New PC for mum

beans101

beans101

beans101

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20 Aug 2010
Posts
13
Hi all

My mum has a really old pc and i wanted to ge her a new pc but i have not been paying attention to the industry for the past two years. For example i included an Intel cpu in the spec ( are they still ahead of AMD?)

Intel Pentium Dual-Core E6600 "LGA775 Core 2" 3.06GHz (1066FSB) £50.39
Cooler Master Elite Power 500W Power Supply £40.99
Gigabyte G41MT-S2P Intel G41 (Socket 775) DDR3 Motherboard £34.00
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM £30.98
Kingston HyperX Blu 2GB (1x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz £20.99
Akasa AK-191-BL Blue Ultra Quiet 120mm Fan - 3 Pin £5.99
Total : £195.34

I already have the tower, dvd drive. I just want a pc for her that run smoothly, be able to multitask, no issues. Pc will be minly used for internet, music and watching movies. No online gaming. Please let me kow what you think. All responses appreciated.
 
 
What about this:


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Pentium Dual-Core E6600 "LGA775 Core 2" 3.06GHz (1066FSB) - Retail £50.39
1 x OCZ StealthXStream 2 500W Power Supply £43.99
1 x Asus ATI Radeon HD 6450 SILENT EDITION 1024MB GDDR3 Low Profile PCI-Express Graphics Card £39.98
1 x Gigabyte G41MT-S2P Intel G41 (Socket 775) DDR3 Motherboard £34.00
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £30.98
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C10 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BL2KIT25664BA160A) £22.79
Total : £234.13 (includes shipping : £10.00).



I've been recommended this video card for a good home theatre PC, which kinda seems apt to your mums needs.

You surely dont need any more power than this for internet, music and videos. And, dont take this the wrong way, but it's hardly likely your mums gonna get a taste for gaming is it :p
 
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ignore my first post, and everyone elses, and go for this:


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Pentium G620 2.60GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £53.99
1 x MSI H61M-P23 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard **B3 REVISION** £44.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 ATX '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £39.98
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD5000AAKX) £30.98
1 x Corsair Value 2GB (1x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Single Channel Module (VS2GB1333D3) £14.99
Total : £196.93 (includes shipping : £10.00).

it will be way faster than everything else thats been suggested. it will also give an upgrade path to all other sandybridge processors
 
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I suggest you slice £15 off your budget and get a 400w Lepa.
Lepa is an enermax brand by the way and they are very good psu's, I have a 500w and a 400w would be more than enough even for an i5 2500k build with a decent graphics card.
And because its your mums pc, get 2 sticks of 2GB Corsair value ram for £25
An amd sempron, or even an Athlon II 250 for £40 which by the way runs all the games at pretty much high-max settings with good graphics.
and pick up a £30 AM3 motherboard.
You don't really need a Case fan. And your mum won't even need a Graphics card.
So athlon II x2 3.0Ghz = £46
Lepa 400w = £26
OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) = £26
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB = £31
ASRock N68C-S UCC GeForce 7025 (Socket AM3) £33
Total= £162
More than enough, I have a similar system with the athlon 255 with a 460Gti and runs all the latest game at high/highest settings
And if you shop around, I'm sure you could get that for £150 including Delivery. Multitasks seamlessly, encodes pretty fast and overclocks to 3.8Ghz on air easily, no need for a sandy bridge or anything like that if its for web browsing, and if you really want to watch hd video or game, stick a 6770 on there for £50
 
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Subliminal Aura said:
It's kind of sad seeing a budget of £200 for mum.

The woman who fed and cleaned up your crap for years.

200 quid :/
Click to expand...

Thats what I thought, thats why I went all in :}

Merghh I'm going again :D


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2100 3.10GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £94.99
1 x Lepa B-Series 750W '80 Plus Bronze' Modular Power Supply £74.98
1 x Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6570 HM 1024MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card (11191-01-20G) £55.99
1 x MSI H61M-P23 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard **B3 REVISION** £44.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500413AS) £30.98
1 x Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMX4GX3M2A1600C9) £26.99
Total : £340.92 (includes shipping : £10.00).



And i3 is perfectly fine for her (maybe slightly overkill) but overkill is good.
 
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reply in quote

ExecutorKevin said:
I suggest you slice £15 off your budget and get a 400w Lepa.
Lepa is an enermax brand by the way and they are very good psu's, I have a 500w and a 400w would be more than enough even for an i5 2500k build with a decent graphics card. i havent seen any reviews of this PSU which is why i didnt recommend it

And because its your mums pc, get 2 sticks of 2GB Corsair value ram for £25 or the 2x2GB RAM that robfosters put in his build thats cheaper and faster ;)

An amd sempron, or even an Athlon II 250 for £40 which by the way runs all the games at pretty much high-max settings with good graphics. what games can it run on max settings? i'd be surprised to find any major game after 2008 that it could run at max. even my Phenom II X4 struggles with crysis on max so ive no idea what an athlon X2 would make of it

and pick up a £30 AM3 motherboard.
You don't really need a Case fan. And your mum won't even need a Graphics card.
So athlon II x2 3.0Ghz = £46
Lepa 400w = £26
OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) = £26
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB = £31
ASRock N68C-S UCC GeForce 7025 (Socket AM3) £33
Total= £162

More than enough, I have a similar system with the athlon 255 with a 460Gti and runs all the latest game at high/highest settings what res are you playing at? my phenom II X4 955 + overclocked GTX 460 768MB gets ~35-40FPS on crysis warhead with a custom config that gives max graphics looks with better FPS but no AA at 1360x768 res.

And if you shop around, I'm sure you could get that for £150 including Delivery. Multitasks seamlessly, encodes pretty fast and overclocks to 3.8Ghz on air easily, no need for a sandy bridge or anything like that if its for web browsing, and if you really want to watch hd video or game, stick a 6770 on there for £50
Click to expand...

also, i may have made a massive mistake with my build, i'm just gonna check

*edit*
nope, no mistake on my build. i couldnt remember if the pentium chips had onboard graphics or not
 
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Subliminal Aura said:
It's kind of sad seeing a budget of £200 for mum.

The woman who fed and cleaned up your crap for years.

200 quid :/
Click to expand...

without knowing his financial situation you honestly cant comment on this. £200 could very easily be a lot of money for him

also, beans101, is the optical drive IDE (massive ribbon cable) or SATA (small flat cable)
 
Reaper, I said the Athlon x2 255 clocked at 3.8Ghz will max out most games paired with a 460Gtx 1GB overclocked. I also said High/highest so at crysis it will probably give me 25-30 FPS+ without AA on 1024 or even at 1680
But if his mum is going to browse the internet and listen to music or even watch movies, there is absolutely no need in a i3/i5, I was going to recommend a sempron, but they're ok at the multitasking. Not good.
An Athlon will be decent at futureproofing, just overclock it a little.
Well I trust the lepa because stulid recommends it, its an enermax brand, its heavy, the cables are sheathed, runs near silent and other lepa's have been reviewed and have found to be high quality.

Yeah I missed those Ballistix, my bad.
And whatever system you're getting, these are a must.
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=TY-000-AM&groupid=701&catid=6&subcat=
 
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