SFF advice for work build

martian_aphid

martian_aphid

martian_aphid

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Hey guys, need a bit of advice in the SFF area as I'm only really familiar with mid/full tower configs and have only worked with one mobo with intergrated graphics [780g]

The system will be for my sister, who will be using it for work which requires the use mainly of adobe products, primarily photoshop, so a few gig of RAM and decent CPU were my first thoughts. She currently has a laptop that is not serving her that well, some guy she knows was trying to convince her to get some kind of imac, I checked the site and the base model comes in at £950 and imo a waste of money for what it is component wise.

Therefore I want to sort of match that spec, obviously for less money, and was considering something small in scale since she wont need all the extra expansion slots, etc of an atx board. I've looked at the shuttles but I'm not all that familiar with them and not sure how their parts rate, ie. mobo, psu, etc.

I've knocked together this rough spec which covers everything and drops in around £700 once I add OS.

krissashuttlespec.jpg


I've gone with the intel and 4G RAM because I think it might be a bit better for the kinds of tasks she will be doing. Will the G33 graphics be sufficient for her needs - she doesn't game but will probably use it to watch videos?

The other option I suppose is I choose an matx board and work from their maybe getting the corsair 400w and a small case.

Any advice is much appreciated :-D
 
If it's graphics work she's doing why not spend an additional £20 and get her a Quad or if you want value for money save £55 and get an E5200 and overclock it a little.

I'd also recommend getting a graphic card instead of the onboard for work with photoshop. £60 gets you a HD4670 or 9600GT or 2nd hand 8800 of some sort.

Also I can't find that mouse anywhere on OCuk and your monitor is out of stock.
Just a suggestion is to get a bundle, I've used the S510 for some years now and its well worth the money.

Here is my suggestion for 14 pence less than yours (could upgrade the case to a v350 or sg02 if you want to look better):

Samsung SM2233BW 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor £165.59 (£143.99)
Asus P5QL-CM Intel G43 Micro-ATX (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £78.19 (£67.99)
OcUK GeForce 9600 GT 512MB GDDR3 TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail £66.99 (£58.25)
Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (WD5001AALS) £50.99 (£44.34)
Corsair CX 400W ATX Power Supply (CMPSU-400CXUK) £42.99 (£37.38)
OCZ Blade 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel (OCZ2B800C44GK) £39.99 (£34.77)
Logitech Cordless Desktop S 510 (967557-0120) £31.98 (£27.81)
Logitech X-210 2.1 Speaker System (970191-0120) £28.99 (£25.21)
Asus TA-D31 Midi-ATX Case - Black (No PSU) £26.44 (£22.99)
Pioneer DVR-216DBK 20x DVD±RW SATA Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM £19.99 (£17.38)
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket LGA775) £19.54 (£16.99)
Sub Total : £551.09
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £15.50
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £84.99
Total : £651.58
 
Thanks for that Guardsmon, I've switched to the S510, which makes much more sense. Plus your spec seems a lot more well rounded with the addition of the dedicated graphics, cooler and psu.

Just noticed you didn't include a cpu ;-P Anyway I think the quad would be overkill for her uses so as you suggest I think the e5xxx might be a better choice. As far as overclocking on a matx board like that goes, what are my options? I know sometimes those types of board have limited functionality for overclocking, so any ideas what kind of prospects I might have? One last question with regards to the graphics, will she notice the addition of a dedicated card in programs such as photoshop? I realise the onboard intel graphics are pretty weak but will the G43 you specced suffice or would a 4350 be an option. I'm just seeing it as a potential saving if the dedicated graphics will be something she potentially won't make use of?

EDIT: I might be looking in the wrong place but I couldn't spot the SG02 case you suggested on ocuk [silverstone right?]
 
