New PC

M0nkeyNUTS · 22 Feb 2007 at 18:59

Hi All,

Im not much of a PC builder, so im guessing you might be able to help me on my way.

I'm looking to build a small system just for office applications, graphics editing, not for games. Something that will run windows vista, guessing just the basic will be ok.

Any ideas on a setup?

FrankJH · 23 Feb 2007 at 07:41

Depending on your budget you could either get a shuttle (I have two and love them) for either a C2D or a AMD chip

These are known as barebones systems as you get a chassis, mobo , heatsink/ fan assembly (or equivelant of) and psu all for the one price.

Otherwise you can basically build your own from a selection of bare SFF chassis and add mini-atx boards (I believe these are the most common size for sff but i could be wrong)

Personally I think Shuttle's are worth the extra for the elegance of the design, not to mention that mine perform pretty well also ( one is a AMD Opty 170 based 25P, the other is a C2D E4300 based 37P2)

hp7909 · 23 Feb 2007 at 07:52

M0nkeyNUTS said:
{snip}Any ideas on a setup?

Any budget?

WoZZeR · 23 Feb 2007 at 22:57

Yeah, give us a budget and we'll argue over the specs

Some of the smaller Shuttles are very nicely priced.

M0nkeyNUTS · 1 Mar 2007 at 18:23

Budget wise i guess upto £300 but at a very tight squeeze upto £500

hp7909 · 1 Mar 2007 at 19:29

Should that include everything, i.e. monitor, peripherals, components (CPU, hard disk, case, etc)? Or just the latter?

M0nkeyNUTS · 4 Mar 2007 at 21:11

i have monitor, mouse, keyboard, 160gb sata II, 200gb IDE, speakers, dvd drive, dvd writer.

i also have a sound blaster audigy 2 zs soundcard but not sure if i should replace that as well

hp7909 · 5 Mar 2007 at 13:21

M0nkeyNUTS said:
{snip}i also have a sound blaster audigy 2 zs soundcard but not sure if i should replace that as well

Keep/use it

How about...

Shuttle XPC SD32G2 Aluminium Barebones System - Intel Core 2 Duo (LGA775) £172.50 - More info here
Intel Core 2 DUO E4300 "LGA775 Allendale" 1.80GHz (800FSB) - Retail £95.99
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC5300 667MHz Value DDR2 Dual Channel Kit (GX21GB5300DC) £42.99
Sub Total : £311.48
Shipping : £8.95
Vat : £56.08
Total : £376.51

Might have to sacrifice the 200gb IDE though, because only 1x IDE