Potential office build, criticism appreciated

JonJ678

JonJ678

JonJ678

Soldato
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England
Hey. This is a system I'll be putting together for the girlfriends mother when I can persuade her that I'm more trustworthy than high street stores. Consequently being able to rma as much of it as possible direct to manufacturer is important.

Budget is fairly flexible, I'm working with roughly 500 including monitor and peripherals. I'll probably order from here.

Intended use is ms office, firefox. It's likely to be completely unmaintained, so it needs to do this even after years of accumulating rubbish and general degradation. I'll sort out some sort of antivirus/firewall system. It'll be running windows XP.

mboljo.jpg


Can I run a hard drive and a cd drive off a single ide cable? It's running an 80gb hitachi pata I put in it about 6 months ago, reusing this would mean thoroughly cleaning the mess of a windows install but would save 30 quid or so.

Any ideas about that motherboard? I'm hardly expecting magic from it, 3ghz would do well enough. I'm probably sticking with matx, onboard graphics are useful & I like matx. That case is relatively expensive but I'm struggling to find an alternative.

Cheers
 
Not sure about the case... I have a P182 and I love it, but I see £100+ cases as an enthusiast luxury that shouldn't be wasted on people who won't appreciate it in the same way ;) If you could get the case down to the £50 mark, you could split the £60 saved between a better mobo, a larger HD and a quieter CPU cooler.

I'm guessing you don't want anything too showy. How about something like this? Although I guess part of the benefit of the Antec is that it filters dust and other crap pretty well, which I suppose could be handy if it's not going to see much TLC...
 
Cpu cooler will probably be dictated by the case. I'd prefer one that blows down onto the motherboard as chipset cooling, small form factor cases tend to have limited height available. Atom does appeal, but its quite important that it walks all over the pentium 4 she currently has. Mini-itx 775 zotac board would appeal if they were being less rubbish with bios support.

Case is the difficult part at present, I've found this antec case which looks ideal. It doesn't appear to exist anymore, hopefully I'll be able to track it down regardless. So far I've found it in one place for nearly £100, so not great.

Its selling points are composite aluminium/plastic panels, being very small, sensible internal layout. Grommets on the hard drive. Coming with a psu isn't good, but does offset the cost of the case somewhat. 20 x 33.5 x 27 cm is good.


The P19* is beautiful, but I think Id be using it more because I want to do a build in it than because its a sensible choice. Shame
 
I would go for whatever little can go wrong for family and especially mother in law. So forget overclocking etc its just not worth it..

Antec NSK4400B II Black With 380w PSU - £68
Intel DG45ID Motherboard Onboard Graphics - £75
Intel Core2Duo E8400 CPU - £125
4Gb Kingston DDR2 800Mhz - £40

This way you still have 3Ghz, you have a nice small black chassis, you have motherboard, cpu that are all intel so are extremely reliable (I even think that board comes with vpro to remote manage) And you dont nees any extra cooling etc..

Last thing you want is problems.. Well you built it.. I knew i should have gone to INSERT CR&PPY HIGHSTREET PC SHOP HERE etc.. ;)
 
Do you need an aftermarket cooler?

I would have said overclocking would be a waste so the std cooler would be fine.

As for the case go for the one skyline has said.

Maybe have saved a bit of cash for a SDD, and will be a nippy system.
 
Skyline makes enormous sense. Intel motherboard is pretty definite I think, that's got to be the best way forward here. e5200 or e8400, need to try to judge that one but have only experienced the e8400 personally. Probably corsair, through no good reason beyond personal bias.

Aftermarket cooler of some sort yes, the intel stock one just sounds hideous. Case looks like a choice between small (therefore popular) but bad airflow and probably loud, or much larger but quieter. I guess thats customer choice, I'll ask the mother.

SSD is definitely no, budget isn't going to stretch to that I don't think. A part of me keeps saying that e5200+agility will be far quicker than e8400 + pata hard drive though, and it has a point.

We shall see what number she picks out of the air I suppose. It'll probably be matx, just because I like matx and onboard graphics is a valid justification for it. Might be a while before pictures emerge though, she's in no rush.
 
The gotcha building for a family member/friend/etc is that you end up being their 24/7 technical support & not ideal especially if said person lives far from you, etc. Besides at your budget, you might find an off the shelf unit which comes with more options e.g. latest OS, peripherals, etc.

But, take on some of the suggestions above :)

EDIT: Considered a barebone like this one?
 
