PC for Access...

Dougiebabe2003

Dougiebabe2003

Dougiebabe2003

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Joined
31 Oct 2005
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746
Location
South-West
Hi there,

Got someone who is atm using a laptop for all their computing needs. Their needs are:

Web browsing
Photo editing
Using MS Access to make and edit database's that are between 500MB and 3+GB

She's a little skeptical of moving from the laptop to a desktop but I think I have managed to convice her... She did need the laptop as she was going to college and it made sense for her to have one. She has now not moved the laptop in over a year so I made the play for a desktop.

Her current Laptop is:

1.6ghz Athlon XP-M or wutever they are
768MB RAM (166mhz)

Basicly it is slow. I browsed the interweb there while she had a database open and it felt like the victorian times:o

One of the main reasons she doesn't want to move is because of desk space where she is. Surely if a laptop can fit (with space behind it) then a 19-20" monitor will fit there with wireless keyboard & mouse?

She does NOT want to see the case at all. This means that the case has to be able to be hidden away and the computer can be brought out of sleep mode etc with the mouse or keyboard.

So basicly what should I spec her? She doesn't want to spend more than £500 really & needs everything.

I will be overclocking it but not to it's limits. I was thinking about a mATX board and case. I think she wants the case under a desk of drawers so a Desktop case may be even better? I haven't used one of these in years so any info on temps in a desktop case would be good....

Im not to sure what Access uses more (RAM or CPU) but thinking that 2GB of RAM would be enough along with a dual? If she needs more power then she can always upgrade to a quad next year ;)

NO GAMING is going to be done on this PC so thinking on board graphics would do the trick to??

I was thinking along the lines of the following:



Only thing not added is an OS as I don;t know if she would want XP or Vista and if she wants Vista dunno if she wants premium...Let's just say she wants the latter.

Also, don't know what CPU cooler would fit in a desktop case? The case I have included is not the one I would choose, I think a normal case will be to big for her desk...but it does need to include PSU to keep cost down.

Anything need changing?

Cheers in advance, Doug.

EDIT: How do people rate this and may it fit?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-024-CM&groupid=701&catid=57&subcat=
 
Personally I'd consider a shuttle system. MUCH smaller than an matx system, overclock fairly well (shuttle use their own and very good imo cooling solution), already has the mobo, integrated graphics and all you have to do is put in a processor, optical drive and hard drive.

I had a p4 shuttle system for a year and it was a stonking little system. I used it as my gaming pc so it'll be fine for photoshop and so on :)

Something like this would be good:

Capture1.jpg


Also you can save a bit of money by going for the asus monitor over the hyundai. Awesome for the price (I have one and it's great for gaming and photoshop) and it's better than anything else I've used at a similar price bracket.
 
justinwilkin said:
Personally I'd consider a shuttle system. MUCH smaller than an matx system, overclock fairly well (shuttle use their own and very good imo cooling solution), already has the mobo, integrated graphics and all you have to do is put in a processor, optical drive and hard drive.

I had a p4 shuttle system for a year and it was a stonking little system. I used it as my gaming pc so it'll be fine for photoshop and so on :)

Something like this would be good:

Capture1.jpg


Also you can save a bit of money by going for the asus monitor over the hyundai. Awesome for the price (I have one and it's great for gaming and photoshop) and it's better than anything else I've used at a similar price bracket.
Click to expand...

Cheers for replying!

Had a look at the shuttle system, looks great if she can't get anything else in the space!

I think she may be able to get a desktop case in or a mATX lying down (maybe) but if not then I think shuttle is the way!

Only reason I specced the Hyundai was because it is around the same price as the 20" LG that is out of stock. If she went 19" then I would get a cheaper model ;)

Cheers again, Doug.
 
If your only using 2D apps, should be fine.
edit, just read depending on what motherboard it is you may need to update drivers for monitor/graphics chip/bios. maybe a cheap/ second hand card would be an option

Attempting to play Crysis may result in a small explosion though ;)
 
Last edited:
I liked the idea of getting a shuttle so I tried to save you some money on that spec... This should be just as good, but you could put the £50 saved on an OS or a bigger monitor or whatever :)


specshuttlezo3.jpg
 
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