Low Power, Fast, Silent System

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16 Jan 2008
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Hi there, I'm no pro when choosing parts, but for a puter that will do occasional basic photo editing with plenty of word processing and powerpoint usage (run by a family member who doesn't know how to use the close button).


Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM
- £167.99


Asus P8Z68-V Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - £124.98


Fractal Design Define R3 Midi Tower Case - Black Pearl - £84.98


Crucial RealSSD M4 64GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (x2) - £167.98


LG BH10LS30 10x BluRay-RW / 16 x DVD±RW Lightscribe Drive - Black (OEM) - £69.98


Corsair Builder Series CX 500W V2 '80 Plus' Power Supply (CMPSU-500CXUKV2) - £52.99


Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX1600C9AD3B1K2/4G) x2 - £47.98


Western Digital Caviar Blue 320Gb SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD3200AAKX) x2 - £66.98

SSDs in RAID0 and HDDs in RAID1. On board graphics. This needs to last around 5years. Already got Windows 7 Home Prem. Costs £783.86 in total.

How does it look?


Thanks
 
For a home system it is a bit over powered! I would have gone with an AMD Phenom 955 BE. That would save you around £100 for starters! Plus you can overclock the nuts off the 955 hitting 4ghz.

The only reason you get an i5-2500k is for gaming.

Save yourself some money and get the 955.
 
Well based on what I read I want either the H67 or Z68 chip for onboard graphics. The Z68 supports the 2500k, and given the OEM version of the 2500k is the same price as the 2500 retail why not? Gives me room to overclock the 2500.
 
oem cpu doesn't come with a cooler so you'll need a 3rd party one unless you already have one that is 1156/1155 compatible.

oem blue-ray doesn't come with blue-ray playing software, unless you already have a licence for the software you'll need to get the retail version(no free(legal) software available).

psu: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-118-AN&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1088
Thanks for the info. Didn't know bout the Blu-Ray player. Already have a CPU cooler.
 
Low Power, Fast, Silent System

Western Digital Caviar Blue 320Gb SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (WD3200AAKX) x2 - £66.98

SSDs in RAID0 and HDDs in RAID1. On board graphics. This needs to last around 5years.


You are making a computer for someone else who is clearly not techy enough to make their own.

Forget about the Raid 0 and Raid 1 setup. Seriously.
1x M4 128gb is £20 less.
1x 2Tb 5400rpm drive is >£10 less than the 320gb drive you are giving them.

That £30 is nearly enough to buy an external backup usb drive. Instead you are creating a potential nightmare for them if for some reason you are not about and they have to go to a commercial shop to get their raid 1 backup sorted at a later date.

They will also never understand why they have given you £750 and ended up with a <500gb computer. Where I work customers customers always try to compare headline stats. And these days all they have to work with are the memory figures, the number of cores and the old ghz figure. And memory seems to matter most to them.
 
Its for my parents (I live at home). Maybe will forget about the RAID0, however the RAID1 is something I want to keep. They don't need 2TB of space and never will. Furthermore all of their data backs up on the run to a NAS, as well as an incremental weekly backup.
 
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