Last edited:
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
*OVERCLOCKED* AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5200+ 2.60GHz @ 2.80GHz / Foxconn M61PMV nForce 430 Motherboard / Kingston HyperX 2GB DDR2 6400C4 800MHz Bundle *OVERCLOCKED* AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5200+ 2.60GHz @ 2.80GHz / Foxconn M61PMV nForce 430 Motherboard / Kingston HyperX 2GB DDR2 6400C4 800MHz Bundle £114.99
(£99.99) £114.99
(£99.99)
Antec Basiq Plus 550W Modular Power Supply Antec Basiq Plus 550W Modular Power Supply £52.99
(£46.08) £52.99
(£46.08)
Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (0A38018) Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.B 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (0A38018) £31.99
(£27.82) £31.99
(£27.82)
Asus ATI Radeon 3450 Vcool Silent 512MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail Asus ATI Radeon 3450 Vcool Silent 512MB DDR2 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £31.04
(£26.99) £31.04
(£26.99)
Coolermaster Elite 334 Midi Case- Black (No PSU) Coolermaster Elite 334 Midi Case- Black (No PSU) £30.99
(£26.95) £30.99
(£26.95)
Sub Total : £227.83
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £11.75
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £35.94
Total : £275.52
Click to expand...

Seriously, it's an office PC, you don't need [or want] £100 of case IMHO, it's a waste of a good chassis. Also, 3ghz just isn't necessary for Office, full stop. RAM is.

I built a similar system to the above for a friend of a friend, worked a treat, and made the Centrino laptop they were prevoiusly using for office work look silly. Edit: Although it had a DVDRW drive - arf. Add another £20 to that price.

Note: Just seen what hp7970 posted, and I might well pick one up, borrow a P4 2.8ghz from work, buy some RAM and use it as a VM server - that's a pretty useful looking bit of kit by the looks of it.
 
hp7909 said:
The gotcha building for a family member/friend/etc is that you end up being their 24/7 technical support & not ideal especially if said person lives far from you, etc. Besides at your budget, you might find an off the shelf unit which comes with more options e.g. latest OS, peripherals, etc.EDIT: Considered a barebone?
Click to expand...

I've had a look at off the shelf units, I think I can beat them. I'm also fairly certain one I assemble is less likely to die from overheating/stupid component choices etc. 24/7 technical support isn't so bad, I'll just put no-machine server on it. I visit the place fairly often to see the missus anyway. Ive just spent a year dealing with student laptops, this'll be a breeze.

Barebones are a good idea. I think the benefit from intel referance board/good psu and a better case outweigh the cost gap. Id rather a system that I know is going to be bombproof than save 50 to 100 quid on it. I'm temped by a shuttle, but that'll stretch the budget.

Case I've messed up. All the above talking about the antec p182 was misguided. I had the mini P180 in mind all along, at about 65 quid. I had the idea fixed in my mind that they were all matx cases, no idea why. I'm currently looking at around £50 each on psu, case, motherboard, ram, processor. This needs refining, as the guideline I normally work from of about 150 on each doesn't work so well when just divided by three.


No deal on atom. It's not going to outpower a pentium 2.4ghz, and a sidestep for several hundred quid makes no sense to me. I know its an office build, but it is going to be terribly treated and expected to still be working in ten years time. An atom after a decade of accumulated crap is not going to run fast, sadly
 
Can't go far wrong with this for sub £500 with a decent monitor/no overclocking:

Acer V223WBbd 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor £111.99
(£97.38) £111.99
(£97.38)
Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P AMD 770 (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P AMD 770 (Socket AM3) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard £76.99
(£66.95) £76.99
(£66.95)
AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 250 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 250 3.00GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £59.00
(£51.30) £59.00
(£51.30)
OCZ Reaper 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C6 1333MHz Dual Channel (OCZ3RPR13334GKK) OCZ Reaper 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C6 1333MHz Dual Channel (OCZ3RPR13334GKK) £54.99
(£47.82) £54.99
(£47.82)
XFX ATI Radeon HD 4650 512MB TV-Out/HDTV/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail XFX ATI Radeon HD 4650 512MB TV-Out/HDTV/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail £44.99
(£39.12) £44.99
(£39.12)
Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322HJ) Samsung SpinPoint F1 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322HJ) £34.99
(£30.43) £34.99
(£30.43)
OCZ StealthXStream 400w Silent Power Supply OCZ StealthXStream 400w Silent Power Supply £32.99
(£28.69) £32.99
(£28.69)
Asus TA-861 Midi-ATX Case - Black/Silver (No PSU) Asus TA-861 Midi-ATX Case - Black/Silver (No PSU) £21.99
(£19.12) £21.99
(£19.12)
Samsung SH-S223B/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM Samsung SH-S223B/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
(£14.77) £16.99
(£14.77)
Sub Total : £395.58
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £14.50
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £61.51
Total : £471.59
 