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Overclocking depends on board of course. My asus p5k-vm (G35 chispet) took my e8400 to 3.8 or so before it started complaining. e5200 has a x10 multiplier, so will be fast with a low fsb. Cheap ram, not very demanding of the motherboard. So yeah, should clock beautifully :)

I dont think a graphics card makes any difference to photoshop. Onboard is reasonable these days, defintiely no problems watching films on it. It probably cant cope with HD, but that depends a bit on the other components and so forth. I don't think the dedicated graphics is needed at all, can always add it in later if needed.
 
Ok sounds good JonJ678 - I've switched for the e5200 on the P5QL-CM and gone for the case, psu, hsf, key/mouse, speakers and optical Guardsmon picked and decided to omit the gpu for the time being with the option of adding later and added in a netgear wireless pci card to a total of £590 [w/o OS] I think this is pretty much there now, thanks guys.

EDIT: might look into the SG05 though a bit disappointed it only has space for one 3.5" drive.
 
did wonder how I had managed to keep the price down so well :D

The SG02 I suggested is pretty much the same as the SG01.

If you really want to go small, you could get a mini-itx setup - the zotac 9300 would be a good choice as it provides ok onboard graphics and the wireless you require. It leaves a PCI-E slot for future upgrades, but no PCI slot to upgrade. It would allow you to use with the SG05 which provides a 300W PSU

You could get a system like the following - though it will put you over budget: *i've remembered the cpu this time*

Samsung SM2233BW 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor £165.59 (£143.99)
Zotac GeForce 9300-ITX WiFi Mini-ITX (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £125.34 (£108.99)
Silverstone Sugo SG05B Mini-ITX Case - Black (300w PSU) £89.99 (£78.25)
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200 "LGA775 Core 2" 2.50GHz (800FSB) - Retail £62.09 (£53.99)
Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (WD5001AALS) £50.99 (£44.34)
OCZ Blade 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 PC2-6400C4 Dual Channel (OCZ2B800C44GK) £39.99 (£34.77)
Logitech Cordless Desktop S 510 (967557-0120) £31.98 (£27.81)
Logitech X-210 2.1 Speaker System (970191-0120) £28.99 (£25.21)
Samsung SN-S083A/BEBE DVD±RW SATA Notebook Rewriter Drive - OEM £26.99 (£23.47)

Sub Total : £540.82
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £13.75
VAT is being charged at 15% VAT : £83.19
Total : £637.76

great if you really want small... not so good if you want cheap. -- o and no 3rd party heatsink this time. there are a few that fit, but it can be tight.
 
Just checking out that zotac board now, seems pretty decent spec and decent graphics, and the inclusion of the wireless means I don't really need a pci slot. Only question would be the overclocking potential of it I guess. Price wise it still comes in cheaper than my original spec :-) Plus it might become a nice htpc down the line. For a hsf any ideas if the acrtic cooling 7 low profile version will fit - might not be worth it over the stock mind?
 
have a look around the other threads in this section. there are serveral people using these boards in this case. The artic cooler has been discussed and suggested against. There are some pictures here and here note these are both pretty OTT coolers for slight overclocking, and might be more than you need, but its worth having a look around
 
Cheers for those links Guardsmon. Seems like it can overclock too which is surprising for a board that tiny. Those coolers look huge, espcially the geminII which looks like it would struggle with the spreaders of the ocz blades. I wasn't that keen on the sg05 when I first saw it, finding it a bit bland, but it's starting to grow on me, espcially if what's inside can be fairly decent spec. Plus also learnt I need an adapter for the slimline optical which I had no idea about!
 
depends - if you are using a SATA slimline then you don't, but if you are using an IDE then you do. I have an adapter for slimline to IDE that I can through in the post for you if you like, but you should be able to pic up slimline IDE to sata converters pretty cheap on ebay now. I paided £25 to get mine shipped from an italian company about 18months ago as they weren't avaliable. 3 months later and they were everywhere...
 
maybe, though that just looks like the standard sata data and power being next to each other. Certainly the ones i've used in the past are just power and data next to each other... dunno might be different. IDE certainly is.
 
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