Basic PC

cats_five

cats_five

cats_five

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Joined
29 Dec 2004
Posts
420
Location
Fife, Scotland
I am planning building a basic PC for the gliding club. Really simple, down-to-earth. It will be used for a bit of Internet, a bit of Word, a bit of Excel, and to run an XP VM to run some really old DOS software hence W7 Pro. The system it is replacing is so old it's running W2K, and it was probably W98 originally...

This is my proposed system:



Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £114.98
Samsung SpinPoint F4 320GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (HD322GJ) £59.99
Gigabyte A55M-DS2 A55 Chipset (Socket FM1) DDR3 Micro ATX MoBo £44.99
AMD A4-3300 2.50GHz (Socket FM1) APU Processor (AD3300OJGXBOX) £43.99
Fractal Design Core 1000 Midi Tower Case - Black £32.99
OcUK Swift 500W V2 Silent Power Supply £18.98
Samsung SH-S222BB/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.98
Xigmatek Loki SD963 CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775/1155/1156/1366/AM2/AM2+/AM3/FM1) £14.99
Crucial 2GB (1x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10600C9 1333MHz 240-Pin Module (CT25664BA1339) x 2 e.g. 4GB RAM £19.90

Total - £305.66
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £114.98
1 x Intel Core i3-2120 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £86.39
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £61.99
1 x Gigabyte H61MA-D3V Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £47.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX) £40.79
1 x Antec VP350P 350W '80 Plus' Continuous Power Supply £31.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard II Midi Tower Case - Black £29.99
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-7280S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £19.99
Total : £448.21 (includes shipping : £11.75).



Better more reliable PSU.

8GB Ram so you can give the VM more RAM.

I3 much faster CPU.

__________________

Cheaper

The CPU is still much faster than the AMD.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-Bit - OEM (FQC-04649) £114.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) £61.99
1 x Gigabyte H61MA-D3V Intel H61 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £47.99
1 x Antec VP350P 350W '80 Plus' Continuous Power Supply £31.99
1 x Intel Celeron G530 2.40GHz Socket LGA 1155 Processor - Retail £29.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard II Midi Tower Case - Black £29.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9D3X2K2/4GX) £23.99
1 x Sony Optiarc AD-7280S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £19.99
Total : £375.01 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
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I think the AMD APU would be fine for your needs. Personally I would invest a little more in to the APU but it should be all good if your just internet browsing, word processing etc. It would also be pretty great that you will get pretty decent graphics included.

Anyhow I would also upgrade the RAM to 4GB since it's a pretty cheap upgrade then change the PSU to a OCZ or Corsair and your good to go :)
 
Lots of lovely suggestions there, but mostly pushing the price up by £100 or more - a big percentage, and I'm building this for a pretty tight organisation. The only game that will be played on it is Solitaire or similar, no video streaming, etc.

@Smoogels, I did price 4GB of RAM!
Crucial 2GB (1x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10600C9 1333MHz 240-Pin Module (CT25664BA1339) x 2 e.g. 4GB RAM £19.90
Click to expand...

But I agree it's not obvious.

I need to look at the HDD sizes and prices when I buyMy own desktop is in a Fractal Design case so thought I would be on familiar ground with it. However the Xigmatek case looks really good to build. It will be on the floor under the desk so the looks of the case don't really matter.

And I'll look at a slightly better power supply.

Finally - I notice no-one has included a CPU cooler in their specs. Do all these CPUs come with a cooler? Does the one I have choosen come with one? I do have a spare at home (Arctic Cooling) that might do as well, need to check.
 
Speed really is not the issue here - it will be zillions faster than the current PC in every way. And we do need the space of an HDD - there is plenty of stuff that needs copying on. I'm wanting to build a pit pony, not a polo pony. :)
 
OK, it's built. Very pleased with the mobo, and I got one stick of RAM in the end. The new-style heat sink with the lever to tension it is far better than having to push hard with a screwdriver. It will be more than fast enough despite the bottom-end processor and will be well up to running Sage which it will be doing in a few months.

The case is OK, but I had to use a power supply screw to clear out the stand-off threads, and although it's meant to be tool-less I've used screws to mount the HDD and ODD as they weren't that firm and I felt would have been noisy.

Also the USB ports on the front are not well-made - I can't get a USB stick in one of them, and it's tight in the other and will probably damage the plastic mount over time. Will have to procure a USB hub - it's not worth the time to strip it out and return the case.

It started first go, OS installed, then hours of W7 updates... Will we ever get SP2 to roll up all the updates so far? Sigh.... However I'm sure the users will be delighted with it. We are putting the office on a wired network at the weekend which will get rid of issues with PCs picking up the wrong network, and (I suspect) the wireless printer doing the same.

Just have to get to grips with DOSPRN now...
 
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