Well, I've ordered most of the parts now. It's almost identical to my intial spec, which either means I researched it well or I'm just bloody stubborn

At £338 delivered,

Antec mini p180
Intel G41 matx board
e8400
4gb cl5 corsair w/ some form of heatspreaders
Corsair 400W
Akasa alpine pro w/ thermalright bolt through (I have this spare, no 775 boxes anymore)
Using the optical drive from the current excuse for a computer.

Problems I forsee
1/Psu may well have cables too short for the case. Lets hope not, extension leads are messy
2/Hard drive is going to bottleneck it hideously. It's an 80gb pata hitachi.
3/May need a fan on the front, will watch hdd temperatures to decide

Solutions
1/extension cables :(
2/going to hand it to her with identical xp copies on my vertex and her hitachi and let her play with both. I'm certain the vertex will dominate, a bit curious to see if she can tell
3/I lose a scythe s-flex as a consequence of poor planning. Thankfully I have several spare


Unsure about photos. I might take some, might not.

Amd may have been quicker for the money, but I know exactly how well an e8400 and 4gb at 800mhz perform, and would have to guess with amd. This option feels safer. if anyone adds up the budget they'll see a £40 psu and an £80 case. Not the right way round really, but it has to cope with a lot of dust and generally never being cleaned. It also has to be quiet. Finally I really like the look of the case and want to do a build in one

Cheers all
 
hp7909 said:
The gotcha building for a family member/friend/etc is that you end up being their 24/7 technical support & not ideal especially if said person lives far from you, etc. Besides at your budget, you might find an off the shelf unit which comes with more options e.g. latest OS, peripherals, etc.

But, take on some of the suggestions above :)

EDIT: Considered a barebone like this one?
Click to expand...

Second that one. I refuse to do PC building for anyone then myself. I just send people to the purple shirt brigade, or dell. It ain't my money and I don't have to deal with anything afterwards.
 
You asked whether you could run an optical and a hard drive together.

I do remeber my first build amd 3000+, rad 9800XT etc (long time ago) :D

I was pretty certain i had the optical drive in the Master of the IDE and the hard drive in the Slave bit. Been a long time since that way of doing things though :P
 
Made it. Success all in all, though it still has my vertex in it because I cocked up installing windows on the old hard drive. Boo. Moved partition back, deleted enough that I thought it wouldn't be labelled as windows, forgot to overwrite the mbr, so windows messed up its boot loader. Didn't have time to repair this error, so I'm running off a WD green instead of a vertex. Let that be a lesson to me

Hit a few problems, one of which was wanting the hard drive and optical drive at opposite ends or the case and needing both on one ide cable. Which does work it turns out, cheers Shawreyboy.

The antex mini p180 is beautiful, but its 'tooless' mechanisms did my head in. I can't believe they made life so much harder, I don't need a quick swap bay that I can only access by taking the side off the computer and removing a cage, that just isn't helpful. And who on earth needs quick swap optical drives...

The top fan won't start at 7V, but the rear one will run at 7V even when turned down to medium. Stalls on 7V + low. With these two running and a 7V rubbish fan at the front it is quieter than the keyboard. It is far quieter than the computer I've watercooled to try to silence it.

It's running this beast
HS-026-AR_400.jpg

Which I happened to have in a draw, without its fan but with a thermalright bolt through kit. Loading at under 60 degrees with such a rubbish passive cooler :)

Needless to say it is stupid quick with the vertex running, and probably rather slower from the 80gb hitachi. A success so far. Office 2003 retail says its hit its limit for activations, so that's going to be frustrating in the near future. I blame having to repeatedly reformat the missus laptop....

No photos for you, since I was in a rush and lacked a camera. I'll see if I can take some the next time I visit. I'm completely sold on the antec p series for beauty and noise, but never want to build in one again


Did I mention quiet? I cant tell when it's running without holding my hand over the blowhole, and it'll be quieter still if I rip out the 7V fan at the front :D
 
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