spec check for office PC

netheo86 · 2 Jul 2008 at 23:57

my dad's office PC has given up and he's asked me to spec him a new one, so any advice would be good.

it's only really for Microsoft office, quicken, web and music really; he's not into gaming at all, maybe the odd bit of photoshop but unlikely tbh.

budget is around £200 - £250 doesn't need monitor, keyboard etc.

My effort is below:

Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2H GeForce 7100 Micro-ATX (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard £39.99 :confused:

Intel Core 2 Duo E2200 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.20GHz (800FSB) - Retail £44.99

Corsair 2GB DDR2 XMS2-6400C5 TwinX (2x1GB) £27.99

Gigabyte GZ-X5 Black Midi Case No PSU £24.99

OcUK Huntkey 450W PSU £31.99

Samsung SpinPoint S 250GB SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (HD250HJ) £27.99

Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition SP2c - OEM (N09-02215) £47.99

total 256.88 ex VAT incl shipping

got to be XP as he doesn't like :rolleyes:

Vista at all and his current copy is OEM, internal gfx should be fine he's only going to be running a 19" LCD. also needs to be intel as he doesn't want AMD.

Not too sure on the MB can be standard atx but must have onboard gfx and he's after atleast 4 usb's on the rear i/o and are the huntkey's good for the money?

cheers Dan

semi-pro waster · 3 Jul 2008 at 10:35

The Huntkey PSU will be fine but if you want a more 'known' name and case then the Antec NSK 4480 would do equally as well. If your dad isn't going to be overclocking much then you could save another few quid by buying the Crucial PC5300 2gb kit.

Wayne~ · 3 Jul 2008 at 11:15

^ Going for that PSU and case bundle would be a good idea, few quid cheaper and its a known name- Cant go wrong

netheo86 · 3 Jul 2008 at 12:23

thanks for that, had a look and went for the antec case in the end as i does save quite a bit. Stuck with the more expensive corsair though so a bit of an oc might be possible

dan

netheo86 · 4 Jul 2008 at 16:14

came this morning, great service as normal from OCUK.
went for a 160GB HD in the end, dad wanted a faster CPU so got an E4600; any idea if it will OC much, going to have a quick search through the forums for info.

will probably be posting again in a few days as this will be my first build from scratch, only done replacement of parts before. Any tips?

netheo86 · 7 Jul 2008 at 11:51

all is well for my first build, everything went smoothly over the weekend; seems stable enough at idle running about 25-27C havn't stress tested it yet though. loaded a few programs onto it.

bit of an issue swapping data from old to new drive but i got that sorted in the end

building your own is def the way forward, especially if they always go so well; just got to save up so i can get a shiny new desktop