Need spec for a small, quiet, cheap, basic PC!

andymac

andymac

andymac

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17 Oct 2004
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I'm looking for guidance in an area of PCing that I know nothing about!

My mother-in-law wants a new PC, it has to be small (it sits on the desk next to the screen so shouldn't be bigger than it has to be)

It must be quiet (for the same reasons - Minimum fan noise accepted, but nothing too loud)

It must be cheap (it will only be running OS plus office stuff, plus internet and e-mail etc. but must be quick to load up and be very reliable). Price and spec should include Vista!

It must also be future proof for these applications. She is quite distressed by change and doesn't want to have to re-learn everything she has learnt about computers so far!

Many thanks

Andy
 
I had a shuttle, which was pretty quiet. The noisiest thing was the graphics card. They come as a barebones system, so you just install the cpu, memory, gfx card, and harddrive of your choice.

These are very small quiet and capable pc's. Plus they have a good range to choice from.
 
andymac said:
It must also be future proof for these applications. She is quite distressed by change and doesn't want to have to re-learn everything she has learnt about computers so far!
Click to expand...
You're aware that switching to Vista is going to make her freak out if this is the case? ;) :p

This should be a good start:
baskkd7.png
 
Have looked at shuttle before, they seem very expensive for what they are. Also, does that full spec with the all in one case inc psu give reasonable quietness? Is £300 about as low as it goes?
 
Yeah, it should be reasonably quiet. If you buold it and discover that it's too loud you can always invest in a quieter set of fans. It doesn't cost anyhthing to find out how loud it is at stock.

That's about as low as it goes. You can go lower with less RAm or perhaps a smaller hard drive, but the extra cost isn't that much.

You might want to look into some of the low cost, SFF options offered by OEMs.
 
Does this look a reasonable spec?

Antec NSK 4480B Mini Tower Case (Black) - 380W Earth Watts PSU £45.99
(£54.04) £45.99
(£54.04)
Foxconn 6150M2MA-KRS2H Micro ATX (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5000+ 2.60GHz (Socket AM2) - OEM £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
OcUK 1GB (2x512MB) PC2-6400C5 800MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Kit £14.99
(£17.61) £14.99
(£17.61)
Samsung SH-S203D 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
(£17.61) £14.99
(£17.61)
Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A33423) £35.99
(£42.29) £35.99
(£42.29)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66G-00660) £47.99
(£56.39) £47.99
(£56.39)
 
Ooops, made a botch on memory, this is better?


Antec NSK 4480B Mini Tower Case (Black) - 380W Earth Watts PSU £45.99
(£54.04) £45.99
(£54.04)
Foxconn 6150M2MA-KRS2H Micro ATX (Socket AM2) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £29.99
(£35.24) £29.99
(£35.24)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 5000+ 2.60GHz (Socket AM2) - OEM £49.99
(£58.74) £49.99
(£58.74)
OCZ 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel Platinum Revision 2 XTC Series DDR2 (OCZ2P800R22GK) (Deal Product) £22.99
(£27.01) £22.99
(£27.01)
Samsung SH-S203D 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £14.99
(£17.61) £14.99
(£17.61)
Hitachi Deskstar T7K500 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (0A33423) £35.99
(£42.29) £35.99
(£42.29)
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic 64-Bit Edition DVD - OEM - 1Pk (66G-00660) £47.99
(£56.39) £47.99
(£56.39)


All in it is £291.32 delivered
 
My shuttle was fanless, well except for the fan on my old 6600GT, the one i brought was about £85 if i remember rightly comes with a mini PSU, 300W i believe, if you get an intel based one. throw in a E2200, 2 GB of ram, and a cheap 8 series card and a harddrive big enough for your needs. it should come in under £300.
 
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