Spec my Father! Possibly a mini system

Scougar

Scougar

Scougar

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NOTE: THIS IS AN OLD THREAD I JUST BUMPED... as my he now wants to send me the system I built for him.

Ok, so my father mentioned to me today that he would like to replace the SFF Acer he is currently using, as it's dog slow (mainly due to lack of memory if I'm honest - and let's not go there on that question).

So.. he's looking to upgrade to a new machine. If it could have wifi built in that would probably be a good thing, and he'd like to try a friendly Linux as well, so driver compatibility is good.

He does have his grand kids around and they sometimes play games (nothing tasking really, maybe WoW if it was possible to run).

He said a bigger case was ok, but bear in mind his old one was an Acer Aspire L3600 (2140 @ 1.6Ghz with 2.5GB RAM) which is not that much bigger than a set top box.

Budget... anywhere from £200 to £500 I guess. (I reckon £200 to £300 in reality though).

Only needs a base unit, he has the rest (and also has an external DVD drive).
 
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This is the best I could come up with for the money.. You could add an ATI 6850 for £99 or something if you really wanted to be able to game on it at a playable frame rate..

Quite future proof too, could add/upgrade to an i5 when necessary.. :)

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £99.95
1 x Asus P8Z68-V LX Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £81.59
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £57.98
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-430CXUKV2) £39.98
1 x Cooler Master Elite 311 Midi Tower - Black/Orange £29.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) £23.99
Total : £333.48 (includes shipping : FREE).

 
 
AMD alternative


YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Llano A6-3500 2.40GHz (Socket FM1) APU Processor £59.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £57.98
1 x Asus F1A55-M LX AMD A55 (Socket FM1) DDR3 MicroATX Motherboard £45.59
1 x Fractal Design Core 1000 Midi Tower Case - Black £32.99
1 x Antec VP350P 350W '80 Plus' Continuous Power Supply £31.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £22.99
1 x Samsung SH-S222BB/RSMS 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black/Silver/Biege) - Retail £19.99
Total : £286.52 (includes shipping : £12.50).



Case is out of stock ATM so you may need to find alternative, or wait

The Intel is slightly better, but for his needs this will still suffice, is low power draw, and will cope with basic gaming quite well too
 
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £167.99
1 x Zotac Z68ITX-A-E Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £129.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £57.98
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £45.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £22.99
Total : £436.93 (includes shipping : £10.00).



That is mini-itx so that is SFF, you might be able to reuse the old case maybe. It's a Zseries mobo with built in wifi which is why i added the i5K as it allows OC'ing, you could use a h61 mobo but you'd lose the built in wifi and overclocking. Either the h61 or Z68 can take a wide range of CPUs (Intel pentium G/i3/i5/i7) so you can adjust the spec as you see fit.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2300 2.80GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £137.99
1 x Asus P8H61-I Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £69.95
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £57.98
1 x XFX Pro 450W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £45.98
1 x Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) £22.99
Total : £346.90 (includes shipping : £10.00).



I know the mobos are out of stock but i thought you might be interested to see these specs as you mentioned SFF. There is a Zotac mini-itx mobo with a built in nvidia 430 but it's more cash and you could just use the difference in price to buy a dedicated GPU for the cheaper mini-itx z series mobo.
 
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Ah.. and I thought there was some recycling hope ;-) lol.

Food for thought with those suggested systems :-) Thanks chaps.
 
I think it will be better recycled by giving it to his grand kids. Still looking, just haven't got into it. I'll sit down and nail down what he expects from the system. I'm liking some of the components suggested :-)
 
danewesley> I looked - briefly - at that section and they seem pretty pricey compared to self built stuff.

Showed my father some of your guys suggestions, and he's really liking the 2500k and the Zotac wifi mini ITX motherboard. I'd probably get 8GB whilst it's cheap for him as well.

If you guys could suggest some nice small cases (the thermaltake has already been suggested). Something with a bit of style, and doesn't look tacky or cheap.

I think so far this month, I'm on target for spending about £800+ for other people at OcUK's shop lol.
 
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