DVD±RW DL & RAM SATA Optical Drive ~ £12

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/145450

Samsung F3 500GB ~ £31

http://www.scan.co.uk/TodayOnly/Index.aspx

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit ~ £72

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Micro...tem-Single-OEM

The total comes to around £354 excluding any case fans.

[Saracen]

....
The thinking was that they'd get a new machine with the benefits of W7, more ram, quieter, better processor. I'd do a reinstall on their old machine and they'd give it to an elderly friend.

I'll just price something up for now though in case we do go the route of a new machine.

If there's a productive use for the old machine like that, and they just fancy a new one, then why not, I suppose. It might also be worth thinking about migrating the works to a new and nicer case and get some replacement quiet fans. And when they do upgrade, perhaps when something dies, they'll already have the case and quiet fans.

That, of course, is the beauty of building - you get to reuse the good bits and only upgrade the bits that need it.

[usxhe190]

Go for a Zotac ND22 or ASRock Core 100HT. Your parents will be amazed at how small they are. They don't need something very powerful anyways.

However, I agree with others that your current comp is fine. Just do a refresh and if needs be, just get Windows 7 but it might be a slight learning curve to adjust to the new OS format.

[jonny440]

Just to update, after explaining the relative merits and costs of building a new machine or updating their existing machine, they decided to go for both, so they can have his and hers pc's (don't we all end up that way? ).

I've now built and setup a machine to the spec in my original post. It's nice and quiet, and they are very happy with it.

Their old machine is an Athlon XP2000 with half a gig of DDR400 ram. After a fresh install of XP, I'm going to bung in 2GB of ram (£65) and a new cpu fan (£6), sell them my 20" HP2035 4:3 monitor so I can upgrade to a nice widescreen.... Everyones a winner