Cheapo office build

Boozebeard · 15 Jun 2010 at 19:35

Hello,

My dad currently has some really cheap dell notebook. I've heard him complaining about how incredibly slow it is. He's pretty stressed at the moment so I thought it would be nice if I used some of my student loan i've got left over building him something faster to use at home.

I will be looking at using old parts or getting things second hand. What I have that I can re use is:

2x2gb DDR2 667mhz
Asrock P35 775 socket mobo (don't mind ditching this, the mac address is broken on it anyway so the ethernet port doesn't work and it gives an annoying error at boot up that you have navigate past)
Some cheap budget case
9800gtx (that I currently use for physx but will be ditching when I down size my system)
ide dvd rw drive
Maybe a 750gb hard drive
Maybe a copy of win 7 pro

He already has a monitor

I hadn't actually realised how much stuff I had till I wrote that list.

So guess what I'm asking for are recommendations on a cpu (maybe mobo) and psu. I suppose he will be needing a keyboard too.

s452 · 15 Jun 2010 at 19:50

i would suggest a something along the lines of a 65nm conroe (core 2 duo) if ur MB cant support the 45nm chips and maybe a corsair CX400 PSU and a 5450 GPU, thats unless you plan to use the pc for a bit of gaming yourself when you are home, in that case the corsair VX550 is a good PSU

Boozebeard · 15 Jun 2010 at 20:31

I don't think anyone will do any gaming on it. The board does support 45nm chips, I'm using it right now with my quad while I wait for my micro atx. I should have mentioned it a P35, I'll add that in.

What kind of speed dual core should I look at?

s452 · 16 Jun 2010 at 01:42

if its for basic use, i would suggest getting a cpu rated at 2GHz minimum and apply any overclocks if desired. ultimately it would help more if we knew your budget

Boozebeard · 16 Jun 2010 at 01:51

I'm haggling on some core 2 duo's on the members market. A 2.5ghz e5200 is looking promising. Problem is I wont really be able to overclock because my ram is only 667mhz and I can't set the memory divider any lower then that on the mobo I will be using. I would have thought 2.5 will be fine for office work though?

I'm trying to spend about £70 for cpu and psu.

s452 · 16 Jun 2010 at 02:45

the e5200 will be great, overclocks are only optional.

Boozebeard · 16 Jun 2010 at 12:53

what should I take

e5200 for £35 or e8200 for £40 :confused:

The e8200 is probably worth the extra but would I actually see any benefits in what it will be used for?

I'm just gonna go for the e5200 I think.