PC for light use

[ehhhhhhh]

Hi All,

I need to build a PC for my mother, and I'm kinda lost on the low spec rigs out there atm, hence I need your help


Her current PC is a Pentium III based...erm...computer...She uses it for some light excel work, email, VoIP, IM, browsing the web and sometimes playing logic games

I've come up with the following config, although I wonder whether it's possible to spend the money in a more efficient way:




I have no preference regarding to the platform, it can be intel or AMD too.

The budget is around 250 and I already have a spare win7 licence

Cheers

[scaryjim]

There's certainly nothing wrong with your selection.

That said:

Personally I'd probably go with a bigger hard drive, since you can get a 500GB WD for only £3 more.

You could almost certainly save some money by using a cheaper case, like this screwless Inwin @ £26 and getting separate mobo and CPU rather than the E350 mitx board: nothing catches my eye at scan, but how about Sapphire 760G motherboard + Athlon II X2 250 from ebuyer ~ £83... hmmm, not such a big saving that one...

[ehhhhhhh]

Thanks.

Swapped the case for that inwin you linked

I've just checked Anandtech's bench and the Athlon 2 is a lot faster, however I think it's not needed for her. Also, the E-350 CPU is passive cooled so I won't need a new cooler to make the pc silent

[CooperXS]

http://forums.hexus.net/current-barg...p-99-99-a.html

EDIT

this one is back to 190 but still looks like the thing for the task

EDIT 2

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/225757 - this one comes with Win7 license already for extra tenner

[ehhhhhhh]

Nice one

I'll order it this evening if nothing better comes up by then.

[scaryjim]

Don't forget that the e-machines doesn't have an optical drive, so if she plans to use any CDs or DVDs for any reason at all you'll need to add an external optical drive to it. If you check out the special offers from the product page they've got a bundle for an extra £25 with a Lite-On DVD rewriter.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This version of the previous nettop has a dual core CPU and Windows 7 installed:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/225758

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I have also come up with the following mini ITX build.



The system will only draw a small amount of power so the PSU should be enough even though it is a generic one.

[scaryjim]

Or, since you have a Win 7 license, you could go for this Revo with dual core Atom and Ion 2 for only £185...

[aidanjt]

Another cheap nettop. Can be bolted to the back of a monitor.

[smargh]

Acer Revo.

My sister has an R3600 and likes it.

She hated her old P4 desktop: too loud, too big & heavy (Chieftec Dragon).
She hated a HP DC7900 USDT: too loud. I thought it was fine.
She would not have liked a fanless Atom I had - ran too hot, couldn't easily play DivX.

She can do everything she needs on the Acer Revo: word processing, Youtube, iPlayer (non-HD), general web browsing. It's barely audible. I replaced the HDD with an SSD to eliminate a heat source and stop any clicking. She would recommend them.

[ehhhhhhh]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I've decided to build a basic PC.

Given the upgrade path, I think it will save me a couple of £££ in a few years.

[aidanjt]

I always think 'upgrade path' argument, but the truth is, in 2-3 years time (the usual must-upgrade length of time, I find), few of the current hardware will have compatible parts on the market. Getting cheap/discardable systems is rapidly becoming the most economically sensible choice for every day computing.